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Post by mrholmes on Sept 24, 2019 16:41:55 GMT -6
I like that True Iron plug a lot too. I'll pick it up sometime. FWIW, I didn't have issues with it when I was demoing (Mac and PT).
Used it for a demo song pure ITB today and I still can't believe how smooth wide and open the thing turned out.... They should code more of this dope....
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 24, 2019 16:45:05 GMT -6
Do they offer a demo?
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 24, 2019 17:00:34 GMT -6
Yes, but it fades out too often for my taste; its enough time to make your jaw drop. It's that subtle extra harmonics with that make it more 3D thing.
They do not disappointed my expectations.
https%3A//soundcloud.com/andreasoberholz/ohne-dich
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 24, 2019 17:26:58 GMT -6
It sounded good as soon as I hit play. There's a nice liveliness to the track mrholmes.
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 24, 2019 18:58:26 GMT -6
It sounded good as soon as I hit play. There's a nice liveliness to the track mrholmes. BTW did you recognized that you can try the SSL or the SB against gear you already own online. accessanalog.com/
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 24, 2019 20:02:35 GMT -6
Thanks mrholmes, I will keep that in mind.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2019 5:41:43 GMT -6
Even if I sound like a broken record....(sorry) But if real estate and budget is tight, for downmix I can only recommend Mixbus. I have a real console collecting dust (well, actually 2 with 24+ch each but only one readily set up for mixing with 24ch DAC) since I use Mixbus 32c all the time. Kind of sad for the hardware, really. But for me it does the trick perfectly. Even the standard version of Mixbus gives that analog feel and sound. For ITB it is pretty much unique and unsurpassed IMO. A (cheap) controller and you have hands-on feel. Most probably I will never mix on my console again... The console might go to the rehearsal room of my band, as a band mixer and for preamps while recording there... Just saying. The software has a fully functional demo mode that bursts in noise from time to time, until you install the license file, so it can be tested without any risk... Well worth at least a try... Really, if I had known, how often (i.e. always, nowadays) I would use it, I might have saved the money for the MOTU AVB and the console and cables etc. ... There is even a tutorial video how to connect it just for summing to Logic, so it is very easy to compare sounds you get with clean digital DAW´and Mixbus. Or external summing... With Mixbus, is it the workflow that mostly does it for you, or is it the sound, or both? I keep hearing people talk about it, but I've never tried it. What makes it better than other DAWs? How well would Mixbus integrate with external summing? Or is the internal summing the whole point? In the beginning I appreciated the workflow the most. The visuals are like a console. The GUI is not menu-driven, but has the possibilities to integrate all plugin parameters into the console view, which makes it feel much more like a analog/hybrid console even with 3rd party plugins. You can reach effectively each and every parameter within only one menu layer. If you have a slight understanding of LUA scripting, you can even expand functionalities for more complex tasks for simplifying usage. The "haptics". That is the real thing. You push a fader, the channel starts to behave like a console, subtle but organic, the saturation effects kick in like you expect it from a good board. You can work with channels and busses like you would on an analog console sans analog problems. I don't think about things like headroom or which kind of saturation I might add, or digital clipping stuff, it is just feeling right from the beginning. Plus EQ and Dynamics on each channel and tape saturation on each bus - and tape sounds really, really good with this. The manual can be read in one afternoon, it is very effectively written. Also lots of really good tutorial videos from Harrison, covering nearly all aspects of the software. OK, I use control surfaces, but also I have times, where I just use the mouse. Depends on where I am. Workflow brings back fun to digital mixing ITB, just because of signal flow, reactiveness of the controls, very intuitive to mix if you come from analog. Sound - now, this is probably the most astounding thing. If the recordings are right, often just pushing faders brings in the depth or 3D you might expect from a nice console. I can hear the difference immediately. If comparing finished mixes, the difference is not subtle anymore, with mixbus, my mixes sound more polished right away and have more depth that depends a bit from song to song, but almost always I can hear the difference even on cheap speakers. Obviously, they use algorithms of their digital console experience and the 32c EQ sounds really good. and the channel general sound obviously resembles the Harrison 32 sound very good. Say people, who have analog Harrisons to compare (e.g. winetree stated on this board he uses it in his digital room and it sounds like the real deal for him...). A very huge impact is, that you automatically come down to very little 3rd party plugins, like you would only patch in a limited amount of outboard in a good console, where it is really needed. Sounds not dramatic, but changed my ITB workflow dramatically. The DAW has some unique functions, too, like an advanced possibility to use polarity of channels for different reasons and and sometimes gives a few dB of loudness without compression. Áutomatically calculated combinations! The price is ridiculously low for what it is. The standard version already sounds marvellous and the 32c offers more busses and the 32c EQ per channel additionally. Both versions can often be had in sales dramatically reduced. Updates between major version numbers are free, major updates are not as often as with other DAWs, IMHO, the new features with major versions are easily worth the money, 80 bucks for 32c. There are several plugins that are integrated and can be licensed, they also often are on sale for very considerable price. I have all the XTools in the meantime. Some have a very unique twist (Tomtom Gate e.g. is awesome, XT EQ stuff is really unobstrusive, because