Ardour + Harrison + OS X = Mixbus

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:32 pm

Completed my first session with MixBus tonight. Nothing fancy, just a 3-track podcast production. But I have to say workflow is almost intuitive, though it is different than what I'm used to, it's logical and it makes sense. Once I have a bit more time under my belt with it I'll feel right at home.

A couple of minor annoyances (at the risk of focusing on bad/challenging stuff.... most of my experience is extremely positive):

* no mp3 export option. This is done in Ardour for legal reasons around the mp3 license with Fraunhofer. With MixBus, it has never been an issue since mp3 export is built-in to Mac CoreAudio. With the Linux version, I expect to see a LAME plugin in a future release. In the meantime I can export to wav, open the file in Audacity, edit ID3 tags, and render as mp3. It's too bad mp3 is a necessity, I prefer ogg and especially FLAC, but if I don't provide mp3s I lose 99% of my podcast audience.

* the export process seemed subjectively slow to me. I don't have any hard data, it just seemed like it took a while.

Apart from these 2 minor issues, it went fantastic! I love the sound of mixbus' EQ and compression built in. This will be most of what I need for most of my projects, I haven't really started exploring plugins yet at all.

mrufino1
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Post by mrufino1 » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:22 am

What is your podcast? I'd love to hear it. I was so interested in mixbus since it came out, but am a linux user. I ran into some linux music roadblocks and had to abandon ship (just for music production) to go back to win7 and reaper (hate win, love reaper), and 2 weeks after that mixbus comes out for linux! But I haven't made the leap back yet, I am very interested in hearing from someone actually using it on linux. Workflow looks cool.

I didn't have very good luck with ubuntustudio, av linux was working well for me until I really started pushing stuff, but my machine was also getting older, my new i5 laptop with mixbus would be rocking I think.

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:18 am

Sorry for the delay. My wife and daughter (and sometimes me) do a podcast where we talk about health and nutrition issues.
http://ritefoodandcompany.com/Podcast/

The most recent issue was done on mixbus.... but now it retrospect it's a bit sibilant (was cranking the high end EQ). Definitely operator error rather than a MixBus flaw. Will fix this on future episodes....

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Post by takeout » Mon Jul 18, 2011 8:29 am

So... they bumped the price more than double? Site sez $219 now.

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Post by jhharvest » Tue Jul 19, 2011 3:20 am

Yes, that's right. They offered a limited time half price upgrade to previous buyers. Although I think they extended the limited time offer indefinitely as many previous buyers weren't really pleased about it. I still haven't upgraded - the new features didn't seem that essential. More mixbuses and something like that.

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:12 am

Count me among those NOT impressed by the price gouging. I just bought MixBus for Linux, literally the day it came out, and now 3 months later they want to charge me more than double what I just paid for the next upgrade.

WTF?

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Post by Seablade » Sat Jul 23, 2011 10:01 am

JWL wrote:Count me among those NOT impressed by the price gouging. I just bought MixBus for Linux, literally the day it came out, and now 3 months later they want to charge me more than double what I just paid for the next upgrade.

WTF?
You shouldn't be paying double the original price to upgrade. If you have MB1 the upgrade is severely discounted($99), this was originally a limited time offer but last I heard Harrison had made it permanent for all current users of MB1(A good idea in my opinion truthfully).

Reference:
http://www.harrisonconsoles.com/joomla/ ... iew&id=114

See the announcement about Mixbus 2.0

So yes it is still a quick upgrade, and yes it is still a decent chunk of change, but you shouldn't be paying full price certainly.

Seablade

fedexnman
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Post by fedexnman » Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:51 am

I see its on sale for $149 now . i wonder when ardour3 is released with all the midi plugin and editing features , will they make people buy mixbus again ? seems like a good deal for $149 .
is it beer 30 yet?????

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Post by jhharvest » Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:12 pm

They also have a discount on the upgrade for v.1 owners. Thanks Harrison!

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Post by rpagala » Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:45 pm

Snarl 12/8 wrote:
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?
Your motu 828 mk2 will work with AVLinux, I just got mined working today.

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:21 pm

I saw this thread and wanted to pipe in.... MixBus (2.0.x at this writing) is now my DAW of choice. There are times when I need MIDI functionality or plugins/softsynths from Windows so I reboot and use Sonar, but if there is an easy way to do a given project in Mixbus that's where I do it.

I really like MixBus a lot, and not *just* because it runs on Linux. Did I mention that? :-)

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Studiodawg
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Post by Studiodawg » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:42 pm

I was ramping up to use Mixbus fulltime for mixing/mastering, but after consulting with Harrison directly, I've determined that there are some basic functions or operating parameters that aren't ready for primetime...Namely, you can't "Save As" a project (that was very surprising); also, I was going to use Mixbus to mix wave files recorded in Reaper (imported into Mixbus) but can't start a new project while another is open without crashing...Harrison's concept is awe inspiring, but I can't be bogged down by these basic functional needs that aren't yet in place. I will continue upgrading my license because in concept Harrison Mixbus is revolutionary. I have too many recording projects spread out over Reaper and Samplitude to wait for coding to catch up with concept.

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Post by rpagala » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:07 pm

Studiodawg wrote:I was ramping up to use Mixbus fulltime for mixing/mastering, but after consulting with Harrison directly, I've determined that there are some basic functions or operating parameters that aren't ready for primetime...Namely, you can't "Save As" a project (that was very surprising); also, I was going to use Mixbus to mix wave files recorded in Reaper (imported into Mixbus) but can't start a new project while another is open without crashing...Harrison's concept is awe inspiring, but I can't be bogged down by these basic functional needs that aren't yet in place. I will continue upgrading my license because in concept Harrison Mixbus is revolutionary. I have too many recording projects spread out over Reaper and Samplitude to wait for coding to catch up with concept.
You can save "as" and will be saved in snashots tab.

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Studiodawg
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Post by Studiodawg » Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:28 am

"You can save "as" and will be saved in snashots tab."

That is not good enough. I needed to change the name of the song, so I wanted to "Save As" to give a file name that matched the song title...this is a basic function that can not be done on the current version...it does seem like an elementary function that is not addressed.

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:23 am

Studiodawg, in my version of Mixbus you can choose "Save As" from the file menu, and type in the new name. I'm not sure what you mean here....

Do you mean you want to save the project in a completely new folder and copy all the audio files over to the new folder? You can do this manually I'm sure, just copy everything outside of Mixbus and then manually change the name of the .ardour file to whatever you want.

Regarding your other complaint, I haven't ever tried to have 2 projects open so I can't comment.

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