Ardour + Harrison + OS X = Mixbus

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 12:43 am

Sound works on Ubuntu Studio. Too tired at the moment to verify that I have all 16 channels of I/O, but I at least have some sound pumping through.

"Hard part's over. Now, let's get these other piggies wiggling."
-- Beatrix Kiddo

Will report further adventures of Linux MixBus as details become available...

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:39 pm

Verified that only one soundcard is presently working. Have a strategy to fix this, hopefully tomorrow.

MixBus is in, along with the LinuxDSP plugins. So far so good. I really like the Harrison sound after a bit of brief playing around.

New app means learning curve. Right now it's like driving in a foreign country.

Kevin Kitchel · Post by **Kevin Kitchel** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:19 am

If you aren't too far along with that distro, AVLinux is AWESOME for audio. I use Ubuntu for everyday things, and AVLinux for recording with Mixbus.

http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:23 am

Hi Kevin, I did try the AVLinux LiveCD, but couldn't get it to boot on my system....

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:22 pm

Since the setup can be dicey, is there a mixbus demo download to try out on linux?

mrc · Post by **mrc** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:14 pm

This is really encouraging

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:40 pm

Not sure if there's a demo. Since MixBus is based on Ardour, I'd install a Linux distro, get ardour running. If Ardour runs, MixBus probably will too.

As an aside, latency here is UNREAL. The best I could every (reliably) get with WinXP and sonar was about 11ms.

Last night, with MixBus/Linux, I was getting 0.7ms, and it wasn't even sweating. Seriously impressive.

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:13 pm

BTW, since I've had a few evenings to play with it, I thought I'd offer a few initial impressions.

Overall: wow. Blown away. I have no doubt that I'll be migrating over to MixBus for all my normal audio production work. Sound is great, Harrison EQ/compression/tapeSat and summing is right where you'd expect it to be.

Concerns:

- a few graphics glitches here or there. Haven't started troubleshooting, but it's probably related to the fact that my graphics card (dual head) is ATI. I've always had better luck with nVidia cards, so I might switch that out.

- learning curve. I know Linux overall pretty well, but the workflow of Jack/Ardour/MixBus is definitely different than what I'm used to in Sonar/Windows. For the ProTools users in da house, I suspect the learning curve is less, since I believe Ardour/MixBus is closer to ProTools in terms of workflow. Note that this is not a criticism of Linux audio, Ardour, or MixBus, just an acknowledgement that I have some work ahead of me to learn this new system. It will definitely be worth it!

- Plugins. Like all of us, I've gotten used to my favorite plugins for a while now. These are not available under my current system (note that some Linux Audio users have had success using VST plugins, but this isn't included with MixBus). The plugins I've played around with so far have all sounded good, it will just take a while to separate the wheat from the chaff with a large new set of Linux plugins.... same as the windows or osx world. Really this is just an extension of the learning curve listed above.

In short, if anyone here likes Linux, I highly, highly encourage people to at least check out Ardour. MixBus is definitely worth $79 as well. I've been looking forward to this moment -- when I could use a Linux DAW and leave Windoze behind -- for many years. It seems that moment is here.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:18 pm

JWL wrote:Sound is great, Harrison EQ/compression/tapeSat and summing is right where you'd expect it to be.

What makes the summing and overall sound of MixBus different from what goes on in any other DAW? In particular, I thought digital summing was ... digital summing. Like, 3+5=8.

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:40 pm

Bro Shark wrote:
JWL wrote:Sound is great, Harrison EQ/compression/tapeSat and summing is right where you'd expect it to be.
What makes the summing and overall sound of MixBus different from what goes on in any other DAW? In particular, I thought digital summing was ... digital summing. Like, 3+5=8.

It turns out that computers and software actually multiply, add, subtract big huge numbers differently. Remember when the p3 first came out and some mathematician noticed that it was dividing shit wrong?

A skilled programmer can work around cpu and programming language limitations to get a "good enough" answer. But that can mean different things to different people.

Then there's dithering.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:44 pm

Thanks for the response. I'm really interested in this. Is Harrison implying that the sound quality of the MixBus ITB summing is superior to that most of us are already familiar with? Have they made a "breakthrough" of some sort?

I'm not trying to be a dick. They're just vague about it in their marketing materials. They call it "True Analog Mixing"? so who knows what the fuck that is.

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:49 pm

JWL wrote:As an aside, latency here is UNREAL. The best I could every (reliably) get with WinXP and sonar was about 11ms. .

Damn, now I really want to try it. Latency is my biggest problem with digital recording. But I've got MOTU hardware. 828MkII.

Where is the intersection of 3TDIF in and out (24tracks), low price and high Linux compatibility in an interface?

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:00 pm

Snarl 12/8 wrote: Damn, now I really want to try it. Latency is my biggest problem with digital recording. But I've got MOTU hardware. 828MkII.

Where is the intersection of 3TDIF in and out (24tracks), low price and high Linux compatibility in an interface?

MOTU hardware is not supported under linux. They have been actively hostile to Linux developers trying to work with them to get their stuff working under Linux.

Unless something has changed in the past few years, anyway....

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:01 pm

Bro Shark wrote:Thanks for the response. I'm really interested in this. Is Harrison implying that the sound quality of the MixBus ITB summing is superior to that most of us are already familiar with? Have they made a "breakthrough" of some sort?

I'm not trying to be a dick. They're just vague about it in their marketing materials. They call it "True Analog Mixing"? so who knows what the fuck that is.

These are all valid questions. I'm not Harrison, but they way they describe it is that Mixbus IS Harrison summing, not an emulation of it.

Honestly, the biggest sound difference by far comes from the EQs, compressors, and Tape Saturation plugins built in to MixBus.

I'll leave it to experts from Harrison to say more about the summing itself.... cant' say I ever had a problem with the way Sonar sums.

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:03 pm

Carl, for a high end Linux interface like that I'd probably look toward RME stuff. Not sure if they have TDIF or not, but they are widely regarded as the best interfaces available for Linux.

M-Audio generally gets a nod for decent, prosumer quality interfaces.

Plenty of other options though.... for instance, supposedly the Mackie Onyx firewire mixers are supported with FFADO (Linux audio firewire drivers).

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Ardour + Harrison + OS X = Mixbus

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