Jeff Evans
OK Sharke here is what you do. I did explain it above. You only use your Waves plugins and things within your DAW. However leave any broad brush stroke EQ for Mixbus. ie EQ that is not surgical in any way or EQ that is not a special tone shaping thing. Also you don't need dynamics on tracks or buses either unless they too are special in their effect. But for general compression and things you can also leave that for Mixbus.
 
You export now mainly buses but any tracks you might feel that may benefit from Mixbus. You export to a 24 bit file. This includes reverb returns as well. You should be able to export just the reverb returns of one or multiple reverbs. You import those as well and just treat them like tracks. You have to have everything right before any exporting.
 
Now you just use Mixbus and do not use any plugins at all now. Just use the really nice built in track and buss EQ's and dynamics. Basically you are just bringing everything together inside Mixbus. And adding any tape saturation as required too. Then you can still export a final 24 bit file of everything.
 
I am mastering inside Mixbus too but you need their mastering EQ and multiband compressor (which are excellent) and a limiter of choice. (In my case I use PSP Xenon)
 
Treat mixbus as if you are taking your tracks and stems to a room with a real Harrison console inside. You cannot use Waves plugins there either. You will just be summing applying some tasty EQ and dynamics before printing the final thing in stereo. And it sounds better than most DAW's! Don't let anyone tell you that 32 bit is inferior. A file generated on Mixbus even at 32 bit is probably going to sound much better than files created on other 64 bit systems.

Seems pretty straight forward, thanks. I guess I'll have to do some rearranging of my FX chains to prepare. Looking forward to it though!

Jeff Evans
I am a bit of a regular user now so I can give you my ideas. I use Studio One and create all the music there and get it to the point of not doing anything more to the music but just about to mix.
 
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Mixbus will just bring the tracks and stems mainly together and it sounds fabulous doing it. Tape Sat can be used although the trick is to not get that smashing or distorting. Use it mildy. Tape SAT works with or without compression it does not depend on that.
 
It is very cool and your tracks will sound better for it. The EQ's and dynaimcs are very smooth and nice sounding inside Mixbus. You can then export your final mix from there and master in a later session. I also have the mastering EQ and Multiband comp and they both work very very well and also sound great too.
 
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It is very much like taking your session to a hardware based studio with a Harrison console and that cannot be bad in any terms. It gets you out of your DAW for the mix which is also healthy and lets you focus on just the mix and nothing else. It is way fast and fun to use.

Hi Jeff,
 
I quite enjoy reading your posts for the huge amount of detailed info they provide :-)  Thanks.
 
So when searching for mixbus to read up on it, I found your posts from June 8 (where you were very much anti-mixbus) and next read this (where you sound pretty convinced). What was it that more or less instantly convinced you (despite the feature drawbacks e.g. 32 bit, no control surface support etc) ?
 
 
 
 

Hi Robert. Yes I was against it but I took Larry's advice and bought it and started using it. It just sounds great and the EQ and dynamics are excellent. I started mastering in it first and just loved how it  sounded. I also jumped in and got the mastering EQ and multiband comp and I love them too. Then I started using stems and things and it just gets better and better.
 
I have used a Harrison in real life and this just ooozes the Harison sound. 

Thanks Jeff for your reply. I've meanwhile found your review of mixbus in that other thread. I really appreciate you sharing all this. So far I had considered mixbus sort of a "toy" which needs more integration to grow into a tool, but this gives me a new picture of it and definitely seems worth a try.

Harrison Consoles are selling the full MixBus Essentials pack for a lower price and including the XT Equaliser for free. I bought into it and have basically got all the plugins now including the mastering plugins.
 
I can say the Reverb is very nice and so is the delay very interesting. The XT Equaliser is also very good and a scaled down version of the mastering EQ. They both have a very nice way of drawing EQ curves.
 
Between all the built in stuff in the channel strips/buses/masterbuss eg dynamics and EQ's and the extra plugins you have got a lot of bases covered. There is not much more you need. It means you can complete a mix and do more processing inside Mixbus and less processing before exporting stems and tracks from your DAW after all your editing and just prior to doing your mix.