Anyone trying out Harrison Mixbus ?

[bayswater]

I had v2 with the intention of using it as a front end for DP. Between Jack OSX and some weird bugginess with the application itself (at one point, there was no way to change the sample rate of your new project), I gave up on it

Same here, but when it did work I liked the sound. When V3 came out, the upgrade price was very low, so I tried it again. The earlier V3 updates were also quite buggy, but they seem to have landed on a stable release at 3.3. JackOS is no longer needed -- it's CoreAudio now.

[Armageddon]

Same here, but when it did work I liked the sound. When V3 came out, the upgrade price was very low, so I tried it again. The earlier V3 updates were also quite buggy, but they seem to have landed on a stable release at 3.3. JackOS is no longer needed -- it's CoreAudio now.

I understood why they put Jack OSX in there, since it was intended to be used as a front end for other DAWs … it was just a terrible idea to use Jack OSX, instead of ReWire or something else that might have worked out better. That, and no MIDI/VI capabilities (although, if you ran DP through it, it wouldn't really need it). The automation functions were actually pretty decent and I was intrigued by the summing/board emulation. I might have to re-demo it and see if they've smoothed things out a bit!

you want a console sound, mix through a console, same with gtr amps...

my 5c

The future is coming, whether we like it or not.

[kassonica]

Same here, but when it did work I liked the sound. When V3 came out, the upgrade price was very low, so I tried it again. The earlier V3 updates were also quite buggy, but they seem to have landed on a stable release at 3.3. JackOS is no longer needed -- it's CoreAudio now.

I understood why they put Jack OSX in there, since it was intended to be used as a front end for other DAWs … it was just a terrible idea to use Jack OSX, instead of ReWire or something else that might have worked out better. That, and no MIDI/VI capabilities (although, if you ran DP through it, it wouldn't really need it). The automation functions were actually pretty decent and I was intrigued by the summing/board emulation. I might have to re-demo it and see if they've smoothed things out a bit!

you want a console sound, mix through a console, same with gtr amps...

my 5c

The future is coming, whether we like it or not.

it is for sure, I'll wait though, till it's here

[bayswater]

I understood why they put Jack OSX in there, since it was intended to be used as a front end for other DAWs … it was just a terrible idea to use Jack OSX, instead of ReWire or something else that might have worked out better. That, and no MIDI/VI capabilities (although, if you ran DP through it, it wouldn't really need it). The automation functions were actually pretty decent and I was intrigued by the summing/board emulation. I might have to re-demo it and see if they've smoothed things out a bit!

JackOS because it was built on top of Ardour which did not support any of the usual standards. MIDI and VIs are there in V3, probably more in the fashion of Logic than DP.

[James Steele]

...but the only thing that I really envied was the ability to use (patch) external processors in the mixer inserts. This is a function I really miss when for some reason I have to mix ITB in DP. That would be a game changing capability for me (and I'm sure for many others) since I have lots of outboard that I can only use when I mix using my analog desk at the moment.

MOTU announced at Winter NAMM that DP 9.1 is going to have an outboard effects insert plug... FINALLY. So hopefully this will make that situation much better for you.

[Klaus]

With a DP plug, one would have to go out of the interface and back in, meaning running Mixbus3 would have to have it's own interface, right ?
You could do that now by using ADAT i/o...
You could use soundflower too...
Or will the DP plug do what Soundflower does ?
Best

Klaus

[bayswater]

With a DP plug, one would have to go out of the interface and back in, meaning running Mixbus3 would have to have it's own interface, right ?
You could do that now by using ADAT i/o...
You could use soundflower too...
Or will the DP plug do what Soundflower does ?
Best

Klaus

If Harrison did a plugin version, I'd assume it would work like any other channel strip plugins. There would have to be one plugin for channels, and one for a summing bus. You'd lose the mixer layout you get with MixBus.

As it is, if you want any DP functionality while using Mixbus, you have to use something like Soundflower or JackOS to get back and forth, and if you want to automate anything in Mixbus, link the DP and Mixbus transports.

