Recording Forum

[nerol1st]

Is this any good? It's on sale for $40, I've never heard of this DAW though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa_o6hmJg3Q

http://www.harrisonconsoles.com/mixb.../purchase.html

[gubu]

There are tons of reviews and critiques of this out there in internetland.

Some say that it's snakeoil, and nulls with every other DAW in tests similar to the 'Awsum Dawsum' test (which aren't real world mixing session tests, it must be said). Others say that the similarity in workflow to that of an analogue system makes it worth every penny when it comes to mixdown.

It's been on my want list for a while - as soon as I upgrade my machine.

[Captain Biscuit]

For $40 I'd say it's well worth a punt, especially if you don't own a few good compression and saturation plugins.


The interface is pretty nasty to look at (it's based on Ardour), but it feels snappy, responsive and generally stable. Certain plugins made it shit the bed though, the third-party compatibilty is iffy.

The comp, EQ and saturation on the tracks and buses is where the money's at though, and I honestly think they're good enough to justify putting up with the shitty workflow. Putting a mix together in the box feels really natural and quite inspiring. I didn't get chance to mess around with stuff like sidechaining, but Ardour is fairly advanced (albeit in a cumbersome, unintuitive way). I'd never use it for composing or probably even tracking - it can't handle the technical stuff well - but for pure mixing I like it.


I don't agree that it 'sounds better' than other DAWs in terms of summing etc, that's snake oil bollocks.

[WRGKMC]

I'm not sure theres anything there you cant do with other DAWs.
The question is, is it just a GUI thing or does it really have some good mixing qualities.
I know I have all those options using Sonar. I can build up the mixer
view any options you'd find there. This is the same with many DAWs I've used.

For most of the tracks I record dont need allot of buttons and knobs to adjust
so I untick most of them so they dont show and take up allot of space in the console view,
but they are there if I need them. I simply click a button or two and I have all my aux sends
and returns. Same for effects, meters, Track EQ's etc. Thats the nice part about Sonar is
its ability to customize all the menus, consome and track views. I have mine built for an analog
feel because I recorded analog for 25 years before going digital. I found Sonar the easiest to
tweak for my analog background. In comparison there are some that have GUI's that were very
difficult to adapt to.

[nerol1st]

Originally Posted by WRGKMC

The question is, is it just a GUI thing or does it really have some good mixing qualities.

This is definitely what I was thinking when I went and looked at a youtube video of it. Is it just a really pretty GUI or did they throw in something other DAWs don't have?

I didn't buy it. I'm so into cubase right now I don't think I could make the switch well.