Any Mixcraft users here? What's wrong with it? ;)

[ferez21]

For 30$ you actually get both Mixcraft 8 Home Studio and Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio. While Mixcraft 8 Home Studio would be closer to Garage Band, Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio is a full fledged DAW. Version 9 was a huge leap from version 8, feature-wise.

Tried using U-HE's Hive 2 in Mixcraft ? You can't scale the GUI without it screwing up the VST.. you are limited to the default. You might blame U-He for that, but when every other modern DAW handles this, it highlights issues.

Had plenty of issues with FL Studio & Waveform too with different plugins on different machines, so...yeah, bugs exist, and Mixcraft has them too.

[Trensharo]

The issue is SONAR and Cakewalk, which are basically Logic Pro for Windows users and now costs nothing. Why bother with Mixcraft when you van use that for free, and its a better DAW, frankly.

Prior to version 8, the Mixcraft audio engine was actually quite mediocre. They made huge improvements in v8, though. V9 improved the UI, but Cakewalk is still miles better there.

It just doesn't make sense to spend any money on this DAW. Better off just using that money to buy plug-ins for Cakewalkb which has the best WASAPI drivers, so its the most optimal choice for upstarts with limited hardware as well.

[ferez21]

The issue is SONAR and Cakewalk, which are basically Logic Pro for Windows users and now costs nothing. Why bother with Mixcraft when you van use that for free, and its a better DAW, frankly.

Prior to version 8, the Mixcraft audio engine was actually quite mediocre. They made huge improvements in v8, though. V9 improved the UI, but Cakewalk is still miles better there.

It just doesn't make sense to spend any money on this DAW. Better off just using that money to buy plug-ins for Cakewalkb which has the best WASAPI drivers, so its the most optimal choice for upstarts with limited hardware as well.

Well, depends on your use case, unfortunately, Mixcraft's "best" attribute as seen by some is only the cheap price and nothing else, completely disregarding the other unique features that it has, that even some more expensive DAWs don't always have.
For example, it is the cheapest DAW with a Performance Mode, so for someone who wants this feature, it will most probably make sense to spend $79.
My point is that Mixcraft has some very appealing attributes that completely justify buying it in many cases, despite the fact that there are some other nice free DAWs on the market.

[Trensharo]

What are they. Saying they exist is one thing. Give examples. No one cares about video editing in a DAW when Resolve is free and even mid range laptops are shipping with Decent enough GPUs for it.

Ignoring the fact that this can be said of literally any DAW on the market, for example VocalSync, AudioSnap, Drum Replacer, ProChannel, etc.

It's a Windows only DAW that ships with budget plugins and virtual instruments and costs significantly more, while having worse platform specific optimizations (WASAPI, Touch, BT MIDI, etc.).

Its at a huge disadvantage functionally, while competing with free: and Cakewalk has much better development momentum right now.

All these cheap Windows-only DAWs which haven't grown to dominate a niche will have issues competing with that. The same way anything cheap on macOS has issues competing against GarageBand and Logic Pro.

Mixcraft is basically in the same tier of products as ACID Pro and Akai MPC Software.

I'm not denying that some can't or don't prefer it over the alternatives. Every DAW has its core user base...

[ferez21]

Ignoring the fact that this can be said of literally any DAW on the market, for example VocalSync, AudioSnap, Drum Replacer, ProChannel, etc.

That is correct and i agree.
I never said other DAWs have nothing to offer, each DAW has its strengths and weakneses. what i said is Mixcraft also has some unique features (see my earlier posts in this thread, i have provided plenty), and for me out of more than other 8 DAWs that i have thoroughly auditioned, the fastest workflow by far. it is far more than just "that cheap alternative for GarageBand" that some people that didn't bother auditioning it more thoroughly regard it as.

Not sure why the fact that Mixcraft does appeal to some people is so hard to grasp on, some people see simplicity as top priority, and Mixcraft has that combination of being simple on the surface, but still having tons of power under the hood.
Yes , it's ugly, but i bet if they changed the interface opinions of people would totally shift.

[chk071]

TBH with you, I also found Cakewalk much more inviting, and straight forward.

I'll keep an eye on this though. If they keep improving it, it might get more interesting to me one day. Might be in the market for something more simple one day, and, Cakewalk isn't really simple.

[Trensharo]

Not sure why the fact that Mixcraft does appeal to some people is so hard to grasp on, some people see simplicity as top priority, and Mixcraft has that combination of being simple on the surface, but still having tons of power under the hood.
Yes , it's ugly, but i bet if they changed the interface opinions of people would totally shift.

It's not, but apparently reading is:

I'm not denying that some can't or don't prefer it over the alternatives. Every DAW has its core user base...

Like I said, every DAW has its core user base. There are people that swear by ACID Pro, despite it being niched into oblivion these days. There are tons of DAWs, and all of them survive off of their core user base. So, no, it's not hard to grasp. It's inferred by the product's continued existence.

The question in the thread title is not "Do you understand why people use it, and not more popular DAWs?" The question in the thread title elicits reasons why people may not want to use it, and wonders if any users of the DAW are here.

On Windows, when considering a Windows-only DAW, and price being a huge factor (cause why else would anyone consider it... There is little point considering Mixcraft when you can get Cakewalk for nothing, and it's simply a better product over-all. I mean, that's kind of the genius of taking SONAR and making it free. It cockblocks the entire market of DAWs taht cost under, say... $200. Unless you're an audio engineer and simply want REAPER as a cheap alternative to Pro Tools or Cubase, etc.

Preference-based discussions dont' really matter because everyone's preferences are personal and - frankly - quite fluid.

Lastly, I've already stated that the UI/UX has been improved quite a bit in Mixcraft 9. I don't think the UI/UX is bad. It's not REAPER or Samplitude Pro X, or Audacity, or Pyramix... There are a lot of DAWs that are WAY worse off than Mixcraft has EVER been when it comes to UI/UX Design. The UI was never bad. It just looked a bit like a cartoon, which does create a specific perception about a product. Marketing is a thing, and how your product presents itself is a component of marketing. The latest version has cleaned it up quite a bit, and it comes across a lot less amatuer.

The bad audio engine in earlier versions was a much bigger issue than the UI Design, IMHO (and again, that has been improved substantially, since v8 IIRC - aforementioned).

I just think it's going to struggle to gain steam because there are better products availbale for $0-60 in the market segments it primarily targets. Mixcraft is like the PowerDirector of Windows DAWs, and Cakewalk has basically become the DaVinci Resolve of Windows DAWs.

P.S. I don't see Mixcraft as being any more or less simple than Cakewalk. In some ways, it's actually less simple. It's issue, comparatively speaking, is largely one of value proposition. Does it deliver its price (and future upgrade costs) in value over Cakewalk? I'm struggling to agree with that. So, it will always fall back to a preference based argument for current users; while most newbies pick up the freebie and stick with it until they buy something higher up on the food chain, so to speak.