Harrison Mixbus - Usability, Stability, ... ???

Hi!
 
I bought into Harrison Mixbus in one of the earlier releases (some 2 years ago) but then gave up on it because it was not stable and had no means to be controlled by a control surface.
 
I'd be happy if you could comment on

• stability and usability of the latest version
• whether you think I would have a chance to configure Mixbus to respond to a VS-700 control surface (hopefully as similar as Sonar does now i.e. same knobs to control EQ, compression, ...)
• how automation works compared to Sonar e.g. could I find a way to enable automation record by pushing a single button and then ride the faders ...???

I'm asking because I'd like to assess if it's worth to spend money on an upgrade of Mixbus and give it another chance. My intention would be to do all tracking, editing, production and rough mixing in Sonar, then export all tracks without FX and start to mix from scratch in Mixbus. Hence, editing capabilities are of minor importance - I would want to use it simply as a mix desk, but with good access to automation and controlled by a control surface!
 
Your comments are much appreciated!
 
BTW: Anyone ever bothered do to a mix in Sonar, then reset and mix again in Mixbus ... I'd be keen on listening to that ...

I have gone through several installs from V2 to the latest V3 version.  There certainly were a few initial teething problems but now it is quite a different story.  It is fine and stable for me right now with the latest version. There are a few things that can make it crash but they are the sort of things one can easily avoid and not trip it up too much.  For me anyway.
 
I am a Studio One user but use Mixbus for mastering either exported stems from Studio One or whole pre-mastered stereo mixes. It does both very well.  So far so good.  There are few Sonar users around here that use it a bit too such as Bapu and a few others.  They may chime in and give you some more advice and offer some info.

Watching this thread with interest...

sharke
I just got around to updating to the latest version and what I'm finding is - and I found this with the last version too - sometimes it will crash when I'm scrolling or zooming around the timeline. In fact that's been about the only crash I've experienced with Mixbus so far, although to be honest I haven't used it much. 

I've never had that happen.

i have found it to be fairly flakey with it's fair share of bugs. not all that friendly to your vst collection either. sounds nice though, i keep following it to see if stability and vst/vsti comparability improves

you would be just using it just for mixing/mastering/finalizing and not tracking or doing the whole project i suspect? it is a different matter if you try and use it as you would any other DAW, i mean a project from start to finish, in my experience it's more trouble than it is worth in that case, to many issues and crashes. i even find it to flaky and frustrating to use just for mixing stems etc, although your idea with restricting the plugins may well help, but if it can't run everything the same as my other DAW's and be as stable, then i really don't want to use it. i am finding i can get a very nice sound, an added edge using studio ones mix engine fx and the console shaper, a nice punchiness and liveliness and very nice edge on guitars etc, looking forward to more plugs being released for that.

Sid, you should just be able to hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete
and kill it in the Task Manager, and be able to 
get right back at it, rather then have to go through all that.

Still a pain.  Might want to check that the Asio Driver is set to 
Share as opposed to "take exclusive control" of the app

I'm still not entirely sure how it works and what kind of workflow I should be using in conjunction with Sonar. I would like to continue using Sonar for tracking and arranging, of course. But I'm not sure how I should be setting things up in Mixbus. For example, I know there are only 8 mixbuses available in a project. That's clearly not enough for all your bussing requirements (i.e. effect returns etc). And I read in the manual that their "utility buses," which are limitless in number, don't have delay compensation. How would I deal with that, if I wanted to set up all my effects returns in Mixbus? Would it be better to print all of my effect returns in Sonar and then import them to Mixbus as normal tracks? But if I do that, I can't help thinking that I should be EQ-ing and compressing in Sonar too, so that the signal I'm sending to the effects returns is processed, rather than process the tracks in Mixbus and deal with the fact that the effect return stems I imported were printed from unprocessed tracks. If you get my drift 

bapu
Sharke,
 
8 buses for me will typically be:
 
1. Drums
2. Guitars (+ bass if desired)
3. Keys
4. Vocals
5. Room Verb
6. Plate Verb
7. Hall Verb
8. maybe Bass if not on 2.
 
Note 5/6/7 are max case but at least one bus would be a verb bus for sure.
 
I would bring tracks from SONAR somewhat EQ'd and compressed but not verb'd.
 
And of course I could still have an optional master bus "glue" reverb.


For me I've pretty much ruled out utility buses.
 
YMMV
 
 
 

do you ever route channels directly to the master out and only use buses for send-return stuff?
I figured with only 8 buses available you would have to follow more of a "console" approach and limit bus utilization to reverbs, room, FX, parallel compression ??? which is contrary to the way I work in Sonar where nothing goes directly to the master bus, everything is routed to at least one bus (which sometimes gives you up to 20 buses)

Rob[atSound-Rehab]
do you ever route channels directly to the master out and only use buses for send-return stuff?

Nope, that would not be my desired workflow.
 
 

Zo
can we route a bus to another bus 
i like to have a bus :verse and another hook all going in a bus vocals !

In that case I would use what they call an aux bus (manually inserted into a project) that allows other tracks to be routed to them.
 
I've never looked into routing a bus to a bus. Not even sure if that can be done. And by bus I mean the fixed 8 buses in Mixbus. Of course you can create as many aux buses as you want but they are not the same as the 8 fixed buses in the EQ and FX and mojo.

Agreed. If it was like Sonar I wouldn't be using it. I like the Mixbus paradigm.