Harrison Mixbus DAW

[vvd]

I did a forum search and I was a bit worried when i did not find anything about this, IMO, excellent DAW in a synthesizer forum . I'm using it since I've first heard about it because it is so convenient: It has the most important mixing utilities integrated on every channel (EQ, Highpass, Compressor/Limiter/Leveller). Additionally every Bus and the Master feature Tape saturation and can do sidechain compression. I would say it has the most useable Mixer of all DAWs out there. Yes, I've used them all (almost).

Some Mixbus videos.

[meatballfulton]

I've been interested in this one for quite a while, not so much for tracking as for mixing. It's cool how Harrison simply built their mixer on top of an open-source DAW.

It seems to have quite a few fans in the pro audio market but not amongst hobbyists.

It used to be cheaper and Mac only, probably the main reason it's less known.

[mharris80]

I've been interested in this one for quite a while, not so much for tracking as for mixing. It's cool how Harrison simply built their mixer on top of an open-source DAW.

It seems to have quite a few fans in the pro audio market but not amongst hobbyists.

It used to be cheaper and Mac only, probably the main reason it's less known.

Yeah, didn't realize they'd ported it to Windows. In all honesty, I didn't think they'd be able to, as the Ardour project has stated time after time that it would be a nightmare trying to get that one translated. I've used Ardour for 4 years now, and it is indeed a great product. Have a demo of Mixbus on my computer, just haven't activated the license yet.

[vvd]

It's cool how Harrison simply built their mixer on top of an open-source DAW.

Yeah, quite awesome. Ardour benefits from Harrison Bugfixes/Improvements too.

It seems to have quite a few fans in the pro audio market but not amongst hobbyists.

Well, it lacks some stuff (VSTi, elastic Audio, MIDI sequencing) and they don't spent so much on promotion so most people simply never heard about it.

If you just want to do recording and mixing it's hard to beat IMO (especially for the price), plus - it doesn't come with all the bloat: I think a full install is less than 100MB or so.

[philip]

I'd love to hear some mixes made with mixbus.

[nathanscribe]

I downloaded the trial ages ago but never really used it... must remember to give it a proper go sometime.

Choosing a DAW and then getting to know it is almost too lengthy a process for me to do very often. I'm still wondering what to do with Logic, and I've been using that for about 3 years...

[vvd]

I'd love to hear some mixes made with mixbus.

Here's my original micron only track simply summed in Audacity:


Some years later I've decided to kind of "master" the track using Mixbus:


Now this is just a 4 track mix...it probably doesn't say that much. Plus, like the noob I am, I've overused the saturation thingie. But the point is...you can do this with Mixbus out of the box, you have all the eq, compression limiter and saturation right there, like on a real mixing desk. It makes mixing easy, fun and very hands on. And if you ask me, the Mixbus mix gained a lot of depth and life.

Another old track (logic or studio one, can't remember)...


...remixed in Mixbus:


The original recording has very weak, boomy drums. I've tried to give them a little bit more punch in the remix.

[philip]

I'd love to hear some mixes made with mixbus.

Here's my original micron only track simply summed in Audacity:


Some years later I've decided to kind of "master" the track using Mixbus:


Now this is just a 4 track mix...it probably doesn't say that much. Plus, like the noob I am, I've overused the saturation thingie. But the point is...you can do this with Mixbus out of the box, you have all the eq, compression limiter and saturation right there, like on a real mixing desk. It makes mixing easy, fun and very hands on. And if you ask me, the Mixbus mix gained a lot of depth and life.

Another old track (logic or studio one, can't remember)...


...remixed in Mixbus:


The original recording has very weak, boomy drums. I've tried to give them a little bit more punch in the remix.

I Like the idea to write in ableton and mix in mixbus, but it seems I can't import sessions from ableton to mixbus yet.

BTW I like your demos, first two don't work though..

[vvd]

BTW I like your demos, first two don't work though..

Thanks. They work, they just start pretty low level. :)

[nvbrkr]

Isn't it just a hotrodded version of the Ardour mixer section?

I suppose it doesn't interest that many as Ardour (Ardour2, that is) doesn't have MIDI.

Unless there's something more advanced going on during the summing stage, I wouldn't see much of use for this myself as I usually don't even use the mixer views on DAWs. I don't get along that perfectly with Ardour either, because the interface is just too cluttered for my taste. There's way too much unnecessary clicking and selection of objects with your mouse involved with it. It just feels too much like late-1990s Windows software to me. I wish the best for that project though and hope the next versions will reach more users.

I bought the LinuxDSP plugins a few days ago myself. Still going through a testing phase with them, but I think they're at least better than what's available for free on Linux otherwise.