Harrison Mixbus 3 is coming today!

[mrcleats]

The midi might be a bit basic, but the way I see it is that It's there if you want to use it, to actually take the time to code it out (every time the code incorporated a new build of Ardour) would be putting more of a focus on midi than leaving it in!

I'm happy it's there myself - it's not the focus I agree, but for anyone who works 90% audio who fancies the option of adding the odd midi track, or possibly for anyone who decides it needs a quick pad/whatever adding without going back to the mix and re-exporting it to MB3, it's just another option.

YMMV

[LawrenceF]

To be honest I was hoping that Harrison would omit midi altogether from V3 and keep the focus on its console roots. I don't think there's much point in supporting it if it's half hearted.

Harrison didn't include anything. It was Ardour, and from that point, it makes all the sense. I can't imagine a DAW nowadays not able to deal with MIDI, when there are real possibilities to work totally ITB.

I'm well aware that Mixbus is built on Ardour (been a user of V2 for at least a year now). I don't really regard Mixbus as a 'DAW' and I don't think Harrison do (or did) either. It's a console with extra editing capabilities basically and I wish they could have coded out (or disabled) the midi side as it clearly isn't the focus of Harrison.

I think his point was that unless Harrison actually coded some of the midi bits in it, it's irrelevant. What you're kinda suggesting is for Harrison to spend time removing something that's already there, which would be additional work that would take away time from developing the things they add to it.

Unless they're spending time at Harrison doing midi coding for MixBus and not just taking whatever midi features Ardour already has as they are, it's irrelevant.

Question: Does Harrison add - anything else at all - to Ardour for Mixbus other then the different summing and mixer features?

[do_androids_dream]

What you're kinda suggesting is for Harrison to spend time removing something that's already there, which would be additional work that would take away time from developing the things they add to it.

I'm not familiar with Ardour (having never got the darn thing working on my Windows machine!) - was midi present in Ardour 2/3? I guess they would have removed it from these versions seeing as Mixbus 2 has no midi.

I guess I'm speaking more as a purist - I love the fact Mixbus (V2) is audio only - mentally I treat it differently (in a very positive way for me personally) from other software. Similar to how I used to love using Reason because it was a very 'focused' piece of software.

Question: Does Harrison add - anything else at all - to Ardour for Mixbus other then the different summing and mixer features?

I have no idea I'm afraid having never used Ardour.

Btw - I meant I've been a user of Mixbus V2 for the last year or so NOT Ardour - probably looked like I was talking about Ardour in the previous post!

[LawrenceF]

Oh, sorry. Yeah, afaict, Mixbus is kinda "Ardour ++".

I mean, Harrison modified the summing and (obviously) added some really nice DSP bits to the mixer, but other than that, (afaik anyway) it's otherwise the exact same daw I think, for audio editing, midi, recording and all the rest.

I think anyway, unless Harrsion does something else other than the above that's unique to their product.

Mixbus major releases seem to run a little behind Ardour. Ardour 3 came out awhile ago.

[Lexridge]

Oh, sorry. Yeah, afaict, Mixbus is kinda "Ardour ++".

I mean, Harrison modified the summing and (obviously) added some really nice DSP bits to the mixer, but other than that, (afaik anyway) it's otherwise the exact same daw I think, for audio editing, midi, recording and all the rest.

I think anyway, unless Harrsion does something else other than the above that's unique to their product.

Mixbus major releases seem to run a little behind Ardour. Ardour 3 came out awhile ago.

I have been both a Mixbus and Ardour user since many years. Mixbus is not behind Ardour by much. You have to realize, and this confuses the issue, that HMB3 is based on Ardour 4, NOT Ardour 3. Also, while there has been a Windows version of Harrison MixBus since version 2.0, there has NEVER been a Windows version of Ardour until version 4.0, and so far the Windows version of Ardour, however officially built by their development team, is not officially yet supported by the Ardour team. Go figure.

When Harrison started work on MB3, they totally got involved directly in the open source development of Ardour and even changed the development model so that updates to HMB3 could happen much more quickly without back porting of code, which was previously being done. Ben at Harrison even said that we could receive updates to HMB3 on possibly as much as a monthly basis. This is a great thing! Sure, its a brand new release. There are problems. However, Harrison's support is TOP NOTCH, and these problems WILL be fixed as soon as possible, I am sure. And yes, the MIDI is in infancy. It will get better for those who need it, and ignored by those who do not. I for one and happy we now have a MIDI option.

EDIT: For those you are curious enough, and interested enough to keep up with development. I highly suggest you join the Harrison Mixbus forum on the Harrison website, and also the Ardour website.

[LawrenceF]

Yeah, I actually meant Ardour 4. Typo.

I demoed it not long ago, not too bad (a lot of it is impressive actually, the design) but they didn't have a full time Windows support team and was having some issues om Win and I thiught I'd try it again later.

[Lexridge]

I am a Linux user, and quite frankly the best experience IMO with both Ardour and Mixbus, is using it on Linux. I rarely crash!! With that said, I have yet to update to HMB3. Ardour 4.1 is very stable however.

[tommyzai]

MixBus v3 is a must have for me. Harrison has added the features that previously prevented me from being a dedicated user. Now I have no excuse. This is very exciting. If it's as good as I anticipate (performance, stability, etc.), the DAW world will be forever changed.

