MP3 export soon? Or paid add-on?

Is there going to be an MP3 option soon? Even if one had to pay a few dollars for the licence it’d be very handy. Something that’s slowing me down a bit - when I export AIFF in Logic for a client I can export an MP3 at the same time to the same folder. So I can e mail my clients reference mp3s immediately. In Mixbus I have to do the exports, open Peak, bring in the AIFFS, create the mp3 etc etc, when I’m doing perhaps 20 tracks for someone, that can add considerably to the time.
Cheers!
Simon

I thought that there would be a possibility for OSX, but I’m not sure, never worked with it. For Linux, I would totally appreciate it, but it has been discussed many times before that it’s not possible due to legal problems.

An add-on kind of thing from someone else would be awesome, however, I think I would also pay some (few) bucks.

Benjamin

I wonder what the legal issue is? Most progs have the Freuhofer (scuse spellin!) or Lame plugin - and as Mixbus is a paid for prog, then it should be possible to either pay a few dollars to add, or put the price up and add!

Realised just now on a mix that my workflow is interrupted even more - I am using an external Amek Neve compressor in the mixdown. There seems to be no way to bounce in real time so that the external plug-in is recognised. So now I have to record to a new track from the master outs (cool that it’s easy to do that of course…) then render that file (which cannot be read by Peak LE - its 32 bit floating I guess) to an AIFF, then got to Peak etc. Ho hum, the price we pay for a slightly better sound!

Couple of other bugs - anyone else have it that the bypass buttons don’t operate first click? One needs to click on, move mouse away, click on again to see if it’s blue or not?

I also find the automation tool clumsy - I’d like a simple pencil type tool, not a two-pronged devil!
Simon

@scardenelli

Note that you are on Ardour’s forums, so most responses will be for Ardour and not Mixbus. On Ardour MP3 won’t be supported due to legal issues, though it may be possible on OS X going through the system CoreAudio libs which avoids that legal issue I believe. I can go into the legal issue if you want, but it is a lot of annoyingness;)

However all this can be moot with Mixbus, which might be able to include it separately, but keep in mind that most of Mixbus is still open source and this includes the export code, so it may not be easy to add unfortunately.

I am double checking on realtime export, I was under the impression that should work fine, but it seems like it might not. You can bounce in realtime to a tape track. You can also modify the internal formats used by Mixbus in the Options menu if that makes it easier.

Couple of other bugs - anyone else have it that the bypass buttons don't operate first click? One needs to click on, move mouse away, click on again to see if it's blue or not?

Haven’t seen it recently, but it used to happen yes. However a shortcut for bypassing plugins is to middle mouse button click on the plugin name in the mixer strip.

I also find the automation tool clumsy - I'd like a simple pencil type tool, not a two-pronged devil!

Would love to hear more details about this? Not sure what you mean by two-pronged tool? I only ever use the object tool on the automation tracks really and it works well.

Seablade

Thanks Seablade. Middle mouse button, great! I was trying ALT, CTRL etc to try and bypass from the edit window, excellent.

Is there a Mixbus specific forum then?

As to the automation tool. I assume you mean the first tool in the list, hand shaped select/move objects? This is what I’m using. Well, when I mouse hover over the auto strip, I get one of two things. Firstly, outside of any existing line a large white cross, which when mouse clicked gives me an automation point. BUT, it is always added above or below any existing line, as when I line the mouse up with the line it turns into a tool with two points - to the left is a small + and half a centre to the right is what looks like a jack plug. Left clicking mouse gives me a readout of current setting. Or if the + is over an auto point I can drag it up down and left right. So what I’m finding it very hard to do is add an auto point at exactly the level of existing data - when I want to create a quick dip in level for a small section, I want to be able to create multiple edit points without affecting what’s already there, then I can drag these to my satisfaction afterwards. Does this make sense?

I have to say I’m having an awful lot of crashes with this, I’m sticking with it for now, but considering it’s called MIXbus - I would expect it not too crash when I’m trying to automate! Also, I often get a frozen fader - after editing some volumes say, then try to adjust, having turned to Manual - that fader refuses to move. Have to close and re-open Mixbus to sort. Lots of niggly bugs, not sure how long I’ll give it. I really WANT to love this programme! I do love the sound, and much of the editing stuff, particularly the splice edit, similar to Pro Tools - one of the most useful editing functions is the ability for all the tracks to budge up to the edit - very useful for example if I’ve got a drummer who’s not that tight and I remove a sliver of audio across the entire session in a pause, loads of other places I use this kind of editing!

