So British eh what?! - "Don't mind me old chum, but if you can lift your head up just a little more while I keep stabbing your reputation with this buttery voice of mine."
A lot. But Dan Worral is just the one amongst manies that decided to create a TH-cam channel. Most geniuses won't ever get famous. Even Daan Worrall is pretty much a nobody of you aren't into audio geeekery
"You can snakeoil a few of us for a while, but most of us can smell the bullshit" Could not be said any better, thanks for that! Keep making awesome audio content!
Harrison Mixbus & Mixbus 32c is an open source DAW called ARDOUR, with branding and tape saturation/EQ's added to the "console" part of it. Ardour is a VERY powerful DAW which is available for Mac and Windows as well as Linux. The Waves Tracks Live DAW they put out a few years ago was based on Ardour as well.
Dan... you are a legend. Your technical knowledge shines through in all of your videos and your delivery is accessible without skimping on the complexities and caveats of the subject matter. Thanks so much for putting in the time to make these videos with such care and I hope you continue to share your knowledge and talent. Always appreciated.
I was skeptical about the claims of Mixbus 32c when I was using it so I decided to test it for myself. Using ReaRoute, I routed a bunch of tracks out of Reaper and into individual 32c channels, then took the output of Mixbus and routed it back into Reaper again. I sent the same tracks inside of Reaper to a bus, added some delay to compensate for the round trip processing delay between Mixbus and Reaper and brought the two master busses up next to each other. If 32c was truly modelling their analog console then all the non-linearities you mention above should've been there. So even without any of the EQ or saturation engaged I shouldn't have been able to get the two busses to null - but they did. Perfectly. So. Unless you engage the saturation on the groups/busses in 32c it literally does absolutely nothing to the sound. Not a sausage. And considering the DAW portion of 32c was so bad compared to Reaper, that was pretty much the end of my relationship with 32c. Pretty disappointing.
Thank you. I have considered buying this many of times just for its emulation on the console on each channel, but now knowing this I will save my time and money. Again thank you for taking the time to do this.
“Even without any EQ or saturation engaged, I shouldn’t have been able to get the two busses to null, but they did…perfectly” Now THIS is an important discovery (I think), as it pulls back the curtain to reveal that the Wizard of Oz - is truly no wizard at all, but just “some guy” using smoke, mirrors and flashing lights to divert people’s attention. Your simple null test is very, very important, and I applaud and thank you for doing it and posting your findings. Here’s what I don’t understand about Harrison’s stance on this (or any other software manufacturers that claim authenticity with their modeling when replicating audio hardware in software form): Do they not realize how simple it is for their software to be analyzed and tested, as you did using a simple null test? Do they not know that there are specific programs designed to analyze and decode what plugins do? Or, maybe they do know, but just don’t care… I dunno…maybe Harrison is banking on the majority of their potential customers not delving into their software to have their claims tested; or maybe they are relying on most of their potential customers being moronically susceptible to the power of suggestion; that if they mention “authenticity” enough in their advertising, and release an authentic looking GUI, that those who are using the software will actually “hear” what they’re TOLD they will hear… Until someone like you - who isn’t effected by their attempts at this influence, decides to actually test their claims. Thanks for taking the time to post your findings, which has more actual power to influence people than Harrison’s marketing and graphics departments ever will. Well done, Sir. 🙏
The "audio engineer, not audiophile" statement has to go on your t-shirts. In bold letters.👍🏻👍🏻 Thank you so much for being the lighthouse of truth for us! (by the way, before your video about this plugin was published I had not only received a snobby reply of Harrison but also had a discussion with a stupid Harrison customer who didn't want to believe that those filters are just standard RBJ-filters and he accused me of doing the null test wrong, even though I proved it by a video showing the perfect null with Reaper's ReaEQ. This was the moment when I decided to delete my Facebook account. The amount of silliness there was too much for me to swallow.)
@@axelfoley1768 C'mon, you cannot be both at the same time. Very often audiophiles are convinced to hear something that isn't there. I guess you are not one of those. I think Dan was talking about such people, who believe they can hear the modeled circuit Harrison claims to have included in the plugin.
"We're audio engineers not audiophiles. You can snake-oil a few of us for a while but most of us can smell bullshit." I'll have those words (paraphrased) carved on my grave.
Mixbus 32C is Ardour with a skeuomorphic body kit and a marketing department. Used it before switching to Reaper for live mixing. It's a functional DAW but doesn't do anything special unless you count curiously high resource usage as special.
"Audiophiles" are really the worst kind of audio community. Some days ago I saw a facebook post where someone claimed they are going to go full analog now, because they heard some rhodes piano that sounded better than all rhodes plugins disregarding that rhodes pianos are not everything that makes music. In the comments section there was a guy who started talking about how analog summing can really help a mix to be warm and full. So I informed him that this has been debunked already and dropped a link to your analog-summing-shumming video. They replied and questioned your reputation. >>Why would we believe some random youtuber instead of the music producers who have made successful hits in the past?
While I see your point about not bothering with snakeoil salesmen, but problem is who is then going to inform people who aren't in the know? Not everyone has the knowledge to see snakeoil from what it is. It's good that there are people who have energy to keep doing this despite in some cases receiving tons of negative feedback, harasment and even death threats in some cases from fellow snakeoil salesmen.
wait wait wait. i already can tell whatever i say it will cause a fight.. but ill do it: i dont even remember dan woralls analog null test summing thingy, but: an analoge console creates distortion, do you agree? have you heard that? wether or not you heard that, how can a person tell wether claim a, b, c is true? the anwser? the anwser yu need to find yourselve, right? and how it sounds, it sounds like you are mixing up a "analogue summing" emulation plugin that was snake oil i guess, with an actual analogue mixer. an analogue mixer creates tiny distortions, and also each channel will bleed into another channel.. i dont know why that is im no electronican, but i am 100 percent shure that it is, atleast in the case of this audiophile, he loved that bleeding, that slight distortion he liked too. so, these tiny nuances of bleed and distortions, some companys try to replicate digitally by measuring them, and well programing them into a plugin. what you see here in this video is debunking of a company who CLAIMED it emulated everything very very very well, but in a plugin-measurement dan worall found it to clearly not beeing true.. so, that means this plugin implyes more than it does.. thats why he made this video. but that doesent mean that analogue hardware doesent have any distortions.. it does, never in the history of mankind was there analogue gear without any distortions to my knowledge,..
or i missunderstood you.. i dunno, but overall analogue gear is not distortionfree, and those distortions are wanted these days for certain tasks. not always, but, for acoustical instruments, ooh, analoge is very good for such things. it fattens it up, in a very smooth way. for synthsounds i often preffere digital stuff, especially for drums and basses
@@erewrw1906 it would be good if you watched dan's video and only then join the discussion. he tested an analog summing box, not a plugin, that was designed to be as transparent as possible. it turned out nulling perfectly, which showed that the process of summing is transparent in the analog realm. if some analog summing box distorts the signal it's not because of the summing but because of some additional processing done by that piece of hardware
It took Harrison one year to come up with that answer? Wow if that is any indication of the rest of their work or ethics, I'll never once stop to think about getting Mixbus ever again. *Getting hyped for Dan basically saying: I could take a closer look at the rest of your software-lineup aswell*
@@Jazzguitar00 Ok yeah, point taken, but it was mainly a comment, which reinforced Worralls statements (as far as I can remember correctly) Also this doesn't really make it better, as they just keep cherry-picking their favourite Comments and don't address the Video, as it has much more substantial evidence and such....