[do_androids_dream]

MixBus v3 is a must have for me. Harrison has added the features that previously prevented me from being a dedicated user. Now I have no excuse. This is very exciting. If it's as good as I anticipate (performance, stability, etc.), the DAW world will be forever changed.

I do largely feel the same way but there are many stability issue threads/posts over at the Harrison forum that have really put me off taking the plunge as yet. No demo either so I can't test it out.

[tommyzai]

Is there an upgrade special that includes a compressor/limiter? I could have sworn I read about it somewhere.

[V0RT3X]

I've been mixing my exported track stems from bitwig in mixbus and I am getting some pretty nice results! I am really liking the console emulation on this.

Definitely liking this workflow now!

[Endor-8o8]

MixBus v3 is a must have for me. Harrison has added the features that previously prevented me from being a dedicated user. Now I have no excuse. This is very exciting. If it's as good as I anticipate (performance, stability, etc.), the DAW world will be forever changed.

I do largely feel the same way but there are many stability issue threads/posts over at the Harrison forum that have really put me off taking the plunge as yet. No demo either so I can't test it out.

I'm on Win 8.1 (64bit) with an UAD Apollo and Mixbus 3 crashes during the "audio settings" every time I launch it. They told me they won't be able to solve this because (and I quote) "it's a subtle problem". So they just gave up and refunded me. What kind of technical support does that ? I think that they are still unable to handle the situation. A shame because I had great hope for Mixbus, but it looks like a never-ending beta to me.

[do_androids_dream]

MixBus v3 is a must have for me. Harrison has added the features that previously prevented me from being a dedicated user. Now I have no excuse. This is very exciting. If it's as good as I anticipate (performance, stability, etc.), the DAW world will be forever changed.

I do largely feel the same way but there are many stability issue threads/posts over at the Harrison forum that have really put me off taking the plunge as yet. No demo either so I can't test it out.

I'm on Win 8.1 (64bit) with an UAD Apollo and Mixbus 3 crashes during the "audio settings" every time I launch it. They told me they won't be able to solve this because (and I quote) "it's a subtle problem". So they just gave up and refunded me. What kind of technical support does that ? I think that they are still unable to handle the situation. A shame because I had great hope for Mixbus, but it looks like a never-ending beta to me.

Interestingly I can't get past the audio settings screen with Ardour 4 - just gives me an error message. As MB3 is built on Ardour 4 it's surely related.

For now, I'm sticking with 2.5 - I've got it working very well now - took a long time to figure out which plugins worked perfectly and which didn't but seeing as I have a nice set-up now i'm not going to change it. I'm just going to get a CPU that allows the greatest single thread performance and work with it's restrictions.

[fedexnman]

Hey , they gave u a refund , that's pretty good customer service imho . They need to come up with a functioning demo imho . I have Mixbuss2 , I may upgrade it to 3 once the bugs get sorted . It be cool if Harrison would sell Mixbuss as plugins , maybe bundled suite of 3 Trackbuss , Send/Returnbuss ,, and Masterbuss . Harrison Mixbuss is nice becuase you have the whole console type feel laid out in front of you , midi still kind of sucks in Ardour4 (Mixbuss3) . It's a great host for mixing or just straight audio recording n editing DAW .

[Endor-8o8]

MixBus v3 is a must have for me. Harrison has added the features that previously prevented me from being a dedicated user. Now I have no excuse. This is very exciting. If it's as good as I anticipate (performance, stability, etc.), the DAW world will be forever changed.

I do largely feel the same way but there are many stability issue threads/posts over at the Harrison forum that have really put me off taking the plunge as yet. No demo either so I can't test it out.

I'm on Win 8.1 (64bit) with an UAD Apollo and Mixbus 3 crashes during the "audio settings" every time I launch it. They told me they won't be able to solve this because (and I quote) "it's a subtle problem". So they just gave up and refunded me. What kind of technical support does that ? I think that they are still unable to handle the situation. A shame because I had great hope for Mixbus, but it looks like a never-ending beta to me.

Interestingly I can't get past the audio settings screen with Ardour 4 - just gives me an error message. As MB3 is built on Ardour 4 it's surely related.

For now, I'm sticking with 2.5 - I've got it working very well now - took a long time to figure out which plugins worked perfectly and which didn't but seeing as I have a nice set-up now i'm not going to change it. I'm just going to get a CPU that allows the greatest single thread performance and work with it's restrictions.

Yes I have the same issue with Ardour 4. The problem is that Mixbus 2.5 is 32bit only (I'm moving full 64bit) and it has a lot of plugs incompatibilities and also that strange thing with stereo plugs that can't be inserted on mono tracks.
We shouldn't have "to take a long time to figure out which plugins worked perfectly". The technical support seems pretty overwhelmed with it and so count on users/customers to make it work by themselves. I never saw that kind of behaviour, very disappointing for me.
I don't want to be rude with Mixbus/Ardour guys but an indy DAW like Reaper seems far more
stable and compatible and we are still in v4 for Reaper. I know it's not the same concept and I like both but when you're developping a DAW you have to make it work great that's it.
And the answer I got saying : "the problem is subtle so we won't be able to solve it." Well...sorry
but bugs/incompatibilities are often about subtility when you're working on complex digital systems like DAWs or whatever...