MixBus 4, upcoming 5... what do you think?

[macmuse]

Well, years ago it felt awkward in those earlier versions, and I took issue with quite a lot of things that just weren't smooth or felt weird as opposed to other DAWs—the expectations and what I have become accustomed to with other seasoned DAWs not met—so I went back to my other DAW. I wished they had made a plugin instead of using Ardour.

When v5 came out, I bought it for the sound and speed or mixing (not MIDI) and to try it again, as I do think it takes me too long in my main DAW with all these plugins.

I feel Mixbus v5 has come a long way since I last tried it. It is actually very nice now and feels more like I'm working in a familiar DAW, instead of having WTF reactions. Mixing in is very fast as is the workflow, and it's *almost* as though you just put your tracks in there and they kind of sound already mixed with better depth.

I think it's hard to compare since other DAWs have had a lot more ground under their feet and familiarity, whereas Ardour seemed more like a side project, yet had to be commended on its effort to try to keep up with the competition yet not really doing that. Again, because of what we've become accustomed to, expectations are naturally high in 2018. But the new v5 feels much more stable and the things that bothered me years ago seem to have been dealt with, plus it looks a lot nicer than early iterations.

My only thing is that I'm much more used to the way my other DAWs work, so because of that alone, it's not really fair to judge and compare MB, because one DAW I know like the back of my hand, and the other (MB) I'm still coming up to speed with, so that's just not an equal assessment. Of course my main DAW will feel more natural to me. I honestly had the same reaction to Reaper years ago as I did early Mixbus, which has great features and is a very capable DAW, but in the year I used it, I did more tinkering/setting it up than actually doing music. I think sometimes it can be typical (including myself back then) to just give up or just try one song, because it's just plain easier to go back to what one knows, to get on with it instead of messing around with something else. But I think if someone does spend the time to learn the way Mixbus works, just like they spent the time to learn their main DAW, it would be rewarding. I took one song that I mixed (and took a long time) in my main DAW, and then took the tracks into MB and mixed it from scratch in an hour or so, and it sounded better with much more depth and more 'like a record'. I then went back to my original mix in the other DAW to see if I could match it. I spent a lot more time and tweaked the mix even further and got it to sound better than it originally had in that DAW, but it took a lot of time.

So, to each his own. DAWs are very personal and what one person loves, another can hate. Plus no DAW is perfect, they probably all have something people would want to change. We all just have to use what works for us.

[InLight-Tone]

Layers upon layers upon layers....

Keeping it simple has a lot of benefits...

Reaper is great DAW to mix in and that is all you really need....

Why complicate things ?

Not if you're doing midi recording and editing primarily, Reaper's Frankenstein approach to piecing together a DAW SUCKS!