First report, my initial impression. I was able to play around with Mixbus last night. I really like what it does. The EQ's, the compressors, and the tape saturation are so easy to use. Gain staging is simple and intuitive; I like having the compressors and that trim and faders all together. The resulting mix sounds "thicker," fuller, and yes "warmer" at least to my ears. All I had time for was just loading in a stereo wave file of a completed mix; so I did not load in lots of stems. Yet, even just to master the final stereo wave file, Mixbus is so easy to use and gets ear pleasing results.
Having said what I liked, let me say there are some definite deficiencies. First, their manual does not have an index which meant reading and searching for simple tasks. Second, on the Mixer View (the one with the console) there is no transport. So I had to constantly switch to the the Editer View (the one with the wave form) to stop, rewind and restart. Third, while there is a template "save" feature, I could not find a way of applying a template although I suspect it is buried somewhere in their menus or revealed in the manual somewhere. Fourth, no midi learn (yet--I thought I read that it is in the works).
I do like the tonal character that Mixbus gives, and it is easy to dial in EQs and Compressors/limiters quickly. I think that Sonar X series has a better editing setup and is more intuitive for me in tracking, editing and the use of the transport. I can't see myself using the Mixbus editing view that much, except for final "automation" of faders and volume on the stems. I hope that the future versions of Mixbus at least add a transport control to the Mixer page.