User Guide

38
GETTING STARTED CHP. 3
You can also double-click a CDA file in the Explorer window (or drag it to the track view) to extract a CD
track without opening the Extract Audio from CD dialog.
Note: When adding media from multiple CDs, you may
need to press to refresh the Explorer window to view the
new CD’s contents.
Downloading media files from the Web
The Get Media from the Web command allows you to view and download various audio and video files
available on the Internet.
1. From the File menu, choose Get Media from the Web.
2. Choose an icon from the left frame to specify the media provider from which you want to download files.
3. Preview the file, select the file you want to open and click Download. The Browse for Folder dialog appears.
4. Select a folder for the download. The selected file is downloaded to the folder specified in the Destination
box.
5. When you are done downloading, close the Get Media from the Web dialog. ACID adds the file(s) to
your project.
Click
Show Details to display additional information about your download. In this mode, you can add files to
a download queue, specify where the downloaded files should be stored, and monitor the progress of your
downloads. Click
Start to begin downloading queued files, or click Hide Details to return to basic mode.
Understanding track types
When you add media to a project, ACID creates a new track for the file. Depending on the type of media you
add, ACID creates one of four track types to accommodate it: loop, one-shot, Beatmapped, or MIDI. You can
identify a track’s type by looking at the track number/type icon in the track header.
Loops
Loops are small chunks of audio that are designed to create a continuous beat or pattern when played
repeatedly. They are usually one to four measures long. Loops are the type of file that you will use most
frequently.
One-shots
One-shots are chunks of audio that are not designed to loop, and they are streamed from the hard disk rather
than stored in RAM if they are longer than three seconds. Things such as cymbal crashes and sound bites
could be considered one-shots.
Unlike loops, one-shots do not change pitch or tempo with the rest of a project.
Beatmapped
When you add a file that is longer than thirty seconds to a project, the Beatmapper Wizard starts, allowing
you to add tempo information to the file. As a result, these tracks respond to tempo and key changes just like
loops. For more information, see Using the Beatmapper on page 103.
F5