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The ACID 6 product family has three members.

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By far the biggest complaint among ACID 6 early adopters is its less than rock-solid VST and VSTi functionality. VST effect and instrument support was added with version 5, and not surprisingly, it was a bit wonky. Things are better in ACID 6, but still not 100% there. Several users have reported VST crashes or malfunctions, VST automation is not yet supported for all parameters, and routing is less than ideal. For example, there are no FX sends for VST instruments. Another shortcoming is the lack of a freeze function. Freezing a track with effects plug-ins bounces it down to an audio track without destroying the original track and plug-in setup. This dramatically reduces the amount of CPU usage. There is, however, an ACID 6 workaround: use the Render to New Track command (Tools menu) to bounce one or more tracks down to a single audio track; right-click on the each of the original tracks’ FX icons and choose Bypass All, then mute each of the original tracks.

Effects

ACID 6 comes with a set of over 20 standard effects (delay, EQ, reverb, etc). They’re OK, but certainly nothing to write home about. We’d love to see them include pro-quality effects and mastering tools, like Sonar 5 does with the Sonitus:fx Suite. The ACID Media Manager is a hotly debated topic among users. Some like it, many don’t. It enables you to build and arrange media libraries, simplifying the task of finding loops. But many see it as excess baggage, a mere CPU hog. Again, there’s a workaround. You can prevent the Media Manager from being installed by clicking on Cancel during the ACID installation procedure. Or, if it’s already installed, you can get rid of it by opening the Control Panel, double-clicking Add or Remove Programs, removing the Media Manager from the list, and then unchecking Enable Media Manager in ACID (Options»Preferences).

Doubters who didn’t believe Sony was up to the task of nurturing ACID to a mature DAW will be pleasantly surprised. All the parts are there now and all but a few work flawlessly. Support for multitrack recording and inline MIDI editing alone justify the not unreasonable $130 upgrade price. Workflow improvements like multiple audio files per track and project sections are the icing on the cake, and the VST problems and other shortcomings will hopefully get fixed – ACID users are very vocal, and Sony usually listen. ACID Pro 6 is a workhorse, and an elegant one at that. ACID lovers should place their orders right away.