MUX in review

[codec_spurt]

That's MuLab, Mux costs 49 €.

Thanks for filling me in.

I still can't see any distinction.

Ah.

Now I do.

I see.

Maybe I am not the only one that has made that mistake.

You must admit, to the untrained eye, that was pretty easy to get confused.

[chk071]

It's a bit confusing, as the poor Mux is surrounded by MuLab's in that table. Maybe they should just mention the price on the product page.

[Tricky-Loops]

You must admit, to the untrained eye, that was pretty easy to get confused.

I think it's big enough...

[codec_spurt]

It's a bit confusing, as the poor Mux is surrounded by MuLab's in that table. Maybe they should just mention the price on the product page.

It's clear as day when you have it pointed out.

But I went to buy there the other day and that put me off.

A little colour coding would do the trick.

Mux - Blue

Mu Tools - Red

Whatevers, you know...

Just for the challenged like me,

It's a small price difference, but from a marketing point of view these are two totally different markets, so it might be important information.

If you are not being underhanded or dealing in subterfuge it benefits everyone to make your products well defined.

And I know Jo is the last person in the world to be underhand.

Give it a bit of colour coding. It really makes a lot of difference. Not just to retards like me, but most people in general. I think you will find studies find that to be true.

[codec_spurt]

You must admit, to the untrained eye, that was pretty easy to get confused.

I think it's big enough...

The size of the thing was not in doubt.

Everything was the same size.

How was the distinction supposed to be made between them, without any colour difference?

[fluffy_little_something]

Gee, this board sucks, I just wrote a longer comment, and when I sent it, the board was down, and back did not work, either. How unprofessional is that, thanks for wasting my time KVR...

[codec_spurt]

Gee, this board sucks, I just wrote a longer comment, and when I sent it, the board was down, and back did not work, either. How unprofessional is that, thanks for wasting my time KVR...

It sucks sweaty hairy donkey balls when it does that (not that I would know), but there is a disclaimer here about backing up your post before sending.

They have been doing a quick couple of sneaky upgrades here between posts, and you got caught in the crossfire. But it would be prudent to back anything up, that if you missed it, you would complain about. That's a good measure.

It's pretty much the same for all boards that use this software. It is not bullet proof.

Anyway, never mind all that. Give us the gist...

[dakkra]

I absolutely love the MUX. Even without FM, PD, Wave tables, etc... It's an amazing device for synth work. I don't much in the effects area but from what I've seen from AndreasD, MUX has that covered. I just like the idea of making my own deep lush pads with 7 oscillators running their own effect trees and still packaging it all up into one Instance of my synth. This synth is my go to along with Synthemaster. Both get used evenly in my world.

[yul]

I have Mulab and use MUX mainly as a drum machine that can map a single vst to every key on an octave. It's one of the very few ways this can be done as far as I know.

It has really made my writing drum parts a pleasurable experience from one single track.

I basically map individual FM8 to every keys and each plug has its drum sound.

There is also the pads/triggers and phrases/sequencer that are potentially great or live use.

[fluffy_little_something]

Gee, this board sucks, I just wrote a longer comment, and when I sent it, the board was down, and back did not work, either. How unprofessional is that, thanks for wasting my time KVR...

It sucks sweaty hairy donkey balls when it does that (not that I would know), but there is a disclaimer here about backing up your post before sending.

They have been doing a quick couple of sneaky upgrades here between posts, and you got caught in the crossfire. But it would be prudent to back anything up, that if you missed it, you would complain about. That's a good measure.

It's pretty much the same for all boards that use this software. It is not bullet proof.

Anyway, never mind all that. Give us the gist...

Glad none of the other boards I am on uses that software Copying the contents of an entry box before sending, that is so 20th century...

Anyway, the gist, well, I only have Mulab, not the separate Mux. Which is a kind of problem, actually. There doesn't seem to be an upgrade path from Mulab to Mux for those who switch DAW's, but want to continue to use their presets.
I don't like the synth component enough to pay 49 euros for Mux, though. I bought Mulab because of the DAW component, not the synth.