they give a different smooth curve than usual) all of them sound really good and don't stand in the way. The license handling is very easy, it is just a file to be placed in the users home folder, no matter which OS. Really user friendly license - per user based, so you can make different installation, e.g. laptop and workstation or another one at home. I don't use external hardware inserts with mixbus, but they are of course possible and once connected like in the manual just work, from what read in forae and facebook groups... Though - it IS ressource hungry, depending on number of channels and busses, but for nowadays hardware no problem. There is no regular "freeze" function, you can workaround with export and replacement manually or per script. So, I would try to get a machine with good CPU power. Otherwise, stripping down plugin usage is generally a good idea anyway... I think the freeze thing is something high on the priority list for next version. I don't miss anything with it, maybe the midi possibilities are really a bit underwhelming, but at least work for me. Otherwise, for me it is a pretty complete DAW. I don't even know when I used my previous DAW the last time, which was Cakewalk/Sonar. Of course, workflow and learning curve may differ a lot depending from where you are coming, so people might miss flexible configuration of GUI and similar stuff. But manual, tutorials and customer service are really good. Customer service is more like ... outstanding. I had problems very few times and once contacted them over Facebook and got reply directly from Ben Loftis, who is the product manager AFAIK, in minutes, and he resolved the problem right away. All customer experience really good so far. I am pretty sure you don't get this type of service from any other DAWs manufacturers. Yeah I know. You can call me fanboy. But I am for a reason. Oh, well, and internal summing is pretty much the way to go. As if you would use a console... :-)
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 26, 2019 8:43:06 GMT -6
I'll be reading your post later smallbutfine, thanks.
One thing, it would help a lot if you broke the text into paragraphs, it's very hard to read in such a big lump :-)
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Post by woofhead on Sept 26, 2019 9:33:34 GMT -6
Thanks for the description Smallbutfine have wondered about mixbus for a while this makes want to try it
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Post by winetree on Sept 26, 2019 12:54:02 GMT -6
I agree with Smallbutfine. I've been supporting Mixbus since the first version. Owing 4 Harrison Consoles since 1981, Mixbus is just an extension of my analog workflow. And just like a console very little outboard is really needed to get a great sounding mix. It's my only saving grace to having to work in the box.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2019 16:35:32 GMT -6
I'll be reading your post later smallbutfine, thanks. One thing, it would help a lot if you broke the text into paragraphs, it's very hard to read in such a big lump :-) Thanks for mentioning... I'll try to do better in future and insert empty lines for better readability etc.... :-)
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Post by tasteliketape on Sept 26, 2019 16:53:59 GMT -6
I tried Mixbus and liked the sound I got out of it , but it was real buggy on my Mac. Anyone else experience this ?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2019 17:58:10 GMT -6
I tried Mixbus and liked the sound I got out of it , but it was real buggy on my Mac. Anyone else experience this ? I read this on a regular basis and can't verify this for my Windows version. I am on version 5, latest build, and it is very stable for me. Note, that, compared to many other DAWs, it is "relatively" new software, built on an open source DAW, so stability might have been improved a lot depending on the version you have tried. First fixes for a new major version are published very fast, and it is always a good idea to leave the last build of the previous major version installed. These are generally very usable, obviously this is always a good idea, it is by nature the most stable build of a major version... Also, as I mentioned, customer service is very helpful. Most probably they can tell you, if the problem can be resolved or is a known issue, and even, if and when a fix is available. They are really good guys with fast reaction times to customer requests. So, why can it be, that a major version contains possibly some bugs? Mixbus is a multi-OS DAW. Builds for all OSes may be difficult to impossible to beta test for all kind of hardware and all systems, so Harrison has to rely on customer feedback to a certain degree, esp. for bugs... Other DAW companies just gave up for this reason and restricted development to one OS/Platform. (I still remember when Logic development for Windows ran out....)
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Post by popmann on Sept 26, 2019 18:39:46 GMT -6
I've experiences all DAWs are a more buggy on OSX these days.
Maybe why I built a tower last year to run 32c...and haven't gotten around to installing OSX on it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2019 18:48:58 GMT -6
As for Mac and DAW development, in general... Graphics APIs/programmer's interfacing is a bit tricky on Mac, at least I read about this... Many problems come from GUIs conflicting with each other in the graphics system, and using 3rd party plugins can complicate things even more, as they also can make heavy use of these interfaces and are not always as safely programmed, as they should. The Mac platform has always been a thing of it's own and is not as easy to handle from the programmer's perspective, as one might think.
Although nearer to the Linux system architecture principles, than Windows, some OS versions can be more difficult to develop for, as expected. To a certain degree, from my perspective as someone who has quite some experience in programming/coding since nearly 40 years, it seems it could be a bit related to Apple's market strategies / company politics. Apple likes to have platform exclusive software. I tried several times to get into OSX development for platform independent software development, and must admit that it was pretty hard to get into and I finally gave up, except for script languages that are hard to mess up anyway.