Let’s hope Harrison are working hard on keeping this alive. There are a lot of newcomers to this market, Presonus One I tried, it’s OK, but lacks some very essential pro application features. I think MB has it going for it, if they keep developing it’ll probably make serious inroads. Even without midi it can stand up. I’d like numerical readouts on the EQs for example - or just make the knob buggers a bit bigger! They really are tiny on a laptop, and if it means I have to go into the channel strip editor to see the frequencies more easily - surely a simple hover over button reading would be possible? It’s everywhere else after all! One can take the real world console analogy too far sometimes!

I really appreciate your help - that middle mouse button for bypass for example - I googled, searched and looked at the manual but didn’t find - though I have to admit to being a little impatient if I can’t find something intuitively…
Cheers
Simon

Is there a Mixbus specific forum then?

Not really no. There are two methods of obtaining support for Mixbus specifically. The first and the fully supported method is to email them int hat support email you got when you purchased Mixbus. They also tend to be very responsive. The second is via Help>Chat in Mixbus itself, which will take you to a chatroom that the developers and other users tend to hang out in and can be good for getting realtime feedback, though it is most active during the daytime business hours CST.

As to the automation tool. I assume you mean the first tool in the list, hand shaped select/move objects? This is what I'm using. Well, when I mouse hover over the auto strip, I get one of two things. Firstly, outside of any existing line a large white cross, which when mouse clicked gives me an automation point. BUT, it is always added above or below any existing line, as when I line the mouse up with the line it turns into a tool with two points - to the left is a small + and half a centre to the right is what looks like a jack plug. Left clicking mouse gives me a readout of current setting. Or if the + is over an auto point I can drag it up down and left right. So what I'm finding it very hard to do is add an auto point at exactly the level of existing data - when I want to create a quick dip in level for a small section, I want to be able to create multiple edit points without affecting what's already there, then I can drag these to my satisfaction afterwards. Does this make sense?

Absolutely does yes. I will add one other thing to it for clarification, which is that if you click and dragon the line itself, it will move the two automation points on either side of the click event together to maintain that line, which can be useful at times. But I completely understand your point about being able to add in automation points manually without changing the lines.

I have to say I'm having an awful lot of crashes with this, I'm sticking with it for now, but considering it's called MIXbus - I would expect it not too crash when I'm trying to automate! Also, I often get a frozen fader - after editing some volumes say, then try to adjust, having turned to Manual - that fader refuses to move. Have to close and re-open Mixbus to sort. Lots of niggly bugs, not sure how long I'll give it. I really WANT to love this programme! I do love the sound, and much of the editing stuff, particularly the splice edit, similar to Pro Tools - one of the most useful editing functions is the ability for all the tracks to budge up to the edit - very useful for example if I've got a drummer who's not that tight and I remove a sliver of audio across the entire session in a pause, loads of other places I use this kind of editing!

Hmm you shouldn’t be having a lot of crashes, if you get a moment, please email the crash report(When the crash happens click 'Report" and copy and paste that text) to Harrison so they can look at it, along with a description of what you are doing at the time. I don’t think I have ever had a frozen fader though, that makes me really wonder.

In as far as splice edit, last I checked I think that mode did have problems, but maybe I am out of date on it since I don’t use it myself.

Let's hope Harrison are working hard on keeping this alive.

They are, I talk to them about it and future developments nearly every day in fact.

I'd like numerical readouts on the EQs for example - or just make the knob buggers a bit bigger! They really are tiny on a laptop, and if it means I have to go into the channel strip editor to see the frequencies more easily - surely a simple hover over button reading would be possible? It's everywhere else after all! One can take the real world console analogy too far sometimes!

Actually I honestly found that I prefer not having the exact readouts. I am used to seeing the frequencies, or was before i started using Mixbus, and every now and then I do look them up, but often I just ignore it and set it by ear, and find I prefer doing this anyways. But it is a good suggestion for people that prefer to use it also.

