Article: Compose Your Own Music with Sony ACID

By Jeffrey P. Fisher

Music can greatly enhance almost any audio-visual presentation. But where do you get the music you need?

• You might think you could grab a CD off the shelf and drop in a track or two from your favorite artist. Unfortunately, using copyrighted material in your presentation, no matter how humble, is a big no-no.
• You can buy library music specifically created and licensed for A/V use, but finding just the right cut can be hard.
• You can hire a composer, except that may cost more than your budget allows.
• You can compose your own music. Huh? I can hear you all saying: "I'm not a musician. I can't write my own music." Guess what? You can compose your own music ... with a little help from technology and this tutorial.

ACID is Sony Media Software's powerful and popular Windows software that helps you create music scores fast. No musical skill is required, either. ACID essentially lets you choose and combine music and sound loops to create your own original, royalty-free music. It's a snap to pick sounds, paint them on a grid, and make music. ACID is a flexible and unique tool that's both easy to learn and fun to use.

What are loops?

A music loop is a pre-recorded, usually short, snippet of a musical performance that repeats flawlessly. Loops come as CD-quality sound files, usually in .wav format. A single loop might be a drum beat, bass guitar riff, piano part, or something else. By selecting and arranging different musical loops, you create new songs. Purchased loops are royalty-free and the finished compositions you create from them belong to you.

The retail version of ACID includes a content CD with hundreds of loops to get you started. Best of all, you can choose from a huge inventory of other music loops in a variety of styles--rock, orchestral, hip-hop, techno, ethnic/world, electronica, ambient, and nearly everything in between and out on the extreme fringe. You can get additional loop libraries from Sony and other vendors.

Getting around in ACID

Virtually all of ACID's main functions take place on a single screen (see Figure One: Main Screen). After installing the software and placing the content CD (or another loop library) in your CD-ROM drive, you are ready to start making fresh music.

Figure One:

Along the top of the screen are standard Windows menus: File, Edit, View, Insert, Tools, Options, and Help. The tool bar below this contains icons for the main functions.

The program features available to you depend on your version of ACID.

• AcidXpress is available free from ACIDPlanet (www.acidplanet.com). This version is limited to playing only 10-tracks of loops, but otherwise functions the same as the rest of the product line. Also, each week you can download a sample composition and 8 free loops, called 8 packs, at ACIDPlanet. This way you can learn and hear how other people use the program. You can then create your compositions with the free loops you download.
• ACID Music Studio is a more robust version of the program while ACID Pro is the professional-level version. Both of these iterations let you import a video track and "score" your music in sync with the picture. Extra cool!
• Super Duper Looper is ACID for kids. Featuring a streamlined interface and a CD jam-packed with loops, your kids will spend hours creating their own music. If you don't want to jump into the ACID world as described in this article, you might want to check out this software first. With it, you'll be creating music in under five minutes!
• ACID Pro 6 is the fully-featured, professional version.

The Draw, Selection, Paint, and Eraser tools are the most useful (see Figure Two: Tools Detail). The Paint tool makes it easy to draw in continuous loops and/or across multiple tracks. It's the fastest way to get a composition going. Select a drum beat, bass line, and guitar loop, paint all three across 16 measures, and get an instant music track. Use the Draw tool for drawing in parts of loops, selecting, and moving loops (called events in ACID terminology). Use the Erase tool to wipe out whole or parts of loops.

Figure Two:

The Track List along the left side shows the loops in your project, one loop per track. The multipurpose fader controls the volume of each loop in your song or its pan position (where the sound appears in the stereo field between the left and right speakers). Many loops are recorded in stereo, but you can reposition them as needed. Click the down arrow next to Vol: to select whether the fader controls volume or pan. 0.0 dB on the volume scale corresponds to a loop's original volume. Center on the pan scale places the loop in its original stereo position.

Click the mute button to silence a track; restore the track with another click. The solo button (!) plays only the track you select, turning the others off. You can rename a track by double-clicking its name and typing. This only changes the loop's name in your project, not the underlying sound file's name.

Adjacent to the Track List is the Track View grid or Timeline. Here is where you paint in your loops and arrange individual song parts. As you paint loops, a graphic representation of the sound waveform appears. The loop point (the place where the loop end meets its beginning) is designated by a slight "v" indention.

Change the grid spacing using Options > Grid Spacing. The choices represent musical divisions with 8th Notes and 16th Notes being the most useful. Also, use Options > Snapping> Enable to force all loops to snap to the nearest grid line. F8 toggles snapping on and off, too.

Change track heights using the + and - buttons below the vertical scroll bar. Zoom in/out using the + and - buttons to the right of the horizontal scroll bar. Use the magnifying glass tool to focus on a particular area. Zooming makes it easier to draw and align your loops correctly.

The Beat Ruler displays along the top of the Timeline. It shows measures, beats, and ticks (parts of a beat). The measure/beat at the cursor position also displays above the Track List. Music divides into measures or bars. In standard 4/4 time, there are four beats to each measure with each quarter note representing one beat. One minute of music at a 120 tempo will equal 30 complete measures.

The Time Ruler displays along the bottom of the Timeline. The time at the cursor position also displays above the Track List.