So, I could be wrong, but I guess, that diving deep into OSX development might lead to developer's decisions to program for it exclusively or leave this platform out. Which may be intended. Nevertheless, there should be usable versions of Mixbus for Mac, maybe someone with more experience with Mixbus on this platform can chime in...
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 26, 2019 19:37:08 GMT -6
I'm leaning toward something like the Dangerous 2 Bus + or Silver Bullet, but I'll have a chance to try the SSL Six at AES and might change my mind. Doen't matter that much at the moment because I probably won't be buying anything for a few months. Still, i's good to know where to set my sights.
You'd think I might get similar results wit the various SSL style plug-in compressors I have, but they just don't cut it.
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Post by popmann on Sept 26, 2019 20:08:27 GMT -6
FWIW--the main support guy, Ben runs Mixbus solely on his MacBook.
Nothing wrong with MB on OSX.
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 27, 2019 0:48:33 GMT -6
FWIW--the main support guy, Ben runs Mixbus solely on his MacBook. Nothing wrong with MB on OSX. Everytime I demo MB it makes my OSX unstable. Just an example that it's not a plug and play thing.
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Post by drsax on Sept 27, 2019 8:34:31 GMT -6
I haven’t had time to read this entire thread, but based on your original post, My first recommendation would be a Silver Bullet on the mixbuss. I think it would shock most people how much it affects things. I have run mixes and tracks through various plugins, and outboard compressors, eq’s, mixers, transformers, summing, and various combinations of those, and the SB alone on the master buss made a bigger difference than any of those other combinations. It really sounds to me like mixing through a console. And with Brad’s generous return policy it’s a no brainer to try. (But I warn you, don’t try any of his gear unless you’re prepared to keep it. I haven’t returned anything yet. Great stuff!)
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 27, 2019 9:50:17 GMT -6
Much appreciated drsax.! Experience is the one thing you can't replace. I'd love to have tried a few different boards, summing mixers, converters, mojo devices, EQ's, bus compressors, etc., but I will simply have to go with what sounds right to me when I'm ready.
My experience was mainly with high end boards, so my ears are spoiled.
I will try a Silver Bullet when I'm ready for sure. I love the idea of one box getting me some of the real console tone back.
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Post by drbill on Sept 27, 2019 10:36:16 GMT -6
I will try a Silver Bullet when I'm ready for sure. I love the idea of one box getting me some of the real console tone back. Martin - the entire "concept" of a Silver Bullet is : Track on an API, Mix on a Neve. Or Track on a Neve, Mix on an API. It's ALL about console tone from two of the most iconic consoles in recorded history. Essentially a "2 channel console". Add in a very sweet program style EQ, and it's a production style unit designed to be utilized in every phase of production - mic pre's, overdubs, re-amping, mixing, mastering. drsax knows his stuff. Lots of #1 records, and a gearhead to the max.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 27, 2019 15:19:34 GMT -6
Now I'm getting really interested, thanks drbill. Gotta make some money though. This month I'm selling things to pay the bills
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Post by M57 on Sept 27, 2019 17:03:36 GMT -6
I will try a Silver Bullet when I'm ready for sure. I love the idea of one box getting me some of the real console tone back. Martin - the entire "concept" of a Silver Bullet is : Track on an API, Mix on a Neve. Or Track on a Neve, Mix on an API. It's ALL about console tone from two of the most iconic consoles in recorded history. Essentially a "2 channel console". Add in a very sweet program style EQ, and it's a production style unit designed to be utilized in every phase of production - mic pre's, overdubs, re-amping, mixing, mastering. drsax knows his stuff. Lots of #1 records, and a gearhead to the max. I don't think my needs are dissimilar from yours Martin. I never use more than three mics at a time. There's no question that if I didn't already have a number of happy pre-amps I would have bought the SB a while ago. If I had one now, it would likely just sit permanently on my 2-buss - not the most efficient use given its flexibility, but I can see where it might be just the ticket for your needs.
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Post by drbill on Sept 27, 2019 18:36:11 GMT -6
Martin - the entire "concept" of a Silver Bullet is : Track on an API, Mix on a Neve. Or Track on a Neve, Mix on an API. It's ALL about console tone from two of the most iconic consoles in recorded history. Essentially a "2 channel console". Add in a very sweet program style EQ, and it's a production style unit designed to be utilized in every phase of production - mic pre's, overdubs, re-amping, mixing, mastering. drsax knows his stuff. Lots of #1 records, and a gearhead to the max. I don't think my needs are dissimilar from yours Martin. I never use more than three mics at a time. There's no question that if I didn't already have a number of happy pre-amps I would have bought the SB a while ago. If I had one now, it would likely just sit permanently on my 2-buss - not the most efficient use given its flexibility, but I can see where it might be just the ticket for your needs. Maybe not the most efficient, but IMO definitely the best. That was my initial thought when I invented it. MIX buss duty. As Brad and I designed, it went a lot further, and we took it in some cool directions. But one of mine sits permanently on the mix buss. Another couple are on group busses, and the final couple are patched into whatever instrument(s) I think need em.
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Post by guitfiddler on Sept 27, 2019 18:44:48 GMT -6
Will the SB ever have the hardware plugin cards that the Chromas have?
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