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Acid Music Studio also supports third-party VST instruments, but anyone who’s spending money on instrument plugins is likely to want more sophisticated MIDI editing facilities than Acid Music Studio offers. It’s a common feature in other recording software but not really necessary for this one’s bundled virtual instruments, which are relatively simple and not particularly resource-hungry. This update introduces a Freeze Track button, which bounces down virtual instrument tracks as a WAV file to free up processing power. It’s another welcome addition, but frustrating that it must be set for each track rather than as a global preference. It’s also now possible to filter the MIDI input to avoid recording unwanted aftertouch and other types of data that isn’t assigned to anything.
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It’s helpful when drawing drum patterns with a mouse, but less so when performing with a keyboard, as the relationship between the names and the keys isn’t shown.
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MIDI editing now benefits from drum maps, which list the name of each sound in a kit rather than showing a virtual MIDI keyboard.
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