[James Steele]

With a DP plug, one would have to go out of the interface and back in, meaning running Mixbus3 would have to have it's own interface, right ?

I was just talking about using DP my itself. Sorry if I misunderstood.

[sonus]

...but the only thing that I really envied was the ability to use (patch) external processors in the mixer inserts. This is a function I really miss when for some reason I have to mix ITB in DP. That would be a game changing capability for me (and I'm sure for many others) since I have lots of outboard that I can only use when I mix using my analog desk at the moment.

MOTU announced at Winter NAMM that DP 9.1 is going to have an outboard effects insert plug... FINALLY. So hopefully this will make that situation much better for you.

I know, I know and I'm very excited about that
Thanks for your reminder anyway !

[kassonica]

...but the only thing that I really envied was the ability to use (patch) external processors in the mixer inserts. This is a function I really miss when for some reason I have to mix ITB in DP. That would be a game changing capability for me (and I'm sure for many others) since I have lots of outboard that I can only use when I mix using my analog desk at the moment.

MOTU announced at Winter NAMM that DP 9.1 is going to have an outboard effects insert plug... FINALLY. So hopefully this will make that situation much better for you.

better late (read VERY VERY LATE) than never

I've got good feelings about DP9 and I can't wait to buy it when the current issues are sorted

[mrgkeys]

I'm trying out Mixbuss 32C today from a live project I moved over from DP9 (too many crashes) It is awkward and can be sluggish, I'm used to working fast in DP, just can't do in MB32C. But, it sounds great! The drive on the channels does something nice, and while it's not appropriate for this project, it's all acoustic band stuff, it is attractive to me for future projects.. Editing is nowhere near as quick as DP, but I'm just getting used to it. The controls for the Harrison EQ are tiny.. this is on an iMac 5K set at 2560x1440, so it's hard to compare setting from the UAD version, but it's quite close. Has the same flavor. I really like the VU meters as well. Like all the Mixbuss products before, it feels almost done. But for mixing only, which is what it's made for, it does a good job. If you have years of real console experience you'll feel at home on it. Albeit, slightly slower.. Diving into automation now..

[supersonic]

I use JackPilot to send my DP tracks to Mixbus. So far it has been quite good. The things I didn't manage to do is to get the transport to sync with DP.

[supersonic]

One thing I have noticed with my setup is that when mixing in Mixbus 3 (3.3) form DP via Jack I lost the input assignments in Mixbus when switching between sequences (I had the whole album laid out as chunks in one project) except for the busses that were in the V-rack. Coming from there I created dummy AUXes which doubled the specific Jack outputs I didn't have in there and which were used in the sequences od DP by individual tracks and assigned dummy inputs to them as well in order to activate them ( I picked a random input - Reason in this case but it could be any unused input). What that did is that it made the input assignments in Mixbus stay put when I switched between seqences. If ever You are bogged by that this is the solution that worked for me. If you know a better way let me know!

[bayswater]

If I understand what you wrote, I think my approach is much the same. I have a template with a generic set of Aux channels and busses that are set to deal with things external to DP: Mixbus, DSP-Q, UAD card on another Mac, etc. I then assign tracks to the busses leading to these Auxs. Audio comes back on other Auxs and then out to monitors.

I've stopped using this with Mixbus because of problems syncing transports. The last time I used Mixbus, I put DP in play more and Mixbus into record mode, and did a pass to record all the dry tracks into Mixbus via the 64 channel version of Soundflower, and then the opposite to move the two track mix back to DP. That seemed to work OK as an alternative to exporting and importing.

Again, I wish Harrison would just release the mixbus and channel strips as plugins. Getting it to work with a DAW is too convoluted, and while Mixbus has improved, it's a long way from being the go to app for tracking, sequencing or editing.

[supersonic]

In sense working with Busses in Mixbus is no different form having a hardware console. I set my DP on loop and work in Mixbus on the sound. I do all the automation in DP and only sum in Mixbus. So far it has worked ok. Also it allows me to prepare my sessions for an analog desk, where I prepare everyone for the Mixbus and then simply switch the AUX outs in DP for hardware out going to the analog desk when I go to the studio