I've been playing with Mixbus 4 again today and I'm floored by how good it sounds. Simply dropping a clip into Mixbus is an improvement over Sonar and it drives me crazy. It's the only DAW I've used where adding plugs can actually make things worse. The built in effects and EQ are amazing. Sonar has the work flow I'm used to and Mixbus has the sound I want. Frustration abounds. 

It's their saturation for one (Mixbus) and I feel it even widens the stereo field
doing nothing but dropping the clip in...I can hear a noticeable "widening"
the very second the clip is dropped in (but that may just be me )

The Sonar Console Emulators are supposed to have somewhat the same
effect, but not anywhere near as "foolproof", or as easy, as Mixbus.

I remember when I first touted Mixbus here in the forum, and everyone was
"nah...can't be...it's just a DAW...etc..."

I said "There is absolutely a noticeable difference and the sound is vastly
improved by doing nothing more than dropping your clips in to it - there
is definitely some MOJO going on here..."

After they tried it....the rest is history...

It is, IMO, by far, the best "sounding" DAW out there...whatever
their MOJO is...it works...and I like it...

ampfixer
I've been playing with Mixbus 4 again today and I'm floored by how good it sounds. Simply dropping a clip into Mixbus is an improvement over Sonar and it drives me crazy. It's the only DAW I've used where adding plugs can actually make things worse. The built in effects and EQ are amazing. Sonar has the work flow I'm used to and Mixbus has the sound I want. Frustration abounds. 

I agree and feel your frustration. I've been using Mixbus 32C and loving it. The Harrison 32 channel eq is great. I'm tempted to buy the real thing. I am looking forward to version 4 of 32C. I have Mixbus 4 as well and it's the same nice sound. I find myself recording, editing etc. in Sonar and mixing in Mixbus though I have recorded tracks in Mixbus and they sound great. I haven't ventured into editing in Mixbus and most likely won't.

Interesting- it's really that good?  even the $80 version?  or do you need the $300 version for it to sound that good?
 
do you guys have all of the plugins too?  are they required for it to sound that good?
 
does mixbus use VST plugins or something proprietary?

Beagle
Interesting- it's really that good?  even the $80 version?  or do you need the $300 version for it to sound that good?
 
do you guys have all of the plugins too?  are they required for it to sound that good?
 
does mixbus use VST plugins or something proprietary?

It just sounds good Beags...you don't need the plugins...it uses VST's,
and, as of V3 it will do VSTi's also...which it did not do in V2...

You can catch in sale for $39 quite often...

I'm surprised Slate hasn't (but wish UAD did) model a non-linear summing bus with cross-talk. I see it working like Ozone Insight - where you have a small routing plug that you put on tracks and they all go to one VST that does the magic.
 
I am seriously considering out of the box analog summing. Depends on weather or not I hit the jackpot in the next few weeks... ;)

cclarry

Beagle
Interesting- it's really that good?  even the $80 version?  or do you need the $300 version for it to sound that good?
 
do you guys have all of the plugins too?  are they required for it to sound that good?
 
does mixbus use VST plugins or something proprietary?

It just sounds good Beags...you don't need the plugins...it uses VST's,
and, as of V3 it will do VSTi's also...which it did not do in V2...

You can catch in sale for $39 quite often...

sweet!  guess I need to watch your threads for the sale!

One way to come close in Sonar (yet it is not the same) is to throw WAVED NLS at your Sonar project. This also works similar magic in terms of instantly getting more separation between tracks. They modelled I believe 32 different channels of 3 desks and it works fine if you dont want to reset your mix and start over in Mixbus ... yet it is not the same as mixbus since you don't get the custom optimised EQ and the mixbus saturation ... which again you can get something likeit with stuff like J37 and adding certain EQ plugs ...

But you can consider it as a fact that in Mixbus you get that sound much quicker with far less knob twisting...

(and the Sonar console emu is nowhere near NLS and ways from mixbus)

Sonar doesn't have to "sound" exactly like Mixbus, though you can go as analogue as you wish/need. Plenty of tools to sculpt the sound with either precision or "secret mojo". Besides a gamut of excellent PC modules, NF BT bundle can go a long way in that direction. Then you have dedicated Vocal and Percussion strips, Tube Leveler and some cool FX Chains.
I demoed Mixbus. See no reason to learn another DAW workflow (with a pretty steep learning curve), waste time on bouncing stems between two DAWs just to get saturation/EQ/compression similar to what is readily available in my primary DAW.

Do I understand correctly: Mixbus automatically manipulates the project and makes it sound better ("dropping a clip in Mixbus and it sounds better")? If so, one shouldn't want SONAR to sound the same, because most DAW users want the sound to be what is recorded. Having a "mixbus-thingy" as a channel strip or VST is another thing.
Doesn't the old consensus still reign,  that a plain/raw recording with similar equipment is the same no matter what DAW you use?