Feel free to ask questions here by the way, my point was to just keep in mind that unless you are specific(And sometimes even if you are:) you responses will be from Ardour users, which while there is a lot of similarities, they aren’t exactly the same.

Seablade

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the nice comments and good feedback! ( yes I know, feedback is a bad word in audio engineering circles :slight_smile:

Regarding mp3: There will be some mp3 options in a future update. In the interim, there are several apps that allow you to make mp3 files from wave files without opening a big application like Peak. Personally I use the command-line app " LAME " which creates (to my ears) excellent-sounding mp3 files. Then I upload those mp3’s to my web server from the same command line. I realize this isn’t for everyone, but I’m sure there are some good options out there.

Regarding the automation tool: are you trying to do gain adjustments? Let me suggest that you use the Gain tool to draw right on top of the region. Here’s a fantastically useful shortcut that was introduced in 1.5: use the Gain tool to “drag” inside the colored bar at the bottom of the region. This will create a white range across the selected region. now click inside the white range and drag up/down. Voila! A very quick way to punch-up a syllable or whatever. Fader automation is, as you’ve found, still somewhat buggy. We’ve made massive improvements in the last 2 weeks which will be appearing in a future update.

Regarding the EQ readouts; I think you will be pleased with some upcoming changes. That’s all I can say for now :slight_smile:

-Ben Loftis
Harrison Consoles

This kind of response is what’ll keep me sticking with Mixbus for the ride! Thanks Seablade and thanks Ben, it really is good to know that you are not just listening but reacting. The EQ thing I agree it’s really nice to use the ears - and I do that a lot of the time, but there are times when I know exactly (OK- within half a K!) what I want and would like to be able to dial it in quickly.

I’ll try the gain thing Ben, as soon as I’m back at the session.

I started my computer based music career with Steinberg Pro 16 on a Commodore C64, and worked my way through everything Atari, PC and MAC - I’ve got Pro Tools 8, Logic 9, Cubase 4 & 6 and use them all (mainly because a client will bring me something in a particular DAW) , but for my own composition and production I’ve got very into Logic over the past year, after being very Cubase 90s, Pro Tools - 2000s, and Nuendo/Cubase 3,4,5,6. Then to Logic. I decided to spend the money on Mixbus because I agreed with the philosophy that DAWs hadn’t really dealt fully with the summing issue. The first thing I did when I bought MB was load in a live blues guy I was mixing, single guitar and voice. Added SSL X-Verb and was astonished at how different it was from exactly the same set-up in Logic. I can run Logic and Mixbus side by side on my Macbook Pro, so was able to do (non-scientific of course) A B tests. Really loved the clarity, depth and dare I say that overused adjective “warmth” that Mixbus was giving me.

So I’m sold on the sound, and therefore have endured the crashes and misunderstandings of terminology that have certainly slowed my mix down, but conversely, my mixes take less time to set up to basic sound in the first place! And of course there’s a learning curve for any new DAW - considering I have to keep at least 3 other DAWs shortcuts in my poor forgetful brain at any one time I guess I’m doing OK with Mixbus.

So I’m excited to hear that there are new things in the pipeline! I’ll be more than happy to credit Mixbus when a project I mix makes it to CD and I have the say to do so. I’m hoping we get AU Instruments soon, though I guess that may not be a priority, and maybe it’s a big ask. But if they arrive I reckon I’ll do all my composition and band recording in Mixbus.

Simon

@scardanelli, to know te exact amount of eqs, comp or busses sends, just clic the little “led” thing left down of the fader, this will show up an “hidden” window with all numeric values…

I know, it has been discussed many times before, so sorry in advance. But is it really any problem (licence/philosophy/religion/whatever) to check for the lame executable and call it if available?

@vtech: we accept patches. talk is cheap :slight_smile:

@ psychonain - thanks, I know about that page, but that’s not what I meant. That’s a very inefficient way of quickly dialling in an eq setting on the fly, It’s a useful page for looking at the settings but not much good in the general work flow of things!

@Paul: You are right. I unpacked the sources and I’ll give it a try.

@vtech: just so that i am clear: this is very far from a trivial patch. very far indeed.

@paul: What about “postprocessing” the exported wav? That way it shouldn’t break the current code.