KVR Audio

delaiah · Post by **delaiah** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:21 pm

Waves works under reaper.

Johnny! · Post by **Johnny!** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:02 pm

still bollocks given Waves plugins prices

stanlea · Post by **stanlea** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:04 pm

So ? Still no one ?

macmurphy · Post by **macmurphy** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:17 pm

Tehnik wrote:still bollocks given Waves plugins prices

lots of them have dropped in price recently. so that's no longer an argument against waves.

@morelia - in what version of reaper do you find that waves plugins aren't working?

anyway. anyone tried this mixbus thing yet?

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:28 pm

Ok I played a bit with Mixbus...

Bad:
- It blocks audio for the rest of the system. I must disconnect Jack first to play some audio file or stuff.
- A bug or something where the track in the mixer doesn't work the same like in the editor windows. After a restart of Mixbus it works
- No Lame encoder (or similar) for Mp3. I have not searched if there must be some additional stuff installed or if Mp3 is generally not supported
- VST support not perfect, VST Shell is not supported (needed for Waves plug-ins)
- I don't like this flying popup windows, this is a bit dated UI design. I wished they had some 1-window design with docking mixer _and_ the option to float the mixer
- space for inserts is too small... there is only visible space for 3 plug-ins and this makes it not very easy to use.... IMO a big fail in the design
- no audio editing
- no Midi support
- reorder of tracks doesn't work as expected (drag / drop them in the edit window) this must be handled with the extra "tracks/busses" list on the right side

Good:
The concept with this 8 mixbus which is a bit like "hardwired" groups without the need of extra routing stuff... Only pushing the button. But it will not only route the audio to the mixbus track but also to the master... This was a bit confusing the first time but there is a switch to disable the master output for the channel and than it will be completely routed to the mixbus channel.. Maybe this a bug?

This "quick controls" to have direct access to some parameters of the plug-ins without opening the plug-in editor window. Not really new, Cubase has a similar feature but with Mixbus it's directly a part of the insert area and works for different plug-ins! Very nice.

This integrated EQ and Comp/Limiter makes it very easy to mix.

I found no info about cross-talk, saturation etc?

I think Mixbus is not bad with some interesting ideas. Some things are good, some are average. Needs a bit more tuning and some UI enhancements.

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:01 pm

Yeah... the engine is a bit finicky. Here on Vista if I've played any system audio I have to log off and log back on for it to start.

No audio editing? Dunno about that one... it has the basic stuff, crossfades, editable clip envelopes, fades, etc. You can even adjust the clip envelopes (constrain them) with range selection like you'd do with automation which my current host doesn't have

...

The track re-ordering thing is a bummer, agree, and having to click tracks instead of swiping in the track list can be a bummer.

The way it handles fades is pretty cool though...

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:16 pm

Btw. I ask for this cross-talk stuff on their FB page:

there's no crosstalk effect. Other than the (user-selectable) filter, compressor, eq, saturation, and limiter, Mixbus doesn't "futz" with your signal. We aren't trying to make your stuff sound -weird-; Mixbus uses the same techniques that we use in our big mixers to make them sound -good-. Hope that makes sense

khanyz · Post by **khanyz** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:42 pm

From what I can see the windows version is a bit behind the other platforms, but that is to be expected. It should catch up pretty quickly though as there's been regular updates to v1 and then v2.

Also, with MIDI creeping into Ardour it should propagate eventually into MixBus. I doubt it will be this version though.

I'm going to test it this weekend. I'll just recreate my OSX projects with it and see how far I get. I use it with Reaper and Logic Express in OSX, so it will be interesting to see how well it plays with Reaper in Windows.

