I find Mixbus's "plugin pin connection" hoo-haw to be completely ass backwards

You should have a mono or stereo option for the plugin itself in the plugin manager, but I agree. Things like this will keep Sonar as my first choice for tracking and editing.
I have still yet to figure out exactly how to use EZD2 or AD2 with multi channel out. It's a pain.

The other thing we have to (sort of remember) is the underlying architecture of Mixbus is based on Ardour and Harrison is choosing by default to conform to that behavior. That still does not make it better/right.
 
Maybe more people need to push the Ardour (open source) development team to understand this somewhat basic principal. 
 

clintmartin
I have still yet to figure out exactly how to use EZD2 or AD2 with multi channel out. It's a pain.

 
EZDrummer is fairly straightforward - you can assign the output of each drum channel to one of 16 stereo outputs, but by default everything goes to the same external output so everything is summed all together that way.
 
AD2 is a little tougher to grok but basically each drum channel exposes a mono output externally, but uses a stereo signal internally (since each channel has a pan control), and the master bus is stereo.
 
Where EZDrummer falls flat is in its (lack of a?) notion of busses - many of its presets have Reverb, Comp, and EQ Controls and/or similarly named channels. I haven't grazed the manual, but I assume that Reverb and Comp, which also present as channels, are processed off an internal 'main' bus which all the drum instrument channels go to (which is not exposed to the user).  
 
The internal routing of AD2:

• There are two "FX" sends on each channel, plus a "Bus" send, for a total of three sends on each instrument channel.
• There is an insert FX chain individually available on every channel and bus, including the master bus.
• There are Room, OH, 'Bus'  and Master, which are presented in the bus section, which are stereo, and are also available externally as stereo channels.

• Room, OH, Bus, and Master all can send to the two FX busses.
• Room, OH, and Bus are summed post 'insert FX' to pre Master fader.
• The two FX busses can be summed pre or post Master 'insert FX', via a checkbox.

 
Either kit will work fine exported dry, excepting that EZDrummer has pannable stereo outputs for the instrument channels whereas AD2's are mono (but you can pan in Sonar instead). Both will allow you to tweak each drum instruments output level individually (via a special dialog) before it hits its channel, so you can still use more than one instrument (drum) per channel but still be able to fine tune individual levels.
 
I've found that, once I got my head around AD2's routing ( and it took awhile...) , I can do pretty good starting from one of it's built-in presets and tweaking within AD2, using its effects and inserts, from there. To recreate the same insert and bus chains in Sonar is do-able, but can be a chore.
 
My thinking is, if the drums are to be exported as a stem for use elsewhere, use the built-in mixers and work off of the presets, they're good starting places.
 
OTOH, if somebody else if going to mix the drums as audio tracks in some other DAW, then use the the multi-outs.
 
This is just a hobby for me, it's just me, so I'm fine with the internal mixers in these plugins.
 

clintmartin
You should have a mono or stereo option for the plugin itself in the plugin manager, but I agree. Things like this will keep Sonar as my first choice for tracking and editing.
I have still yet to figure out exactly how to use EZD2 or AD2 with multi channel out. It's a pain.

I have mono versions for my Waves plugins but little else. I use Native Instruments "Passive EQ" a lot, for example, and it's very much a stereo plugin with separate dials for L and R (but you can link them). There's no mono version. No problem in Sonar, just drop it in a mono track.

James,
 
Because I am a member of the financial contributors to the Ardour community (recurring monthly donation) I have access to the lastes nightly build of Ardour for Windows.
 
I just downloaded the most current version.
 
Pin assignment maintenance is definitely in Ardour exactly as we see it in Mixbus.
 
Which confirms my assertions above (at least to me). And since I am also a software developer I still hold that Harrison (mostly) brings to the table their DSP experience and thus they add their EQ/COMP/LIMIT/LEVELING to the Ardour implementation.
 
I've attached a link to a screen shot of Ardour's Mixer if you are interested.
 
ArdourMixer
 
That image alone should at least make anyone who owns Mixbus, appreciate what Harrison does for the platform.

Whatchya doin up at 2:20AM James?
 
Had to pee then check the forum?
 
You're a sick puppy.