I've had Harrison DAW for like 15 years (it was on sale for like 10-20 bucks, and I was new to mixing). I've used it like 2 or 3 times in all that time. So it's good to know I wasn't wasting my time learning how to use it when the company calls out its customers like that.
It would be interesting to see an analysis of Mixbus. One thing I do like about Mixbus is the integrated mixer channel controls. I get really fed-up opening and closing plugin windows all the time or accidentally tweaking the wrong channel's plugin.
I had to see for myself and was so pissed the plugin and the DAW nulled with a dry digital audio file. I uninstalled everything and deleted all my videos where I used their software. They are the ultimate snake oil salesmen.
mixbus 32c does have a sound and a feel or vibe, whatever quantifiable thing that makes it sound like a thing. essentially, a really well made template for ardour with built in plugins that you can find elsewhere, or go a bit further and use a old tape deck off ebay with a multichannel output soundcard. I often think, how many people have had access to those large format desks, experience with them to emotionally lock into the tone? same with other emulation of hardware, hard to know if its actually sounding or feeling like it if you have never used it. tbh in the virtual digital domain, i like my plugins doing crazy stuff, for all the bread and butter kinda eq, dynamics, tubes, channel strips etc, its worth just investing in something like a series 500 module rack and using that, custom setup, tinker around with a box of joy. that way the dressed up bits of code can float around on the internet hard drives and do well if it does.
Using the actual term "fault of the consumer" is an odd strategy to be sure... I have mixbuss (have only used it on a small handful of projects so far, mainly for the auto phase alignment to check optimal ways to flip the phases of groups of tracks) and investigated the "true analog summing" which as far as I can tell just consists of built in subtle "tape saturation" which basically just shaves off peaks a tiny tad.
You also notice it’s written very similarly to a comment or two about it which uses a similar wording in reverse manner saying it’s not the fault of the developer. The same account gave a couple more similar responses to other comments which makes me think the guy runs harrison’s youtube account. Also helps that theory that he has a whole playlist of videos about how to use mixbus lol
I fell for the DAW a few years back. Was almost completely incompatible with 3rd party plug-ins. Had a lengthy customer care exchange, who gave me the impression that all their other customers were happily working with plug-ins daily. At one point they gave up and referred me to the Ardour developers. Lost only 40 bucks, but I learned my lesson.
I haven't tested any of the most recent versions of their DAW, but at least the first three versions completely nulled between a 'clean' mix and a mix using their 'bus summing'. After pointing this out several times, one of their online reps basically started insulting people for "not understanding how this technology works". That was it for me. Never even tried any subsequent versions.
The last 2 or so versions of Mixbus32C have been a good, stable, more modern DAW, compatible with all my VST2 and VST3 plugins. Limited in some ways, nice in some others. The channel strips are all built in so you can stop chasing after the latest flavor of the month in channel strips and save a lot of cash (assuming you like the result). I find it a nice tool to mix in, as a producer, at times. I don't assume that the DAW is anything other than convenient with plugins built in, as opposed to some careful analog emulation.
By the way, Dan, I pulled up Wavesfactory Spectre (which you gracefully introduced in the official demo video). Great place for parallel filters! Personally I have experimented with the plug-in 100% wet as a send for a low mid band bell ‘wet’. Then send any instrument to it do get more body. A little can go a long way! Cheers for the content.
I'd love to see what you think to mixbus because I mainly use ardour (the open source project on which it is based) but do use mixbus too and I really do think that it sounds really good - as projects that I record in ardour and then open in mixbus just instantly sound better - and I'd love to know if it's just a psychosomatic thing or it there is something going on.
About MixBus, I was a user. In order to work with ambisonics I needed multiple outputs…. Now after I got to Reaper hardly go to another DAW. We are in 22 and they still stuck in only stereo out.
Your intuition is correct. Their DAW is Ardour with custom pieces. I've used it quite a bit for mixing as it forced certain workflows, but the recent updates are trying way too hard to align with Ableton or Bitwig.
@@simongunkel7457 It isn't because Ardour only costs you money if you need the binary Windows version and don't know how to compile it from source. Otherwise, you can get it for free.
well, honestly i'm quite sure that if someone would hint dan on something he got wrong for whatever reason, he'd quite frankly admit and correct it - at least that is my impression of him over the years.
And this is why I trust Dan Worrall with my musical life! Sorting the men from the boys... The original video was enough to put me off, but the Harrison reply has sealed their own death. Thanks Dan for yet another eloquent disembowelment.
I got into a long beef with the Harrison rep on one of their videos. It made me so mad to see them snootily talk down to me and everyone else for not believing in magic.
Truth is always bitter and hard to accept for most people. Don't give a damn about how they try to bring you down. You make great knowledgeable videos. We are here for your support. Don't stop making tutorial videos. Peace & Love from Nepal. 🇳🇵
I actually use the DAW, and it works as intended, with saturation being the result of extreme settings in regards to the gain/trim of channels and mixbusses, as well as the modeled compressors. This seems like the channel strip either A. unintentionally bypassed all of the modelling and they haven't realized it, or B. some employee thinks they're being slick and didn't properly do the job they were paid to do, and nobody has noticed, or possibly C. this was the intent, to trick and defraud, the whole time. I really hope it's not option C.
I have a Harrison 950MX console. Love it to bits. It's an abject lesson in minimalist design I would argue. I've not tried Harrisons' digital products so I can't comment but I can recommend the 950 console. The rest of their analogue gear is equally impressive. Especially the 8 channel filter rack unit.
Honestly, if you want that style of EQ, your best option is probably HARQULES by Analog Obsession, which (1) doesn't cramp at Nyquist, (2) doesn't produce a perfect null with dry signal, even with the EQ set completely flat-though it gets pretty close so the non-linearities are very subtle, and (3) is donationware
@@slayabouts They have so many great plugins. Some of my favorites are: LALA (my favorite LA2A), TREQ (Trident 80B, a very gentle console EQ), TUBA (tube mic/line amp, for when I want that tube distortion flavor), Kolin (tube limiter, which I love for mastering), LOADED (a de-esser which I don't like on vocals, but is perfect for harsh symbols), STEQ (Studer tape machine EQ/opto compressor, which I keep in my master bus chain.
Why does a company do that to itself? It's not getting easier if you can't take a step back, after you've been called out. I just found your channel recently, a week ago or so and honestly wondered why. Great content!
Check out Dan's videos that he's done for FabFilter (on their TH-cam channel), that's where I first heard of Dan years ago. Even before I got any of the FabFilter plugins I still watched all of their videos because Dan was so incredible.
I learnt on a Harrsion MR2 in the early 1980's That thing was the noisiest console I ever worked on and really nothing going on above 12k - even after a recap. The switches would go and you'd have to use match sticks to keep them engaged. The best thing about it was the filters where you could basically wind out the whole signal. Having said that they made a nice sound but far from distortion free.
I like using mixbus from a workflow perspective. Seem to be getting better mixes just from being able to work faster. I think the EQ and Compressor on the channel strip and in the DAW are the same, but in the DAW they added saturation on the mix busses!!!! So obviously that employee doesn't even know the DAW has non-linearities as a main feature
Slap a tape plugin on your busses and you've got the sound. That's all it is. Dither your channels too. That's it. Harrison sold people a free DAW with tape sound on the busses.
