danbold, calimerox: Yes, I agree. Sorry I was directed here in the first place. Was not my choosing. Sorry you felt so compelled to read my opinions. I certainly wasn’t twisting anyone’s arm here, but I thought there might be some interest in this. You chaps and your forum can all go back to sleep now. I did enjoy checking out your forum here – it is a very cozy little place!
You may be happy to know I did follow your advice above! Final letter to Mixbus:
'Greetings,
Well, I never understood the numerous complaints concerning Mixbus
when I used to see them, but I certainly do of late! I will have to
relegate this POS to a toy status – something I can play with when if
ever I get a free minute to waste.
Can’t speak in detail for the other platforms’ performances and
suitability, except that I do know it is more stable, but I will be
sure to spread the word far and thoroughly that Mixbus is simply not
suitable as any sort of DAW on any Windows OS. You should have fixed
the numerous stupid bugs and problems – small and large – before
even giving this a serious thought. It is no wonder you were
practically giving it away when I first examined it. I do admire that
you got Ardour to work in Windows at all, though. A magic trick in
itself!
Finally I see a short video is out explaining how to port files from
DAWs – BESIDE Pro Tools – to Mixbus. Up to now, the several users
I’ve talked with were clueless. You see, Jack is not a ‘bad’ bit of
software, but it is amatuerish, geeky open source nerd material and
will always be a time-consuming, slightly messy pain to use. It is
better for school science projects.
On Windows, you should instead have released your mixer as a large
plugin and solely a mixer, just as other devs have done and are
currently releasing now. I’d suggest that sincerely; however, your
market for that has quickly filled to the brim. Rather, Ardour, like
Jack, will always be another nerd toy for people who are hobbyists and
non-pros in music. It is cute, but cute alone doesn’t get the work
done.
Finally, I have asked repeatedly for some kind of time frame –
season, part of year, some idea – that I might see a new upgrade to
Mixbus that would be more sturdy and stable and better suit all your
boasting. In your subterfuge and essentially ‘non-response,’ you
should have just gone ahead and lied to me outright, rather than do
things such as send me asking over to those puzzled Ardour people. I
sensed, both on their board and in private, that they actually resent
most of Harrison’s efforts and involvement with Ardour and are
practicing ‘mild toleration’.
All of this is simply a shame. There was a fair chance, had I and some
colleagues known back when, that we could have married your Mixbus off
to interface with another, lessor-known yet REAL DAW. But too much bad
blood and trouble has gone on. As for myself, I, like you are seeing
and will see others do, have returned to more trusted and reliable
software. I simply can’t throw any more money or, particularly, TIME
down this rat hole.
I will say, the mixer GUI is smart, but I trust you’ll understand when
I go on to relate my little horror story and your joke of serious
support as I travel the Net in the next months and, perhaps, years.
Potential users need to be warned off, meanwhile enjoying a sorry but
fortunately short tale! Perhaps your bunch ought to stick with the
more hardware approach. I see your Mixbus efforts as a huge
non-priority at Harrison, or at best a plugin marketing ploy, yet I
have used your consoles and liked them. What, was Mixbus a project
funded out of leftover ‘soft’ Harrison funding, just for a dev who
needed something extra to justify his salary? Much points to this.
Well, thank you sincerely for what little effort you did give me. You
are certainly good at answering your emails promptly and at least
looking interested. Unfortunately, I saw a vein of dishonesty there
from Day One, and this is one feature potential future customers need
to hear the most. After all, as a resting place for MB, there is
plenty of other bad and abandoned software out there already.
I wish you whole lots of luck, as you and I know you will need aplenty!’
[address, affil., etc., details withheld]
Cheers!