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

[antic604]

That’s kind of picky, but it’s a wider convention than just DAWs that zooming by default rather than scrolling flaunts. Not following convention and forcing people to go against habit does tend to irritate.

Tell me about it...

[THE INTRANCER]

A few things.... other than aspects of the GUI, it has some annoying behaviours.

If it detects that you have another audio device, which could be at any random point, it will throw up a notification 'OK box. If you didn't click OK, you may find that any VST may cover that notification box, preventing you from clicking OK and thus forcing you to try and shut the DAW down vie Task Manager.

Plugin scanning is a poorly handled for any it doesn't like. Starting the DAW multiple times to try and get through the plugins you have. It completely dies at some points with no notifications. If a plugin crashes, it brings down the entire DAW. No plugin blacklist management such as the likes Studio One has.

If you don't have a midi keyboard device powered on before starting the DAW, you can't play the VST Instruments you have. It doesn't give you a notification to turn it on and it won't recognise that you have it turned on once that program has loaded.

GUI feature wise, there is no thumbnails of VST instruments, and still feels pretty dated with everything listed in text.

No-Hi-DPI scaling of the GUI / or Plugins.

Whilst the new mixer is nicer with the visual scopes, it's still hindered by a dark/mid blue hover-over upon light grey text which clashes and makes it more difficult to read what you are highlighting.

In essence, Mixcraft 9 has potential but needs a lot of under the hood development to bring it up to the level of it's competitors. It's somewhat friendlier than Reaper in ease of use and has some nice features such as the video clip timeline with basic editing features. Something missing from many other DAWs like Studio One.. which I have a request on Presonus Answers for many years.

Online library feature is cool but rather slow and clunky sometimes depending on the sample length.

Skinning is limited to just light and dark, no internal user customisation feature over GUI colours.

It feels like a bespoke product for doing a few key things rather than being a workstation like DAW that you have as your main workhorse you can depend on and not feel that you could do better with one of the front-runners in the DAW arena.

[purplepat69]

I'm a neophyte who hasn't created a bunch of big projects of any sort, so I guess how good or useful Mixcraft 9 is to you may depend on your experience level, etc. Maybe "pros" will find it lacking in certain features, or things that don't work with their "workflow" as well as some other things (say, Ableton) can.

But I didn't have the money for Ableton or some of the other heavy hitters and when I saw the price of Mixcraft 8 on Sweetwater, I figured it was worth looking into. After all, the cheapest paid version of Ableton was about $100 and was still very track-limited. I liked the Mixcraft reviews, and purchased the cheap version. I think within a few weeks of purchase I was offered a steal of a deal to upgrade to 9 Recording Studio, then an immediate offer to upgrade to 9 Pro. Altogether, I only spent about $100 total to wind up with 9 Pro.

As a beginner, I've found it very easy and natural to use. I don't have a problem with the GUI or graphics at all. While I'll agree with another poster who said projects take a small bit to load, the program itself (with about 280 instruments and another 200 FX in my setup now) loads very fast from my SSD...it's ready to go in less than 10 seconds. Everyone who complains about their DAW having issues with 32 bit stuff or needing JBridge....no such issues with Mixcraft. Not sure I've found a plugin that it can't run. It does have some issues with MIDI routing (along with Reason and FL Studio, I think) where you need to use something like LoopBe1 to get stuff like Instachord to run properly. Hopefully this will be something addressed in Mixcraft 10

While I have since found the world of free VSTs with unbelievably good tools coming out the past few years like Surge and Vital, I really liked all the free synths and FX that came with Mixcraft 9 Pro (even if some of them are now dated, or even available free elsewhere)...it really made it a nice, right-out-of-the-box product, especially for a newbie like me.

From what I understand, each new version of Mixcraft has been significantly better than the last. I know most on here have already paid for a DAW, probably one of the big four or five (there really are so many, I lose track), and so they probably have no reason to check out the latest version of Mixcraft and compare it to previous versions they may have tried. But I'll venture that many here who wish to denigrate it may in fact be jealous of how good it is for such a low price, compared to what they paid for the DAW they are using. I don't think this is a lightweight at all.

[pbognar]

Hi DPI will be available in version 10, as hopefully will MIDI routing. I like REAPER, but to say Mixcraft is a little easier to learn is an understatement.

[ghettosynth]

For those that don't know, you can get the basic version for $30 with Voltage Modular Ignite, the Cherry audio 106, and a bunch of shovelware soundpacks from humble bundle right now.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/m ... warebundle

[kylie]

For those that don't know, you can get the basic version for $30 with Voltage Modular Ignite, the Cherry audio 106, and a bunch of shovelware soundpacks from humble bundle right now.

Just discovered the bundle 2 days ago. Meanwhile I realized that I would get a Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio license as well by getting me Voltage Module Ignite for half the money (which was my original intention), so I'll give it a spin soon. Maybe it will be the right tool for a small project.

Btw, I seem to have an unused license fo Mixcraft 8 Home Studio now in addition to the MC 9 license, so if somebody is interested, drop me a note.

[GaryG]

shovelware

[replicant X]

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[replicant X]

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[twal]

The question came to me when I checked their website and - on paper, at least - it seems like a pretty complete, well-featured DAW with:

• powerful MIDI & audio editing, incl. (basic) Melodyne integration

• side-by-side clip launcher, like Bitwig (or Logic)

• rudimentary modulation system

• comprehensive suite of instruments & FX

• complex routing

• big mixer, similar to Harrison's or Reason's

• video editing

And all of that is $150 for the flagship version and $75 for the 'lite' one

But I barely hear about it.