@@DanWorrall real examlpe : i recorded my drums through a tascam16x08 interface, i mixed it through reaper and mixbuss, the diferences where night and day no matter what eq or saturation plugin i have tried on reaper, maby luck of skills or knowledge but with mixbuss i nice mix was effortless
Their DAW is actually solid, there are 7 different points per channel at which you can set gain staging which leads to ease of use for best sound quality. …but I definitely don’t use the onboard EQ. I use Softube and such for EQ. Harrison Mixbus plus 3rd party plugins sounds great.
Harrison should market the work flow of their DAW without any added mystique, because that is the difference between it and most others. For someone used to the signal flow of a mixing desk, it's very intuitive and fast to get a mix going. I started on it, even though I've moved on since.
Their DAW is also snake oil fyi. The best console emulation in terms of sound that I've seen at least (obviously mixbus still has the workflow of a traditional console. But sound wise it doesn't actually emulate) Is actually free. It's called Airwindows Console. Dude who made it is a mad scientist and a gem for giving that shit away for free.
Brainworx has had a positive review from Dan Worrall and Paul Third. Their plugins in my null test do add a lot of character to the sound just through a simple pass through. Their plugins seem to be legit at emulating analog non linearities.
Every other youtuber would use that reply as a chance for another video with dramatic statements, screaming, laughing, clickbait titles and most of all - relentlessly lashing out at the developers. Dan, I already said it but I'll say it again - I really appreciate you for doing the exact opposite. You express yourself calmly and in a respectable manner towards everyone involved. That's something that many other youtubers just don't do, and I don't watch them for that reason (among others). Other videos would be like "This is the worst company everyone should stop buying from these scammers!!" while this one gives me the vibe of "I'm not mad, just disappointed".
@@kelainefes Yeah, that was my initial reaction as I don't remember any times Dan has done that kind of thing. I'm probably overthinking it though, or not remembering correctly.
The mixbus32c is a great daw, they are also contributing to Ardour as far as I know. The channel strips are the same as the plug-in but they have the buses with tape emulation built in that make the difference. Harrison did release that too, so you could in theory transform your own daw into mixbus32c just with those two plug-ins… ehm… if you really wanted I guess? Anyway, I stopped using Harrison stuff after this scam. When I reached out to them they even suggested to use the universal audio one if I wanted non -linearity, since they would be paid either way!
Well, that's gonna leave a mark (yikes). I'm mixing in Harrison Mixbus right now. After using Pro Tools before it was the "industry standard" and with the subscription drama I stumbled across HMB. I like having a dedicated channel strip, with EQ, compression, phase buttons, input gain controls and definitely the phase optimization feature as well as the reset the mixer function that I found in the manual just yesterday already set up. It's less expensive than Pro Tools and Reaper just ain't doing it for me at this time. When are you going to try Mixbus because I'll be waiting. Antelope also has the Harrison EQ for their interfaces. I wonder how that holds up?
I have the Mixbus32C 7 and I have had them since Mixbus 5 and I thought I would like them but it has been nothing but trouble with the DAW with crashes and a high CPU usage when at medium buffer rates{512} and DSP all over the place and the high cost of their plugins that are not very good. I only use it now for audio tracks and summing bus mixes in audio form for it is nice to have some processing options on the tracks if needed. But I noticed no one was interested in their plugins or their DAW very much at all. SAYS A LOT!
FWIW: Admiral Bumblebee did a fairly technical review of the EQ in Mixbus 32C back in 2017 (I'd post the link, but I don't think YT will allow it). Evidently, from his review, the DAW's EQ behaves much as you describe here in regard to lacking saturation. On the other hand, he was impressed with how they handled cramping (the review has a nice discussion of this). His overall reaction to it was rather different from yours (here he is using "emulation" as a contrast to more realistic component-based "simulation"): "Mixbus 32c, despite some of the marketing claims otherwise, is a Digital Emulation of the 32c channel strip. The designers of Mixbus 32c’s channel had the goal of creating the original 32c console’s designer’s intentions when designing the EQ. Each component in the original was not simulated and combined to create a whole… that is extremely computationally expensive and impractical. "The original designers of the 32c tried their best to avoid saturation, noise, crosstalk and other analog annoyances. The goal of the Mixbus 32c developers was to emulate the design goals of the original 32c channel. To this end it is a success. "However one does have to wonder if some of those unavoidable analog side-effects were part of the charm of the original? I guess you can always add your own noise and saturation if you want ;)" He also reviewed the whole DAW, and had very good customer interactions with Harrison: "Let’s first talk about the most important asset of any software: the people. The folks behind Mixbus and Ardour are fantastic. I’ve worked with (and for) a variety of developers that make audio products, particularly DAWs, and largely they are all great people that love what they do. The people behind Mixbus and Ardour though, have been the most reasonable folks I’ve encountered. ... When speaking with the Mixbus folks, they’re more willing to explain the tradeoffs in the design and acknowledge their weaknesses. This signals to me a huge willingness to improve and embrace the user. Not one time in talking to any other company (of nearly every major DAW developer) has someone said to me, of something that’s not a bug, 'You know what, I think we can do better.' That was until I spoke with the Mixbus team.... Along with their willingness to approach their product with a genuine honesty, their support is fantastic." I wonder if that staff reply was an outlier. Or maybe the company has changed since 2017. I have the basic Mixbus, and have used it occasionally for small home studio projects. I've really enjoyed using it, mainly because of the workflow, which feels like working with a console and a multitrack recorder. I don't have the experience to comment on whether it has a particularly unique "sound." The Admiral did report in his review that the 2017 Mixbus had twice the latency of Ardour (which it is based on). That suggests it's doing some processing all the time that Ardour isn't. It would be good to see measurements. -Tom
For what it’s worth, I want to say I’ve seen a video in which someone takes an audio file and has mixbus do a mixdown of it with no added processing and it didn’t fully null with the original or something similar. Basically that there might actually be some non-linearities going on under the hood. All they would have had to do was put some sort of randomized harmonics or whatever you want to call it in the plugin and nobody would have been the wiser
The tape saturation is doing that. It's on by default. Turn the drive knob on the master bus to the left and then render the audio file and it will null.
thanks for the video, Dan In addition to the fact that it is obvious from afar that the advertising is lying through its teeth, one thing I don't like about this company is that if you buy any product you are not allowed to sell it afterwards. As a rule I refuse to buy any product with such restrictive conditions.
Lol. I actually do own Mixbus32C. To be honest - I cannot seriously judge the sound of that software (and most others), as I am just guy having some fun, and every time I visit my real producer friend and listen to some stuff in his studio, I realize how lacking my setup is, and how many things I miss (don't hear). In case of Mixbus32C the only difference I can see is the workflow, ie. - instead of having a modern, clean DAW (like Reaper which I use all the time), you have a simulation of analog mixing desk with very lacking (just MY opinion) editing options. I believe that Harrison took an existing open source DAW (Ardour), made some skins and tweaks, put on their logo and are hoping to use their past fame to sell their product to either nostalgic old gits who missed the audio digital revolution by about 30 years or are trying to bring the "flash" of the analogue consoles to the new digital generation. On the other hand it might be an ideal tool for someone just mixing, not doing the editing. As soon as there is editing involved or, God Almighty forbid, MIDI, Mixbus is awkward. Though, their fresh marketing campaigns do inform me, that now, with the new version, it is better that ever before, including better MIDI support. What I can say is that Harrison are pretty aggressive in the marketing department. The only ones that comes close in the email spamming department are Waves.
