Due to this breakthrough, ACID became very popular with composers, producers, and DJs who were interested in rapidly creating beats, music textures, or even complete professional compositions and orchestrations, that would work with virtually any tempo or key signature, and these loops would adjust automatically. To pull this off, Sony’s Acid Pro uses specially prepared or “Acidized” music wave files which can be setup using an audio editing tool such as Sony Soundforge.

This very popular looping technique has been adopted by the majority of other digital audio workstations on the market, which can also use these acidized loop files, though there are various compatibility problems between the Apple Mac Operating System, which uses AIFF files, and the Microsoft Windows Operating System which uses WAV files. To unravel this problem, most publishers are now releasing special versions of “Acidized loops” that are customized for Acid Pro, and also for Apple Macs. Acid Pro runs on PCs with all versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 2000. At present time it includes over 20 DirectX audio effects, employs the new Media Manager technology, the Beatmapper tool, and the Chopper tool, as well the ability to mix in 5.1 channel surround which as of late, is highly sought for.

With Acid Pro 6, Sony introduced a full digital audio workstation which also includes MIDI and multitrack audio recording with full support for ASIO, VST, and VSTI audio, plugins, and music synthesizer standards.

Sony ACID Pro uses Acid Loops which contain tempo and key information for proper pitch transposition that’s painted out across the screen to create music tracks. Acidized loop sample CDs are available from Sony, as well as from a number of third party companies.
Like most sophisticated software packages, ACID defines a family of products spanning a considerable range of features. In a related-marketing effort, Sony has continued to support ACIDplanet, a content web site originally launched by Sonic Foundry which is aimed at current ACID users, prospective ACID users and the general public. It describes itself as “the Internet’s premier site for music, video and unique artists”.

Sony’s Acid Pro has long been a stable part of the serious music producer as well as a favorite for the Home Studio Music Producers. This is one digital audio workstation you’ll surely want to invest in.