Why is that? Is it the GUI from the '90s?

It is useful and I think it's a good daw. It feels a little clunky and
the hot keys have you move your hand around the keyboard too much
to my experience. You can't edit any shortcuts like REAPER so I guess
it's just the spoiling I have for that option.
I don't particularly like the way it looks, honestly.
I do enjoy the ease of routing in it with the sends and
knobs in the mixer. It's user friendly, but playback is annoying
between playing in clips and in the timeline. The instruments it comes
with are useful. It just basically comes down to workflow. Its
workflow is alright, but like I said, it feels a little clunky-
like getting back to the beginning of a track you have to press like
Home or something. And, it's just slow to work in in my opinion.
I try daws here and there but I just go back to REAPER because
it's so easy to use and find the right plugins to do the job.
It is very annoying not being able to press keys fast to get where you want
with easy commands. You have to understand that Mixcraft is packed
with a lot of plugins but it's not very streamlined and scattered.
I've tried FL, Reason (old version), Studio One (only like a day of time so doesn't really
count), Tracktion, and they just have too much complexity; and I want the
simple workflow, and that's why REAPER is just to good to me.

[jonljacobi]

As to that list of oddities, foibles, etc. You could make one of those for any DAW. Mixcraft is perfectly capable of making great music if you are.

[ghettosynth]

You have to understand that Mixcraft is packed
with a lot of plugins but it's not very streamlined and scattered.

Two questions:

1) Are these just standard plugin installs, i.e., you can use them in any host?
2) Can someone who owns it elaborate on any of these in terms of standouts?

I am assuming that the TB stuff is essentially their version 3 stuff? Point being here that if these are usable in other hosts that some of this might tip the current Humble Bundle value proposition in a more positive direction.

Acoustica Instruments
Acoustica Expanded Instruments
Acoustica Studio Drums
Alien 303 Bass Synthesizer
Alpha Sampler
Combo Organ Model F
Combo Organ Model V
Journeys
Lounge Lizard Electric Piano
Messiah Version 1
Messiah Version 2NEW
Minimogue VA
Omni Sampler
Renegade
VB3 Organ

Acoustica Vocoder
TB BarricadeNEW
TB Broadcast Multiband Compressor
TB BusCompressorNEW
TB CompressorNEW
TB DeEsserNEW
TB EZQ Equalizer
TB MultiFXNEW
TB Parametric Equalizer
TB ReverbNEW
EU ProMixEQ-10ANEW
DTC-1 CompressorNEW
ORB7000 Octave Reverb
Voxengo Amp Simulator
Voxengo Spectrum Analyzer
GTune Guitar Tuner
VocalZap
Pultronic Tube EQ
Shred Amp Simulator
GSnap Pitch Correction

[reusenoise]

You have to understand that Mixcraft is packed
with a lot of plugins but it's not very streamlined and scattered.

Two questions:

1) Are these just standard plugin installs, i.e., you can use them in any host?
2) Can someone who owns it elaborate on any of these in terms of standouts?

I am assuming that the TB stuff is essentially their version 3 stuff? Point being here that if these are usable in other hosts that some of this might tip the current Humble Bundle value proposition in a more positive direction.

Acoustica Instruments
Acoustica Expanded Instruments
Acoustica Studio Drums
Alien 303 Bass Synthesizer
Alpha Sampler
Combo Organ Model F
Combo Organ Model V
Journeys
Lounge Lizard Electric Piano
Messiah Version 1
Messiah Version 2NEW
Minimogue VA
Omni Sampler
Renegade
VB3 Organ

Acoustica Vocoder
TB BarricadeNEW
TB Broadcast Multiband Compressor
TB BusCompressorNEW
TB CompressorNEW
TB DeEsserNEW
TB EZQ Equalizer
TB MultiFXNEW
TB Parametric Equalizer
TB ReverbNEW
EU ProMixEQ-10ANEW
DTC-1 CompressorNEW
ORB7000 Octave Reverb
Voxengo Amp Simulator
Voxengo Spectrum Analyzer
GTune Guitar Tuner
VocalZap
Pultronic Tube EQ
Shred Amp Simulator
GSnap Pitch Correction

ToneBooster plugins are licensed only when used in Mixcraft,on others daw they work in demo mode

[ferez21]

New Mixcraft user here. Recently bought Bitwig, Tracktion and Studio One, and been a long time FL Studio user, but decided to ditch all these DAWs and concentrate on Mixcraft because it's exactly like their slogan says "The Musician's DAW" - it's so clean, uncluttered and intuitive to use, is has performance mode, comping, a very convenient MIDI editor (not as powerful as FL's but better than Bitwig's), it has LFO modulators (which was something i was craving for so badly after trying Bitwig, and was surprised to find it in such a low profile DAW as Mixcraft) and has a surprising depth to it that might be overlooked by many because of the simplistic look of the interface.
Sure, it's not perfect, but which DAW is?
Mixcraft is fun, straightforward and fast to work with.

I wish more people discover Mixcraft, and i hope the upcoming version 10 will be the game changer for Acoustica.

[chk071]

I wish more people discover Mixcraft, and i hope the upcoming version 10 will be the game changer for Acoustica.

I'd rather be happy that it's a niche product... if more people used it, they would raise the prices, and would be forced to put loads of stuff in the (then frequent) paid upgrades, to justify those prices. Meaning that Mixcraft would end up like the other feature uber monster DAW's.