@@CraigScottFrost I hear you. It's quite a sobering moment when you realize you spend several hundred dollars/euros on "real" plugins and all you got to show is some flashy, usually impractical GUI. Still - can you REALLY resist to buy plugin with regular price of $500 if it's on sale for $49? It's all marketing, and let's be fair, they are doing hell of a job with that, up until the point when YOU realize you've been taken on a ride, and you are not the rider, but the horse.
Hello Dan, i am a big fan of your content and am extremely surprised by the amount and quality of knowledge you give to us on your channel. You have and i sincerely hope that you will keep giving us that in the future as well. Things that would have taken 10-15 years for me to know and understand and i am not sure that even after that much time i would have understood. So thanks a lot! I would like to ask you a question as a beginner in audio engineering field. What are your thoughts on routing for all the plugins set in an order such as eq, compressor, etc on individual channels while mixing a whole song and the difference it makes in the sound if the order is shuffled. Can you please make a video on this? Even a short one would help us a lot! (Sorry if i am not able to explain my question in a good way)
Thank you for calling BS. It's a shame that (at least some people at) Harrison disrespect their customer's intellect by telling them something that clearly isn't true. I hope it's not like that for the whole company. About Mixbus - I've never tried it, but I do use Ardour (the open-source DAW it's based on) all the time. I don't know how good Harrison's proprietary DSP in Mixbus is, but I think the same effect could probably be achieved in Ardour using a couple of Airwindows plug-ins for simulating analog summing etc. Not that my ears could tell a difference anyway. I'm quite insensitive to analog subtelties, as I've never worked with analog gear, and only ever been making music in-the-box using software. But I know some people sear by Airwindows analog emulations (Wytse from White Sea Studio covered ToTape5 IIRC). _Shameless plug: I've been making videos/tutorials about Ardour and other open-source audio software for many years now. Next month I'll be interviewing Paul Davis live, the creator of Ardour as a new major version should be released soon. _
Anybody else keep checking back at the comments of this video to see if Harrison have had the balls to respond to Mr. Worrall just so he can tear 'em another new one...No?...Just me then. Keep up the great work Dan, it's very much appreciated.
Love it.. call everyone out!! I've been lately deeply disgusted by waves practices. Absolute scammers. As one smart man once said "I can smell the bullshit"
I've always been skeptical of Waves. Their business model isn't a good one. I'm actually a little bit sad to see our good man Dan be affiliated with them because of this. It's not that they make bad plugins. It's that they charge you for keeping them up to date. (unless i'm mistaken, then i apologise). But it seems you must pay to keep plugins updated, and they can charge you this every year. For plugins that are old. This is not a good business to be affiliated with in my eyes, it's tantamount to a scam. Some plugins will probably be hardly changed, if at all, and you might have to pay for an "update". I don't own any because of this model, and because i don't own any, i could of course have the wrong end of the stick i guess.. but it's certainly off putting
The most polite murder I've ever witnessed
hear hear! beatifully elegantly said
Man !!! What a quote!!!! Amen... 🤣🤣🤣
LOL
Bravo
So British eh what?! - "Don't mind me old chum, but if you can lift your head up just a little more while I keep stabbing your reputation with this buttery voice of mine."
"The fault of the consumer and not the company" wow, great response, keep it up like that.
Im starting to think Dan is one of the only folk in the industry who actually knows what they're talking about
ethan winer. gregory scott house of kush.
There are plenty more, just have to find them and weed out the BS
A lot. But Dan Worral is just the one amongst manies that decided to create a TH-cam channel.
Most geniuses won't ever get famous. Even Daan Worrall is pretty much a nobody of you aren't into audio geeekery
"Telling the harsh truth about the industry you want to send you free products" just isn't usually the path to even limited fame and fortune.
There's plenty of them, we just focus on the bull shit here.
"You can snakeoil a few of us for a while, but most of us can smell the bullshit"
Could not be said any better, thanks for that! Keep making awesome audio content!
yeah but I think they fool most of us, not a few.
im one of those super tasters, i smell everything. lol since im born
Based off what? A video? Are you a recording engineer?
You need to use the Harrison cable lifters to get the full experience, Dan. That much should've been obvious to you.
Cable lifter VST :D
You also need the copper gold alloy antioxidant aura-free organic uni-direction solid core speaker wires.
@@doctorscoot they have a plugin for that too to put on your monitor buss.
@@Wayne_Robinson oh no digital can never replace the magical atoms of the might $10000/metre analogue original
HAHAHAHAHAHA! 😂😂💀
Brilliant!
Calling out hype is more necessary now than ever in such a crowded space. Thanks, Dan!
"...is the fault of the consumer and not the company" 🤡
Just take the L Harrison, you are digging a deeper hole for yourself.
Yeah, not loving their attitude in general, don't think I'll consider them for my studio now or anytime soon
Yep their PR is up there with their EQ
Actually laughed out loud at the repetition of “…a bog-standard EQ”
Great video as usual.
Yeah it needs to become a thing!
Harrison Mixbus & Mixbus 32c is an open source DAW called ARDOUR, with branding and tape saturation/EQ's added to the "console" part of it. Ardour is a VERY powerful DAW which is available for Mac and Windows as well as Linux. The Waves Tracks Live DAW they put out a few years ago was based on Ardour as well.
Dan... you are a legend. Your technical knowledge shines through in all of your videos and your delivery is accessible without skimping on the complexities and caveats of the subject matter. Thanks so much for putting in the time to make these videos with such care and I hope you continue to share your knowledge and talent. Always appreciated.
I was skeptical about the claims of Mixbus 32c when I was using it so I decided to test it for myself. Using ReaRoute, I routed a bunch of tracks out of Reaper and into individual 32c channels, then took the output of Mixbus and routed it back into Reaper again. I sent the same tracks inside of Reaper to a bus, added some delay to compensate for the round trip processing delay between Mixbus and Reaper and brought the two master busses up next to each other.
If 32c was truly modelling their analog console then all the non-linearities you mention above should've been there. So even without any of the EQ or saturation engaged I shouldn't have been able to get the two busses to null - but they did. Perfectly.
So. Unless you engage the saturation on the groups/busses in 32c it literally does absolutely nothing to the sound. Not a sausage.
And considering the DAW portion of 32c was so bad compared to Reaper, that was pretty much the end of my relationship with 32c. Pretty disappointing.
Thanks for doing the research
Thank you. I have considered buying this many of times just for its emulation on the console on each channel, but now knowing this I will save my time and money. Again thank you for taking the time to do this.
What, you manged to carry a whole test out on it without it crashing? You did well my friend.
“Even without any EQ or saturation engaged, I shouldn’t have been able to get the two busses to null, but they did…perfectly”
Now THIS is an important discovery (I think), as it pulls back the curtain to reveal that the Wizard of Oz - is truly no wizard at all, but just “some guy” using smoke, mirrors and flashing lights to divert people’s attention.
Your simple null test is very, very important, and I applaud and thank you for doing it and posting your findings.
