An Audio Editing Newbie Looks at Acid Music Studio 9

Tell your favorite internet search engine to chase the phrase 'audio editing software' and you'll soon be eye-deep in an impressive list of audio editors, each trying to out-clamor the other for your attention. Equally impressive are prices that span the fiscal spectrum, from free all the way up to how-can-anyone-afford-that.

Most free audio editors are tediously basic, but as they say, you will get what you pay for. The lone exception being Audacity, an honorable mention for the amazing audio editing power it delivers at the right price.

Basic audio editors in the 'home-user' category, priced anywhere from $40 to $70, will generally be capable of doing a bit of everything, but those who aspire to serious audio editing may become frustrated by missing or underpowered features in this range.

Some titles are exceptions to the rule, and although Music Studio 9 falls within this category, the advantage it has over competitors at this price-point is that it inherits some of pro-quality features and well-balanced work-flow design of the pro-oriented software version that sits above it in its product line.

Above the 'home-user' level, prices go vertical, easily surpassing the $1,000-mark for serious, feature-laden gems so profound that only those wrangling studio-quality audio at the commercial level could ever fully appreciate them.

Some lack in a free audio editor is to be expected, and, since budget limitations lock me out of anything with more than two digits on the price tag, I focused on the sub-hundred dollar range for a basic audio track mixing and mastering solution.

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Jumping in to edit audio with Music Studio 9

One hallmark of a worthy audio editor is the intuitive nature of its work space and functions. The logic being that this same attention to detail is inclusive to other aspects of its operation. So, the aim for this review is simply to test Music Studio 9 for an intuitive workspace.

To this end, I installed a trial version and set myself to the task of trying to get some audio mixing and mastering done without a tutorial, relying only on intuition to make the software work.

So how did it go? I managed to import recorded audio tracks - lead, rhythm, vocal and backing tracks – apply effects, balance volumes, and arrange them to render a nice master track in about an hour, all without touching a tutorial or searching the support forum for answers.

Granted, experience with excellent audio editors (Audacity, Goldwave, etc) may have taught me how to look for what I needed. But when making a new audio track is only one click away, and adding audio to that track is a simple drag-and-drop, it's more likely a case of intuitive ease-of-use than any previous experience.

It's more than just audio mixing and editing

Music Studio 9 is capable of far more than just mixing audio tracks. It's deep enough that you could spend a fair amount of time fully exploring its feature-set. This became clear when certain aspects of removing unwanted portions of audio were not immediately clear, so instead of digging through a tutorial, I simply used another audio editor to edit the track just to keep the evaluation moving forward.

One pleasant and welcome surprise was seeing how changes made to tracks by another audio editing program were automatically detected, and updated in the Music Studio 9 workspace without any need to re-import or refresh the track.

Audio editing software stability
Audio editing software places real burdens on the editing machine, and closing any open applications to give the audio editing software priority use of the machines resources is good practice. I didn't close the open applications, and I managed to crash the software.
I should have known better, since my laptop's technical specs just meet the minimum requirements for Music Studio 9. But once I closed all other applications, the laptop processed the audio tracks – all fourteen of them - without a hitch.

Is Music Studio 9 intuitive to use?

The point of this review was to see if Music Studio 9 was intuitive enough so that someone with limited skill could install it and jump right in to start making noise without a tutorial. It got the job done, and that's an accomplishment every audio editing tool should aspire to.

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