Tracktion 6 vs Harrison Mixbus 3

[RichieWitch]

I’ve been an Ableton Live user for a while now and feel I have a really good workflow/setup in my synthesizer-based studio. However, I’m finding more opportunities for live recording these days, helping friends create demo tracks and such with electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, and drums. The one thing about Ableton that I think is missing is an intuitive recording setup/mixer with a decent comping ability.

I generally do all my live recording outside the box: multi-mic, multi-track, with most effects (noise gating, compression, de-essing, EQ, reverb, etc) handled by hardware. Everything passes through an analog desk before A/D conversion. Essentially, I’m doing everything I can to get the sound as perfect as possible before it hits the DAW.

My idea is to do all the recording in another DAW, and then bring all the stems into Ableton for mixdown and processing.

I’ve tried Studio One 2 and just haven’t had any luck with it. There's just so much in there that I can't seem to dig down to the stuff I want.

I’ve spent a few hours with Tracktion 4 and really like the workflow. It seems simple and intuitive without a lot of distracting elements. It also has a nice comping feature and the individual MIDI note editing has me intrigued. So an upgrade to Tracktion 6 seems like a good idea.

However, the recent release of Mixbus 3 has caught my eye and it looks as if it was created for exactly the purpose I have in mind. But, there’s no demo. Alas.

Anyone care to compare/contrast these two DAWs?

[dsan@mail.com]

I can't really make a comparison, but perhaps I can help some, based on your statements, Ritchie.

AFAIK and AFAICT, individual note expression requires VST3 support. Not many DAW's support VST3*, including Mixbus 3. I believe T6 does; however, the caveat - your VST's likely are not VST3 compatible (YET - some devs have, others are working on it and some will never be )

I have used Mixbus, albeit not extensively, to bring my work in from Live9 for finishing. The plus to Mixbus is the simplicity of design. It has good work flow - for me, and I suppose this has been carried into the new version, actually complimenting existing features, adding some new features, and ultimately making Mixbus3 better than before.

There's no doubt it is a professional environment and certainly worth the $79 current asking price. Just $40 for those that own a previous version.

But it still lacks some features that are necessay, IMHO, at least those necessary to my work flow. For example, there is no controller support at this release. A promise of it to come in an update but who knows for sure. Who knows if VST3 will be supported.

Like Ableton, it requires 32 bit VST's for use in the 32 bit version and 64 bit VST's in the 64 bit version - no mixing up of bit types like in Cubase or Sonar (not sure if T6 allows this).

I recommend downloading the manual, since no demo is provided, and at least go through it to see if the features are what you need. After doing so myself, I became less interested, still intrigued but maybe not so fast to jump in. I think it's also important to go through the different pages at the site and read about what Mixbus3 is and offers.

If money is not an issue then I think it, and Traktion, are worthwhile investments. Can't really say one will be better for you than the other - I'm sure each will provide an extension to your work flow. At least with Traktion you can try before you buy, so now you know how it compliments your work

HTH

Cheers!
dsan

EDIT: * It is getting better and actually many more are than not these days.

[LawrenceF]

Good overview DSan.

I own MixBus 2 and like it for it's really different feel when mixing but I'm very hesitant (even at a meager $40) to upgrade to v3 without a demo try, and most likely won't.

No idea why they don't have a demo. The Harrison guys are (imo) very, very cool, and open, and smart, so there must be a logical reason for that. No idea.

[dsan@mail.com]

Thanks Lawrence

Based on some comments from the other Mixbus3 thread, like you I am also hesitant to take the plunge without opportunity to demo. But, my experience with Mixbus says I should get over it and buy it. I hate GAS

Yeah, really strange there is no demo. Maybe they rely on their reputation. Yes, they are very cool and smart and produce good, usable software.

Cheers!
dsan

[RichieWitch]

Thanks guys!

I've downloaded the Mixbus manual and I'll try digging into it. I appreciate the insights!

RW

[do_androids_dream]

Mixbus will give you a very different 'experience' in terms of sound and the way in which you carry out a mix. It really IS a console - not an emulation - so you will get a sound (and possibly a style of workflow) from it that's just not achievable with a regular DAW. It will boil down to whether you like that sound as well as workflow preferences. I've been using Mixbus almost exclusively for all my mixing (and most of my mastering too) and I would hate to have to go back to using my other DAW's for this purpose. For composing and arranging it's not my first choice although I haven't tried the V3 update - everything I'm saying is based on V2.5.