Having said this, I think MuTools stuff is actually pretty cheap, especially since one major version is maintained for quite some time and the developer lives in Belgium, which is not exactly a cheap country. So if I needed all that modular functionality, I would certainly buy it.

Regarding the synth itself, I don't think it is overly intuitive. It is too freakish to understand without the manual. It really is for synth and sound freaks, not so much for normal musicians. When I look at the envelope module for instance, I am confronted with a dozen or so controls, which is too much for me. I am happy with my conventional 4 or 5 controls.
The user interface of the polysynth has been improved quite a bit, but I can hardly read those white on light blue labels anymore. So I no longer use that, either.

Generally speaking, the sound of Mulab/Mux seems geared towards electronic genres and the European/Asian pop sound. Since I am more into the old-skool American sound, I don't like the sound and presets too much. There are quite a lot of presets, but somehow I like hardly any of them. With other synths it does not matter as I don't care about factory presets anyway, but with Mux/Mulab it is different because I would have to base my own patches on factory presets since I never really know which modules to use. That is not Mux's fault, though, I guess Mux and I just don't match For synth experts it probably is heaven

[codec_spurt]

Interesting perspective.

I would also like to see a really great preset showcase.

Maybe Jo should let this out to a few people that are mad enough to do crazy modular stuff, people that think nothing of losing a few days on creating a crossover with null tests...

We are available.

The invitation is there.

It must be pretty difficult making this stuff up and then putting it out into the world.

I guess I'd like a fully functioning free copy, and I might or might not do something interesting with it.

It's not hard to see why people don't beat down my door.

[Tricky-Loops]

Indeed that's sad. For NI Massive there are zillions of sound sets but for MUX there's nothing...

Maybe because it's not the most demanded synth/effect, so sound designers rather make sound sets for synths which are better known in the hope to sell more sound sets...

[fluffy_little_something]

Maybe it is too time-consuming to make presets for Mux and thus not worth the effort. Even experienced programmers might have to invest quite some time to familiarize themselves with that environment first.
But yes, maybe they also think nobody will buy them anyway, like if you did presets for SynthEdit synths. And those who might be interested in buying them, might also want to modify them, which would also require more knowledge than with regular synths and thus deter people.

[animehaus]

One of OSC 60 entries has some real badass MUX sounds, quite different from the usual presets geared towards electronic music:
https://soundcloud.com/dwsel/dwsel-guit ... labs-mux-1

[Examigan]

I am starting to write a review about MUX by MuTools.

I am not sure why I haven't heard much else about it.
http://www.mutools.com/mux-product.html

This looks like a go-to product, really cool

I tried it out recently. I was lusting after it after seeing demos.

Was a bit let down. Maybe coz I was doing band splitting crossover stuff.

Meh.

It looks like a great tool. But it didn't really do what I wanted it to do.

It is too crippled unless you pay too high a price. What is it? 99 dollars or euros?
But maybe they got it right.

Jo is a super cool guy and dev. I just wanna pay 50 bucks and have a full functioning version. I'd spring for that. Maybe I just don't realise how much I need it.





The presets did not invite me in.

A three band or four band crossover is the most basic of things for this kind of thing.

The Juce framework is it?, I don't know, done by Julian Storer of Tracktion fame. It's great and all that, but, it's just a bit lame. There must be a reason why devs use it I suppose. I must sound hyper critical. It's just slow with bad graphics.

I really wish Jo well with it though, and I will buy it in the future at some point even if he doesn't change the price. Even the cripped version is worth the money.

It just doesn't cry 'Take me now!'.

Maybe that was a bad analogy. I'll leave it there. Then again, maybe I shouldn't have used that word.

I asked him about multiband crossover stuff you mentioned, and he said you just route the audio input through some parallel filters, each filter selects a separate part of the frequency spectrum, and then you can hook up anything you like to these spectra.