Here’s what I don’t understand about Harrison’s stance on this (or any other software manufacturers that claim authenticity with their modeling when replicating audio hardware in software form):
Do they not realize how simple it is for their software to be analyzed and tested, as you did using a simple null test?
Do they not know that there are specific programs designed to analyze and decode what plugins do?
Or, maybe they do know, but just don’t care…
I dunno…maybe Harrison is banking on the majority of their potential customers not delving into their software to have their claims tested; or maybe they are relying on most of their potential customers being moronically susceptible to the power of suggestion; that if they mention “authenticity” enough in their advertising, and release an authentic looking GUI, that those who are using the software will actually “hear” what they’re TOLD they will hear…
Until someone like you - who isn’t effected by their attempts at this influence, decides to actually test their claims.
Thanks for taking the time to post your findings, which has more actual power to influence people than Harrison’s marketing and graphics departments ever will.
Well done, Sir.
🙏
@@dfasht1304genuine question - what's the benefit of post-fader effects, as opposed to simply routing the track to another track?
The "audio engineer, not audiophile" statement has to go on your t-shirts. In bold letters.👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you so much for being the lighthouse of truth for us!
(by the way, before your video about this plugin was published I had not only received a snobby reply of Harrison but also had a discussion with a stupid Harrison customer who didn't want to believe that those filters are just standard RBJ-filters and he accused me of doing the null test wrong, even though I proved it by a video showing the perfect null with Reaper's ReaEQ. This was the moment when I decided to delete my Facebook account. The amount of silliness there was too much for me to swallow.)
Yes but what happens if you are both an audio engineer & an audiophile 🥺 Oops, don't worry, I'll let myself out 🍦
child lover, not pedophile🥰🥰
@@axelfoley1768 C'mon, you cannot be both at the same time. Very often audiophiles are convinced to hear something that isn't there. I guess you are not one of those. I think Dan was talking about such people, who believe they can hear the modeled circuit Harrison claims to have included in the plugin.
the up pitched reading voice is amazing! thanks for the video as always.
Reminds me of Glenn from SpectreSoundStudios. I think they might be friends.
"We're audio engineers not audiophiles. You can snake-oil a few of us for a while but most of us can smell bullshit."
I'll have those words (paraphrased) carved on my grave.
I smell bullshit in your grave statement...
here lies john mcworthy. death by snake oil imbibement.
Lmao agreed
)))
Lol, I'll keep it forever too !!!
Mixbus 32C is Ardour with a skeuomorphic body kit and a marketing department. Used it before switching to Reaper for live mixing. It's a functional DAW but doesn't do anything special unless you count curiously high resource usage as special.
I LOVE you so much Dan lol. Thanks for fighting for us ❤️
"Audiophiles" are really the worst kind of audio community. Some days ago I saw a facebook post where someone claimed they are going to go full analog now, because they heard some rhodes piano that sounded better than all rhodes plugins disregarding that rhodes pianos are not everything that makes music. In the comments section there was a guy who started talking about how analog summing can really help a mix to be warm and full. So I informed him that this has been debunked already and dropped a link to your analog-summing-shumming video. They replied and questioned your reputation. >>Why would we believe some random youtuber instead of the music producers who have made successful hits in the past?
While I see your point about not bothering with snakeoil salesmen, but problem is who is then going to inform people who aren't in the know? Not everyone has the knowledge to see snakeoil from what it is. It's good that there are people who have energy to keep doing this despite in some cases receiving tons of negative feedback, harasment and even death threats in some cases from fellow snakeoil salesmen.
@@Tulah you're right. i was just tired when i wrote that comment. tired of snake oil shit, but also just late at night-tired lol
wait wait wait. i already can tell whatever i say it will cause a fight..
but ill do it:
i dont even remember dan woralls analog null test summing thingy, but:
an analoge console creates distortion, do you agree?
have you heard that?
wether or not you heard that, how can a person tell wether claim a, b, c is true?
the anwser? the anwser yu need to find yourselve, right?
and how it sounds, it sounds like you are mixing up a "analogue summing" emulation plugin that was snake oil i guess, with an actual analogue mixer.
an analogue mixer creates tiny distortions, and also each channel will bleed into another channel.. i dont know why that is im no electronican, but i am 100 percent shure that it is, atleast in the case of this audiophile, he loved that bleeding, that slight distortion he liked too.
so, these tiny nuances of bleed and distortions, some companys try to replicate digitally by measuring them, and well programing them into a plugin.
what you see here in this video is debunking of a company who CLAIMED it emulated everything very very very well, but in a plugin-measurement dan worall found it to clearly not beeing true.. so, that means this plugin implyes more than it does.. thats why he made this video.
but that doesent mean that analogue hardware doesent have any distortions.. it does, never in the history of mankind was there analogue gear without any distortions to my knowledge,..
or i missunderstood you.. i dunno, but overall analogue gear is not distortionfree, and those distortions are wanted these days for certain tasks. not always, but, for acoustical instruments, ooh, analoge is very good for such things. it fattens it up, in a very smooth way.
for synthsounds i often preffere digital stuff, especially for drums and basses
@@erewrw1906 it would be good if you watched dan's video and only then join the discussion. he tested an analog summing box, not a plugin, that was designed to be as transparent as possible. it turned out nulling perfectly, which showed that the process of summing is transparent in the analog realm. if some analog summing box distorts the signal it's not because of the summing but because of some additional processing done by that piece of hardware
BOOM!!! Weird how some companies really just DONT seem to give a shit about honesty. Nice work as always. Thank you .
Not thrilled with the tone of their response 😂
That subtle slab toward audiophiles…😂
It took Harrison one year to come up with that answer?
Wow if that is any indication of the rest of their work or ethics, I'll never once stop to think about getting Mixbus ever again.
*Getting hyped for Dan basically saying: I could take a closer look at the rest of your software-lineup aswell*
Well, that was a comment to something else.
@@Jazzguitar00 Ok yeah, point taken, but it was mainly a comment, which reinforced Worralls statements (as far as I can remember correctly)
Also this doesn't really make it better, as they just keep cherry-picking their favourite Comments and don't address the Video, as it has much more substantial evidence and such....
"I haven't tried the Mixbus DAW (but I might, one day. Do you feel lucky? Well?)"
I've had Harrison DAW for like 15 years (it was on sale for like 10-20 bucks, and I was new to mixing). I've used it like 2 or 3 times in all that time. So it's good to know I wasn't wasting my time learning how to use it when the company calls out its customers like that.
Unrelated: ok, we have normal pitch and higher pitch Dan, but when are we getting the lower pitch one? 🤔
That's for the Waves goblin voice
Harsh but fair, which is why we love Dan. No B.S. here.
Tbh I don't think it's harsh at all. Blaming consumers for falling for their bullshit claims on his video. I'd certainly be pissed.
@@annekedebruyn7797 That was my English irony coming out, sorry. I don't think it was harsh either. Dan always calls it like it is.
It would be interesting to see an analysis of Mixbus. One thing I do like about Mixbus is the integrated mixer channel controls. I get really fed-up opening and closing plugin windows all the time or accidentally tweaking the wrong channel's plugin.
What else can we say apart from...
“ANALOG.. WIV DA SOUND OF DIGITAL....
ITS THA F*CKING FUTURE!!“
- Steve the salesman
Next UAD.
That's what people have to say after they buy their 5 thousand dollar channel strip plugin.
