Appendix A
Customizing ACID Software
You can customize the software to suit your project needs and working preferences. You may change these settings at any time. If you use the same settings for all of your projects, you may set the ACID® application to use your settings as defaults.
In this chapter, you will find information about functions that allow you to customize and set the application’s preferences.
Working with ACID windows
The software has various windows that allow you to perform specific tasks related to your project or manage your media. These windows can float on the workspace or be docked in the window docking area. All these windows may be viewed or hidden via the View menu or their respective shortcut keys.
Window | Shortcut keys | Description |
Explorer | Alt+1 | Allows you to view and access your media files without leaving the work |
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| area. You may also preview media files and place them in your project |
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| from this window. |
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Chopper™ | Alt+2 | Allows you to select portions of a media file that can be placed into tracks |
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| as events. |
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Mixing Console | Alt+3 | Allows you to work with busses, assignable effect chains, and soft synth |
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| controls. |
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Video Preview | Alt+4 | Displays a project’s video output at the current cursor position in the |
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| timeline. |
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Media Manager | Alt+5 | Displays the Media Manager™, which you can use to search for, manage, |
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| and tag your media files. |
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Track Properties | Alt+6 | Allows you to view and edit track attributes. For MIDI tracks, allows you to |
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| edit MIDI using the piano roll editor, list editor or other OPT |
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Surround | Alt+7 | Allows you to control panning in a 5.1 surround project. |
Panner |
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Soft Synth | Alt+8 | Allows you to change the attributes of soft synth controls in the Mixing |
Properties |
| Console window. |
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Audio | Alt+9 | Allows you to view and edit settings for assignable, bus, soft synth, and |
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| track effect chains. |
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Ctrl+Alt+1 | Allows you to view and choose effects | |
Manager |
| bus, or assignable effects chain. |
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Groove Pool | Ctrl+Alt+2 | Allows you to view and edit grooves in your project. |
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Clip Properties | Ctrl+Alt+3 | For audio |
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| shot, and Beatmapped), and adjust time stretching, pitch, root notes, |
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| tempo, and downbeat. |
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| For MIDI clips: allows you to edit data using the list editor or piano roll. |
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Docking and floating ACID windows
The window docking area allows you to keep frequently used windows available but out of the way while you are working with a project. You can dock windows either in a single stack spanning the width of the screen or divide the window docking area into sections (e.g., right, middle, and left) and create several stacks. You can also create floating docks by dragging several windows to the same area on your screen.
Windows that are not currently visible in a stack display a tab that you can click to display it. You can also expand, restore, or close a window using the buttons in the window’s
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