Anyone using Harrison MixBus?

[Telliot]

On a whim I bought a seat of Harrison's MixBus DAW; it gets great reviews and is really cheap. I'm mainly interested in using it as a mixdown tool, since Harrison is mainly known for their analog consoles (my plan is to record in Logic and import the tracks into MB).

I loaded it the other night and only had an hour or so to play with it and I can see its potential right away. It works like an analog desk does, with sends for 8 stereo mix buses with compression, sidechaining, and analog tape saturation all there on the console, along with gain and a 6 band EQ. It isn't groundbreaking, and I know these are all digital approximations of analog sound, but from what I can tell already (comparing it to Logic Pro 9), it sounds better.

If anyone's a Tape Op subscriber, they're offering an introductory discount of $39 for the full version. Not sure how long that deal is good for.

[S(((O)))NE]

I've had it since it came out originally, seems really cool need to muck about with it more though - still in Logic (still on v. 8 for most stuff as I'm more used to it.)

Love the layout of the mixing window though, makes doing basic stuff really quick as it's all at your fingertips. Does sound cracking, though you could probably get similar effects running various tape sims over every track in Logic - I presume it's made to be less CPU intensive though.
Haven't really tried editing in it so will need to give that a spin.

Can't complain for the price though, f***in bargain. Had a listen to your tracks on one of the other threads, cool stuff
Cheers for reminding me - going to have a mess about with that next time I record

[RuffiansFC]

thanks for the head's up? I've grown a little tired of cubase, and I need a different way to go. for 40 bucks and i can run my VSTs, it's a no-brainer.

[Telliot]

My pleasure! Please let me know what you think and any tips/tricks/problems you're having with it. I'm learning it on the fly and would love someone to bounce ideas off of.

[Larry Mal]

I've thought about getting it for years, and probably will, but it's fairly useless to me since there isn't MIDI. That would mean I'd be recording and writing in one DAW and then just exporting to another, and there are other ways of getting the sound I want without doing that.

In theory, anyway. I'll get the Mixbus someday, you saying that it sounds good is reason enough for me.

[Telliot]

Right now the jury's out; I'm only getting into it because the reviews have been so positive and and it was so cheap. My plan at the moment isn't really to use it as a DAW, but as a mixdown down tool, so I'll be recording everything in Logic Pro as I've always done, then save out the tracks and import them into MixBus.

[Larry Mal]

Which is what I'd be doing, I'll be curious to hear if you find it to be worth the extra step. I know that kind of thing is popular, and if money was no object I'd get the Waves API collection. But maybe the Harrison is as good as that and a lot cheaper, you know?

Either way it's good to support the company as well as to help the development of Ardour (what the Mixbus uses as a framework).

[46346]

Cool to hear you like the basic sound better than Logic. i've usually favored Logic over PT (Digi stuff anyway) so i'm curious to hear more about it.

i used a Harrison console periodically for many years on various projects in the 90's. it was clear and reliable, though not as exciting as Neve or API.
always favored it over mixing through the PT 888 hardware, natch.

[RuffiansFC]

i heard some demoes of the DAW on youtube. i was pretty impressed. the mixdown process definitely falls more into my way of working than cubase or logic. no midi is a big deal, i have to admit. that said, which takes longer: turning the midi track into an audio file or the mix down process in cubase? i look at it this way. if this was a $40 plugin, i wouldn't hesitate.