There
he is!! Ha!!!
I had to see for myself and was so pissed the plugin and the DAW nulled with a dry digital audio file. I uninstalled everything and deleted all my videos where I used their software. They are the ultimate snake oil salesmen.
Chill the f out mate, or Colt Caperune will bash you, with reference to his Grammy award winnig friends that say otherwise.
Savage, no nonsense response. Gotta love Dan!
mixbus 32c does have a sound and a feel or vibe, whatever quantifiable thing that makes it sound like a thing. essentially, a really well made template for ardour with built in plugins that you can find elsewhere, or go a bit further and use a old tape deck off ebay with a multichannel output soundcard. I often think, how many people have had access to those large format desks, experience with them to emotionally lock into the tone? same with other emulation of hardware, hard to know if its actually sounding or feeling like it if you have never used it. tbh in the virtual digital domain, i like my plugins doing crazy stuff, for all the bread and butter kinda eq, dynamics, tubes, channel strips etc, its worth just investing in something like a series 500 module rack and using that, custom setup, tinker around with a box of joy. that way the dressed up bits of code can float around on the internet hard drives and do well if it does.
Using the actual term "fault of the consumer" is an odd strategy to be sure...
I have mixbuss (have only used it on a small handful of projects so far, mainly for the auto phase alignment to check optimal ways to flip the phases of groups of tracks) and investigated the "true analog summing" which as far as I can tell just consists of built in subtle "tape saturation" which basically just shaves off peaks a tiny tad.
You also notice it’s written very similarly to a comment or two about it which uses a similar wording in reverse manner saying it’s not the fault of the developer. The same account gave a couple more similar responses to other comments which makes me think the guy runs harrison’s youtube account. Also helps that theory that he has a whole playlist of videos about how to use mixbus lol
No one could have said and explained it better than you did. You're a great inspiration to us
When I want to learn something, you're my go to guy. Thanks Dan, I know no one who has more knowledge in sound than you.
This is gold. WE
We bum you ??!!*??
that rep should have been wiser than to have commented on your video 😂 Keep doing what you do Dan.
Now I know that company exists, thank You Dan, and it’ll be avoided by me in the future.
OUR channel strips are not bound by physics
I fell for the DAW a few years back. Was almost completely incompatible with 3rd party plug-ins. Had a lengthy customer care exchange, who gave me the impression that all their other customers were happily working with plug-ins daily. At one point they gave up and referred me to the Ardour developers. Lost only 40 bucks, but I learned my lesson.
I haven't tested any of the most recent versions of their DAW, but at least the first three versions completely nulled between a 'clean' mix and a mix using their 'bus summing'. After pointing this out several times, one of their online reps basically started insulting people for "not understanding how this technology works". That was it for me. Never even tried any subsequent versions.
The last 2 or so versions of Mixbus32C have been a good, stable, more modern DAW, compatible with all my VST2 and VST3 plugins. Limited in some ways, nice in some others. The channel strips are all built in so you can stop chasing after the latest flavor of the month in channel strips and save a lot of cash (assuming you like the result). I find it a nice tool to mix in, as a producer, at times. I don't assume that the DAW is anything other than convenient with plugins built in, as opposed to some careful analog emulation.
By the way, Dan, I pulled up Wavesfactory Spectre (which you gracefully introduced in the official demo video). Great place for parallel filters! Personally I have experimented with the plug-in 100% wet as a send for a low mid band bell ‘wet’. Then send any instrument to it do get more body. A little can go a long way!
Cheers for the content.
I'd love to see what you think to mixbus because I mainly use ardour (the open source project on which it is based) but do use mixbus too and I really do think that it sounds really good - as projects that I record in ardour and then open in mixbus just instantly sound better - and I'd love to know if it's just a psychosomatic thing or it there is something going on.
About MixBus, I was a user. In order to work with ambisonics I needed multiple outputs…. Now after I got to Reaper hardly go to another DAW.
We are in 22 and they still stuck in only stereo out.
In '22 Studio One was stucking in stereo out too... 😂
Your intuition is correct. Their DAW is Ardour with custom pieces. I've used it quite a bit for mixing as it forced certain workflows, but the recent updates are trying way too hard to align with Ableton or Bitwig.
And that when Ardour's MIDI writing is not even on REAPER's level. And REAPER has a horrible midi editor.
They are absolutely FAILING too hard to align with Ableton and Bitwig. Their DAW is a clunky alpha level waste of time.
At least from what I've heard they are also funding development for Ardour. It's not something they communicate well, though.
@@simongunkel7457 It isn't because Ardour only costs you money if you need the binary Windows version and don't know how to compile it from source. Otherwise, you can get it for free.
Considering that Acustica has Harrison pre's sampled and they do make an audible difference, this is a very poor response from the company.
Note to self to never EVER make the mistake of taking on Dan Worrall.
I hope Dan's middle name is Anthony - DAW
well, honestly i'm quite sure that if someone would hint dan on something he got wrong for whatever reason, he'd quite frankly admit and correct it - at least that is my impression of him over the years.
@@broklanders4730I'm a betting man. Chances are I would be wrong. I'll just stick to "if it sounds good, it is good".
And this is why I trust Dan Worrall with my musical life! Sorting the men from the boys... The original video was enough to put me off, but the Harrison reply has sealed their own death. Thanks Dan for yet another eloquent disembowelment.
I got into a long beef with the Harrison rep on one of their videos. It made me so mad to see them snootily talk down to me and everyone else for not believing in magic.
can you share which video that is?
@@stefevr th-cam.com/video/fOIVFgZsL_E/w-d-xo.html
@@whatskraken3886 wow you weren't wrong
@@stefevr that’s a first
I have witnessed them doing this.
Thanks Dan. keep up the good work!
You mess with the bull, you get the horns
Any day a DW Video is released, is a good day. Thank you for doing this. I've learned so much from your videos and they inspire me to learn even more.
This put a huge smile on my face. Love it.
Truth is always bitter and hard to accept for most people. Don't give a damn about how they try to bring you down. You make great knowledgeable videos. We are here for your support. Don't stop making tutorial videos. Peace & Love from Nepal. 🇳🇵
Harrison just keeps shooting themselves in the foot again and again.
I actually use the DAW, and it works as intended, with saturation being the result of extreme settings in regards to the gain/trim of channels and mixbusses, as well as the modeled compressors. This seems like the channel strip either A. unintentionally bypassed all of the modelling and they haven't realized it, or B. some employee thinks they're being slick and didn't properly do the job they were paid to do, and nobody has noticed, or possibly C. this was the intent, to trick and defraud, the whole time. I really hope it's not option C.
I have a Harrison 950MX console. Love it to bits. It's an abject lesson in minimalist design I would argue. I've not tried Harrisons' digital products so I can't comment but I can recommend the 950 console. The rest of their analogue gear is equally impressive. Especially the 8 channel filter rack unit.
Honestly, if you want that style of EQ, your best option is probably HARQULES by Analog Obsession, which (1) doesn't cramp at Nyquist, (2) doesn't produce a perfect null with dry signal, even with the EQ set completely flat-though it gets pretty close so the non-linearities are very subtle, and (3) is donationware
I always recommend AO. The 1073 emulation is pretty great too with it’s auto gain compensated distortion
@@slayabouts They have so many great plugins. Some of my favorites are: LALA (my favorite LA2A), TREQ (Trident 80B, a very gentle console EQ), TUBA (tube mic/line amp, for when I want that tube distortion flavor), Kolin (tube limiter, which I love for mastering), LOADED (a de-esser which I don't like on vocals, but is perfect for harsh symbols), STEQ (Studer tape machine EQ/opto compressor, which I keep in my master bus chain.