The Project Tempo, in beats per minute (BPM), displays below the Track List (see Figure Three: Temp/Key Detail). Tempo is the speed of the composition; how fast or slow the song plays. The higher the number, the faster the tempo. Adjust it using the adjacent slider.

Figure Three:

The tuning fork indicates the Project Key. Key is the fundamental musical key or pitch for the project. No matter what key or tempo your original loops were recorded at, ACID automatically matches them to the project key and tempo that you specify here. Click the tuning fork to set the project key.

Right below the Timeline are standard transport controls: record, loop on/off, play from project start, play from cursor, pause, stop, rewind to start, fast forward to end. The spacebar toggles between start and stop, too.

The Explorer functions much like the Windows Explorer. The left pane let's you navigate to folders to find the loops you wish to use. The right pane lists the loops in the folders you select. Explorer's Play and Stop buttons let you audition loops before you place them in your project. With Auto Preview enabled, click a loop to hear it play at the project key and tempo. You can easily listen to sounds as you build your song.

To the right of Explorer is the Mixer with Preview and Master level sliders. Preview adjusts the volume of loops you audition through Explorer. Master controls the overall volume of the project. Stay out of the red (below 0.0) on the adjacent meters or your music may sound distorted.

Let's make some music

Download the sample music loops you can use to create your own quick rock song using ACID. Click to download.

Rock Drums.wav (694 k)
Big Bass.wav (350 k)
Crash Cymbal.wav (170 k)
Rhythm Guitar.wav (350 k)
Rock Solo.wav (350 k)
Final Quick Rock Song MP3 (537 k)

There are five files, Rock Drums, Big Bass, Crash Cymbal, Rhythm Guitar, and Rock Solo, all saved in the .wav format. Create a folder on your hard drive and move the loops there. Launch your version of ACID and start a new project using File > New. The Track List and Timeline will be empty until you start adding loops to your project.

Using the ACID Explorer, navigate to the folder with your sample loops. Click on the Rock Drums sound file to hear it. Next, double-click or drag and drop the file to add it to your project. Select the Paint tool and paint in 16 complete measures on the grid. Use the Project Tempo slider to set the tempo to 120 and change the Project Key by choosing A from the list. Press the play button to hear you drum track.

While the drum track plays, select the Big Bass loop in Explorer. This bass guitar part will play along with the drums at the correct key and tempo. Double-click the Big Bass file to add it to your Track Listing. Use the Paint tool to add the loop starting at the third measure, beat one (3.1), continue on and stop at the end of the 16th measure.

Loops do not have to start or play at the same time. While you may have a drum beat that plays throughout, you may bring in and take out other elements at different times. By cutting, pasting, painting, and erasing you get control over your finished arrangement. Think of it like word processing for music.

You can also manipulate pieces of a loop separately. For instance, you might chop up a drum beat into different hits and rearrange them into a new rhythm. Few people explore these chopping tools and prefer to paint in complete loops. This approach is fine when learning the program or for a short musical bit, but when you really want to explore and fine tune your compositions, experiment by chopping up loops and creating something unique.

Before adding another sound, zoom in to see the end of the drum and bass parts (see Figure Four: 17th measure). They should stop at the end of the 16th measure, before the 17th begins. Use Options > Snapping > Enabled to make sure that snapping is on. Use Options > Grid Spacing to select 8th notes. Carefully paint in only one 8th note more of both the Rock Drums and Big Bass. They should each extend into the 17th measure by one grid mark. This extra drum hit and bass note combine to create your song's ending.

Figure Four:

Choose the Crash Cymbal file next and add it to your project. This sound file is called a One Shot. Instead of looping, it plays only once, though you can place it many times in a project. Use the Draw tool to put in single Cymbal Crashes at the start of measures 5, 9, 13 and 17 only. Play the song to hear how it's progressing. Do you hear how the ending works now?

Add the Rhythm Guitar loop next and paint it in from measure 5 through 16. Finally, add the Rock Solo loop, but only paint it in at measure 13 through measure 16. Your song should look like Figure One at this point.

Use each track's individual volume sliders to balance the parts. Try -6.0 for the Rock Drums, -6.0 for the Bass, -12 for the Cymbal Crashes, -12 for the Rhythm Guitar, and -9 for the Rock Solo. Use your ears as the best judge of what's right making sure to never exceed 0.0 on the Mixer Master level.

Save your song using File >Save, name it, and place it in the same folder as the sample loops. Congratulations. You composed your own rock song that you can use anytime and anywhere you need it. Now, explore the content CD that came with your ACID software to create other compositions.

Render the finished song to the format you need for your presentation. Choose File > Render As and select .wav from the drop down list of choices. ACID also saves to Real Media, Windows Media, and MP3. Name your file and save it to disk. You can even burn an audio CD of your song (if you have the proper hardware) using Tools > Create CD.

There are many more features in ACID than this tutorial can address. My advice is to jump in and swim around in the program for a while. You'll make music in no time. More importantly, you'll make music you can use to enhance your videos and other projects.

Jeffrey P. Fisher is an audio/video professional who writes extensively about music, sound, and video including the books The Voice Actor's Guide to Home Recording (with Harlan Hogan) and CASH TRACKS: Compose, Produce, and Sell Your Original Music and Jingles Jeffrey also co-hosts the Sony Acid, Sound Forge, and Vegas forums on Digital Media Net.