Cactus Music
I bought it as well for $32 can. I think it will get used someday on a live band mix. Not very usefull otherwise. And so far it crashed on me twice for no reason.. I was just dragging some audio files of a live recording. 
I also don't like the very convoluted start up with all the dialog boxes and having to tell it to use my interface everytime. But if it does "sound better " with an audio mix I guess it's a good deal. 

 These are obvious signs of an open source developer.  They find ways to turn something in to a rocket science.

I like it and use it often. It's been very stable for me since very early on in version 3.
I haven't ever recorded and mixed a project from start to finish in it however.

I only had to set up my audio device one time. I also have only one dialog box on startup where I can pick a project out of a list or start a new one.

Jonthebass
Mixbus 32 is driving me mad. I like the look of it but I just cant seem to do easy tasks without having to do a whole load of things. For instance, If I want to drag and drop 13 drum wavs into Logic, St 1 or PT I simply Highlight all files and drag them in. In mix bus it puts all files on the same track. I have given up. Pity as I was looking forward to playing around with it.
Grrrr

I use the menu item "Import" and it has a dialog that allows you to decide how to create the tracks. Quite extensive.
 
In my recent foray into SO3P I was told to stop thinking like a SONAR user to understand it. Wise words I'll say. True of any transition IMO.
 

Jonthebass
MB32 has crashed on me twice now and not forgetting the auto Website homepage when booting up.  I checked the box in prefs to prevent the web page opening but it still opens. I love new DAWS and am willing to give all a crack but this is just too complicated. Looks good, reasonable price but there is too much to do to get it going.

I know this does not help and people generally get tired of hearing it but I had none of these problems with Mixbus which is installed on the same machine as SONAR, Reaper, Studio One 3 Pro and Samplitude. I've used version 2.5 (the old 32bit only version), V3 and now V4. I will admit that there is one plugin that I can consistently crash MB with. Harrison knows about it but refuses to dig into it because the demo version (one version behind the official release) works fine. Funny though, the 32bit version in 32bit works without a hitch. The plug vendor has never responded back. This is a fairly big time plug maker. Sad. 
 
This leads me to believe that something in your system seup/config that is conflicting with Mixbus causing these headaches. Just like in SONAR; 999 out of 1000 will run smoothly but that 1 person just can't get to the bottom of the problem and they "assume" it's the program and not their setup/config.
 
Last disclaimer. I do not use Mixbus as a DAW. I use it to exclusive mix/master stems/tracks that were basic FXd already. 
 

I was just transitioning to the mix phase for a longstanding project (a rock album) when I got the announcement about Sonar. I decided to go for the Black Friday $29 deal for the basic version of Mixbus, and I'm really happy with it so far.
 
I haven't done anything with MIDI yet, nor even recorded audio into it, so my view is limited. But I do like the sound of it. I feel like I do less acrobatics to get things to sound they way I want. Sonar was "cleaner", but the Harrison sound - emulating a large format console without me having to try with a bunch of plugins - is more useful to me while mixing rock and roll.

I'm not in a hurry to jump ship from Sonar. I'll probably still do quite a bit of work in it. but I know at least I have a good option for mixing if I need something else.

If it helps anyone, Mixbus is actually the best I have seen for integrating a control surface. You can learn control surface buttons in generic mode or actually edit a config file to suit yourself.
 
A very good feature.

The only real thing I've found missing so far (for me, at least) is an Audio Snap type feature.

The Rhythm Ferret is kind of close. Without going into the details, it chops up your audio to allow you to move it around so as to line things up but the process is very labor-intensive and sounds kind of unnatural.

Well ,Happy new year to fellows Sonar users..
So I went to Mixbus and followed with Ardour,
I cannot say why ,but I am very found of Ardour's graphic interface ,the software is light and quite efficient and it works hands in hands with Mixbus( though if you open an Ardour project with Mixbus I think you should give it another name ...).
I like the idea of open source softwares and I think it is possible to actually work with the couple Ardour Mixbus, though,have to admit that I carry on working with Sonar ,first because it is the software I am used to,and also because I cannot find the loop preview function,which works really well in Sonar, in Ardour.
Just to feed your thoughts.
All the best.
Olivier

Mixbus (and Ardour) Do not handle loops and therefore do not have a loop preview.

bdickens
Mixbus (and Ardour) Do not handle loops and therefore do not have a loop preview.

Hi,
Well ,I somewhat understood this as a fact,but as far as "Mixbus- Ardour team" is growing,why not imagine that they include some loops management in their softs.
I just meant that Sonar is a really efficient tool in this part ,not only in this area by the way.....