It'd be great if Dan made a video about analog obsession and his thoughts about their plugins come to think of it
AO is great.
Why does a company do that to itself? It's not getting easier if you can't take a step back, after you've been called out.
I just found your channel recently, a week ago or so and honestly wondered why. Great content!
Check out Dan's videos that he's done for FabFilter (on their TH-cam channel), that's where I first heard of Dan years ago. Even before I got any of the FabFilter plugins I still watched all of their videos because Dan was so incredible.
I learnt on a Harrsion MR2 in the early 1980's That thing was the noisiest console I ever worked on and really nothing going on above 12k - even after a recap. The switches would go and you'd have to use match sticks to keep them engaged. The best thing about it was the filters where you could basically wind out the whole signal. Having said that they made a nice sound but far from distortion free.
I like using mixbus from a workflow perspective. Seem to be getting better mixes just from being able to work faster. I think the EQ and Compressor on the channel strip and in the DAW are the same, but in the DAW they added saturation on the mix busses!!!! So obviously that employee doesn't even know the DAW has non-linearities as a main feature
Slap a tape plugin on your busses and you've got the sound. That's all it is. Dither your channels too. That's it. Harrison sold people a free DAW with tape sound on the busses.
@@vigilantestylez Dither every channel or just the busses?
You don't need dither on channels or buses. Only the master, and only if you're not using the DAW's own dither.
@@DanWorrall I agree! 💯
@@DanWorrall real examlpe : i recorded my drums through a tascam16x08 interface, i mixed it through reaper and mixbuss, the diferences where night and day no matter what eq or saturation plugin i have tried on reaper, maby luck of skills or knowledge but with mixbuss i nice mix was effortless
Their DAW is actually solid, there are 7 different points per channel at which you can set gain staging which leads to ease of use for best sound quality. …but I definitely don’t use the onboard EQ. I use Softube and such for EQ. Harrison Mixbus plus 3rd party plugins sounds great.
Their DAW is the open source Ardour, rebranded and with a few slight additions.
If the channel and group really did emulate the desk exactly and really did perform this way it would be amazing
I absolutely love this channel
Glenn Fricker has at one point tried the Harrison Mixbus DAW. I can’t remember anything about it but it might be worth a revisit now
No sense in beating around the bush there Dan, upfront, and in-your-face rebuke!!
Harrison should market the work flow of their DAW without any added mystique, because that is the difference between it and most others. For someone used to the signal flow of a mixing desk, it's very intuitive and fast to get a mix going. I started on it, even though I've moved on since.
Their DAW is also snake oil fyi. The best console emulation in terms of sound that I've seen at least (obviously mixbus still has the workflow of a traditional console. But sound wise it doesn't actually emulate) Is actually free. It's called Airwindows Console. Dude who made it is a mad scientist and a gem for giving that shit away for free.
There are some good developers/companies, but the "analog" plugin industry as a whole is a hustle.
Brainworx has had a positive review from Dan Worrall and Paul Third. Their plugins in my null test do add a lot of character to the sound just through a simple pass through. Their plugins seem to be legit at emulating analog non linearities.
Harrison not quite realising they've bitten off more than they can chew, trying to pull wool over Dan Worrall's eyes/ears. OOPS!
Every other youtuber would use that reply as a chance for another video with dramatic statements, screaming, laughing, clickbait titles and most of all - relentlessly lashing out at the developers.
Dan, I already said it but I'll say it again - I really appreciate you for doing the exact opposite. You express yourself calmly and in a respectable manner towards everyone involved. That's something that many other youtubers just don't do, and I don't watch them for that reason (among others).
Other videos would be like "This is the worst company everyone should stop buying from these scammers!!" while this one gives me the vibe of "I'm not mad, just disappointed".
This is how to stab someone, but asking gently first where you would like to be stabbed. Genius
Thank you for speaking truth. Some things I am willing to forgive from plugin companies. Other things, not so much.
Wait, did this start out as a small hommage to Paul Third?
How so? Is it the funny voice used to read the comment?
@@kelainefes Yeah, that was my initial reaction as I don't remember any times Dan has done that kind of thing. I'm probably overthinking it though, or not remembering correctly.
The mixbus32c is a great daw, they are also contributing to Ardour as far as I know. The channel strips are the same as the plug-in but they have the buses with tape emulation built in that make the difference. Harrison did release that too, so you could in theory transform your own daw into mixbus32c just with those two plug-ins… ehm… if you really wanted I guess? Anyway, I stopped using Harrison stuff after this scam. When I reached out to them they even suggested to use the universal audio one if I wanted non -linearity, since they would be paid either way!
I’ve got cramp watching this
Well, that's gonna leave a mark (yikes). I'm mixing in Harrison Mixbus right now. After using Pro Tools before it was the "industry standard" and with the subscription drama I stumbled across HMB. I like having a dedicated channel strip, with EQ, compression, phase buttons, input gain controls and definitely the phase optimization feature as well as the reset the mixer function that I found in the manual just yesterday already set up. It's less expensive than Pro Tools and Reaper just ain't doing it for me at this time. When are you going to try Mixbus because I'll be waiting. Antelope also has the Harrison EQ for their interfaces. I wonder how that holds up?
Use something like Studio one... Or cubase --- far better, easier, reliable and faster production than those two
Thanks Dan for fighting the gaslighting people of the audio industry!
The Plugin Industry in a NUTSHELL!
Funny how they dispute your criticisms, yet they release a proper emulation a couple years later.
Soothe2... When?
I have the Mixbus32C 7 and I have had them since Mixbus 5 and I thought I would like them but it has been nothing but trouble with the DAW with crashes and a high CPU usage when at medium buffer rates{512} and DSP all over the place and the high cost of their plugins that are not very good.
I only use it now for audio tracks and summing bus mixes in audio form for it is nice to have some processing options on the tracks if needed.
But I noticed no one was interested in their plugins or their DAW very much at all.
SAYS A LOT!
This was an absolutely pleasure to watch.
Mixbus is a rebranded Ardour, and Ardour is a GREAT free software DAW.
its... okay.
FWIW: Admiral Bumblebee did a fairly technical review of the EQ in Mixbus 32C back in 2017 (I'd post the link, but I don't think YT will allow it). Evidently, from his review, the DAW's EQ behaves much as you describe here in regard to lacking saturation. On the other hand, he was impressed with how they handled cramping (the review has a nice discussion of this). His overall reaction to it was rather different from yours (here he is using "emulation" as a contrast to more realistic component-based "simulation"):
"Mixbus 32c, despite some of the marketing claims otherwise, is a Digital Emulation of the 32c channel strip. The designers of Mixbus 32c’s channel had the goal of creating the original 32c console’s designer’s intentions when designing the EQ. Each component in the original was not simulated and combined to create a whole… that is extremely computationally expensive and impractical.
"The original designers of the 32c tried their best to avoid saturation, noise, crosstalk and other analog annoyances. The goal of the Mixbus 32c developers was to emulate the design goals of the original 32c channel. To this end it is a success.