BTW: There's a crossgrade fee of $29 for current users. This seems good to me as it's pretty much a token gesture to support the windows development.

scalawag · Post by **scalawag** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:28 am

Even if it's "only" $29 to crossgrade, i feel i'm crossgrading to an
incomplete version of Mixbus (midi, mackie mode, etc). Will this
crossgrade price be the same in some months? I would like to wait to
see further development.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:07 am

Btw. I have the feeling that all sounds more open and compact while mixing a complete song with Mixbus. But this is only subjective it needs a blind test, not to be fooled from the interface or the name "Harrison" and so it must sound good

khanyz · Post by **khanyz** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:03 am

scalawag wrote:Even if it's "only" $29 to crossgrade, i feel i'm crossgrading to an incomplete version of Mixbus (midi, mackie mode, etc). Will this
crossgrade price be the same in some months? I would like to wait to
see further development.

There isn't MIDI in the other platform versions so I didn't expect it in the Windows one. The addition of MIDI is such a big step forward that is justifies a completely new version and upgrade. It's like when MAGIX integrated the 2 (Audio and MIDI) in Music Studio (but on a cheaper scale).

As it stand now, it is limited compared to the other platforms but I'm sure that version 2 updates will be a consolitation of features (with the obvious differences in plugin formats), as well as bug fixes and optimisations. This is speculation, but based on the progression of the application from the very first version. I'm perfectly willing, and already have, paid for the crossgrade in anticipation of future updates, even after having been burnt by other devs (<cough>Crysonic</cough>). I've asked Harrison about the progress of MixBus a few times. They've always been honest and delivered on expectations.

I don't know if the crossgrade is a limited time thing or not. Harrison said that KVR got in early with the annoucement, and they will be sending out details to current users soon.

Right now, It can still be used as a mixing and mastering tool, which is how I've always used it. As this, it sounds great and adds something that no other DAW does. My only minor gripe (mainly at myself for not doing it sooner) is that I will need to upgrade my hardware to be able to use it side by side with my main DAW. I used to do this with MixBus v1, but v2 is more CPU intensive. That's progress and the end result is worth it.

As for the windows version in practise, I couldn't get it working in WinXP but my Test machine is a little underpowered for it. It seems to work fine on my Win7 Laptop and I'm about to start putting some rendered tracks in it to play with.

stanlea · Post by **stanlea** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:11 am

@khanyz : so you use the Linux or the OSX version ?

khanyz · Post by **khanyz** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 11:32 am

stanlea wrote:@khanyz : so you use the Linux or the OSX version ?

I use the OSX version. I tried the Linux version but couldn't justify the investment, or hassle, of using another platform. For my needs, MixBus needs reverb and dither plugins to be complete and I already had these in OSX.

TBH, I haven't used v2 too much. I'm still on a PPC Mac and v1 runs better. I will eventually update my Mac, hopefully when the Apple roadmap/direction is a bit clearer. This is why I'm so interested in the Windows version. I now use my Mac only for demo stuff, as it's quicker and easier. My main setup is in Windows as it's more cost effective.

BTW as proof of my lack of foresight. Here's what I posted last month in a Ozone 5 thread about making the decision to buy the v5 upgrade. I've already upgraded to Ozone 5 but if MixBus for Windows comes on, it won't get much use.

khanyz old post wrote:No problem. When Harrison's MixBus is available for Windows, I'll probably have the same decision to make. I can't really justify updating my Mac setup, and Linux is too limited in support. Consequently my MixBus use is limited to demos, rather than full blown productions.

However, if I could, I'd put everything through it.

Cheers.

khanyz · Post by **khanyz** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:06 pm

I finally got it working on WinXP and it was pretty good when it did. The audio configuration and implentation is very shaky. It's basically a case of letting ASIO4ALL hide your hardware from MixBus.

Hopefully it is the first thing that will be addressed, as it stops you trying everything else.

VST support is also limited and not robust. I couldn't just show it my current plugins folder (all of which are passed by Reaper 4). I had to create a new one and test as I added them. So far ToneBoosters ones seem to be safe.

Cheers.

gckilla · Post by **gckilla** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:56 am

Just a thought:

On mac and linux, this thing is suppose to run off the jack audio connection kit. So I ran the windows version of jack:

http://jackaudio.org/jack_on_windows

and followed the steps there. A few extra steps, sure, but it did stop me from having to log of the computer to get my audio resources back.

Somebody tried Harrison Mixbus for Windows?