"However one does have to wonder if some of those unavoidable analog side-effects were part of the charm of the original? I guess you can always add your own noise and saturation if you want ;)"
He also reviewed the whole DAW, and had very good customer interactions with Harrison: "Let’s first talk about the most important asset of any software: the people. The folks behind Mixbus and Ardour are fantastic. I’ve worked with (and for) a variety of developers that make audio products, particularly DAWs, and largely they are all great people that love what they do. The people behind Mixbus and Ardour though, have been the most reasonable folks I’ve encountered. ... When speaking with the Mixbus folks, they’re more willing to explain the tradeoffs in the design and acknowledge their weaknesses. This signals to me a huge willingness to improve and embrace the user. Not one time in talking to any other company (of nearly every major DAW developer) has someone said to me, of something that’s not a bug, 'You know what, I think we can do better.' That was until I spoke with the Mixbus team.... Along with their willingness to approach their product with a genuine honesty, their support is fantastic."
I wonder if that staff reply was an outlier. Or maybe the company has changed since 2017. I have the basic Mixbus, and have used it occasionally for small home studio projects. I've really enjoyed using it, mainly because of the workflow, which feels like working with a console and a multitrack recorder. I don't have the experience to comment on whether it has a particularly unique "sound." The Admiral did report in his review that the 2017 Mixbus had twice the latency of Ardour (which it is based on). That suggests it's doing some processing all the time that Ardour isn't. It would be good to see measurements. -Tom
Have to change the channel name to "Dan Worral" because Harisson took the L.
Everything changes over time (including Companies). Remember when B.C. Rich made high priced and high quality instruments?
Dan "W" Worrall dropping another banger as per
Dan "BEEG W" Worrall
"If I had this plugin Five years ago...I'd be a billionaire by now"
we will have an update on there new 32 plugin?
BOOOOM!!!
got served, that was a great watch
For what it’s worth, I want to say I’ve seen a video in which someone takes an audio file and has mixbus do a mixdown of it with no added processing and it didn’t fully null with the original or something similar. Basically that there might actually be some non-linearities going on under the hood. All they would have had to do was put some sort of randomized harmonics or whatever you want to call it in the plugin and nobody would have been the wiser
The tape saturation is doing that. It's on by default. Turn the drive knob on the master bus to the left and then render the audio file and it will null.
@@vigilantestylez I want to say whoever made the video turned that off and it still didn’t null. Could absolutely be misremembering though
@@slayabouts I did it, and it did.
thanks for the video, Dan
In addition to the fact that it is obvious from afar that the advertising is lying through its teeth, one thing I don't like about this company is that if you buy any product you are not allowed to sell it afterwards.
As a rule I refuse to buy any product with such restrictive conditions.
It's our society mindset: the problem is not the plugin it's the user...
The stabbed is guilty
Lol. I actually do own Mixbus32C. To be honest - I cannot seriously judge the sound of that software (and most others), as I am just guy having some fun, and every time I visit my real producer friend and listen to some stuff in his studio, I realize how lacking my setup is, and how many things I miss (don't hear).
In case of Mixbus32C the only difference I can see is the workflow, ie. - instead of having a modern, clean DAW (like Reaper which I use all the time), you have a simulation of analog mixing desk with very lacking (just MY opinion) editing options. I believe that Harrison took an existing open source DAW (Ardour), made some skins and tweaks, put on their logo and are hoping to use their past fame to sell their product to either nostalgic old gits who missed the audio digital revolution by about 30 years or are trying to bring the "flash" of the analogue consoles to the new digital generation. On the other hand it might be an ideal tool for someone just mixing, not doing the editing. As soon as there is editing involved or, God Almighty forbid, MIDI, Mixbus is awkward. Though, their fresh marketing campaigns do inform me, that now, with the new version, it is better that ever before, including better MIDI support.
What I can say is that Harrison are pretty aggressive in the marketing department. The only ones that comes close in the email spamming department are Waves.
Mixbus is essentially Ardour with a few changes and Harrison plugins. Ardour originally started as a ProTools clone.
@@CraigScottFrost I hear you. It's quite a sobering moment when you realize you spend several hundred dollars/euros on "real" plugins and all you got to show is some flashy, usually impractical GUI. Still - can you REALLY resist to buy plugin with regular price of $500 if it's on sale for $49? It's all marketing, and let's be fair, they are doing hell of a job with that, up until the point when YOU realize you've been taken on a ride, and you are not the rider, but the horse.
Hello Dan, i am a big fan of your content and am extremely surprised by the amount and quality of knowledge you give to us on your channel. You have and i sincerely hope that you will keep giving us that in the future as well. Things that would have taken 10-15 years for me to know and understand and i am not sure that even after that much time i would have understood. So thanks a lot! I would like to ask you a question as a beginner in audio engineering field. What are your thoughts on routing for all the plugins set in an order such as eq, compressor, etc on individual channels while mixing a whole song and the difference it makes in the sound if the order is shuffled. Can you please make a video on this? Even a short one would help us a lot! (Sorry if i am not able to explain my question in a good way)
Please review the Harrison Mixbus! I’ve heard so many people say good things about the character and vintage sound and whatnot, now I have to know!!!
I've used both Mixbus and channel strip and the the DAW EQ behaves different from the channel strip
Thank you for calling BS. It's a shame that (at least some people at) Harrison disrespect their customer's intellect by telling them something that clearly isn't true. I hope it's not like that for the whole company.
About Mixbus - I've never tried it, but I do use Ardour (the open-source DAW it's based on) all the time.
I don't know how good Harrison's proprietary DSP in Mixbus is, but I think the same effect could probably be achieved in Ardour using a couple of Airwindows plug-ins for simulating analog summing etc. Not that my ears could tell a difference anyway. I'm quite insensitive to analog subtelties, as I've never worked with analog gear, and only ever been making music in-the-box using software. But I know some people sear by Airwindows analog emulations (Wytse from White Sea Studio covered ToTape5 IIRC).
_Shameless plug: I've been making videos/tutorials about Ardour and other open-source audio software for many years now. Next month I'll be interviewing Paul Davis live, the creator of Ardour as a new major version should be released soon. _
Pre roll ad for this vid...? HARRISON MIXBUS!
Someone's to be fired without a golden shake.
In that Harrison rep I smell a marketing guy who's learned just enough engineering-speak to be dangerous.
Give them a break dan
Anybody else keep checking back at the comments of this video to see if Harrison have had the balls to respond to Mr. Worrall just so he can tear 'em another new one...No?...Just me then. Keep up the great work Dan, it's very much appreciated.
There is a thread in the Harrison Mixbus Forum discussing this
Love it.. call everyone out!! I've been lately deeply disgusted by waves practices. Absolute scammers. As one smart man once said "I can smell the bullshit"
I've always been skeptical of Waves. Their business model isn't a good one. I'm actually a little bit sad to see our good man Dan be affiliated with them because of this. It's not that they make bad plugins. It's that they charge you for keeping them up to date. (unless i'm mistaken, then i apologise). But it seems you must pay to keep plugins updated, and they can charge you this every year. For plugins that are old. This is not a good business to be affiliated with in my eyes, it's tantamount to a scam. Some plugins will probably be hardly changed, if at all, and you might have to pay for an "update". I don't own any because of this model, and because i don't own any, i could of course have the wrong end of the stick i guess.. but it's certainly off putting