Any suggestions/tips/tricks on how best to use Harrison MixBuss with Reaper. Use it as a final mixing stage for Reaper generated files? How best to Transfer files? Stem render and import, or link them, etc?
I finally pulled the plug and bought the MixBuss on sale (until March 22), since I've been thinking about going back to OTB mixing (Why would I do that? I need to finish up an album worth of material that's been lingering for over a year, yet I can' seem to "finalize" - paralysis by analysis, too many plugin options. Hurts my 50 year old brain, then I lose the muse).
Thus, Harrison MixBuss seemed like a good intermediate step between all that Reaper can do, and OTB mixing.
So, I bought and tried it last night. After a learning curve stumble, within a few hours I was up and running. REALLY enjoyed the old-school feel of mixing with all the EQ, Reverb and Compressor choices right at your fingertips (evoked old muscle memory). It was actually fun to mix again. Set up your busses, and go. No windows jumping around, no functions hiding behind other windows, etc. Want to change the tone? Move the EQ knob, then go on to your next decision while you are listening to the music. Definitely helped me with my ADD type issues, anyway.
SO, my question is - I don't want to leave Reaper (been using it over 6 years now), so my current thinking is to do all of the original recording, VSTi overdubs, editing, prep work, plug-in massaging, in Reaper, and then only when that is finished do the final mixing with MixBuss.
Hence I'm wondering who else is doing this, and if they have any tips.
Thanks for your suggestions/comments!
roy
Last edited by roygbiv; 03-20-2013 at 01:36 PM.
Reason: Mispelled words
Wow, that was quick - thanks Lawrence! - I'll watch that YouTube video.
I can really see this is being a good combo. The only daunting aspect is that I have ~ 25 songs already near-done, and so want the most efficient way to stem render, level matching, file rename, etc.,
I don't want to find out later there is a faster ways to do this, and I did it the stupid way. Also, I'd rather not lose some of the info/work/decisions I've already made for the material in Reaper (kick/bass ducking, etc.).
UPDATE - I should also note that I'm using Windows 7, so I won't have access to all of my plug-in arsenal. A good and bad thing, just trying to figure out if I should freeze/render, etc., to get some of the plug-in effects before transferring.
SOME NEW QUESTIONS;
1. Any tips on Stem rendering for such a task? I figured it out roughly last night, but was having volume issues, and had to re-name everything.
2. Anyone tried "AATranslater", a program for going from ProTools into other things, etc.? Could it be used for going from Reaper files to Harrison MixBuss? That would be super-fab, and worth its $59 cost, if I didn't have to stem-render, export, import, etc. all that different material. (Their WebSite is not very clear about Reaper->MixBuss).
3. What routing audio from Reaper into MixBuss, live, in real time, using JACK? Anyone tried that on Windows? I've read that can be done, but maybe it was only on OSX/Linux.
4. Anyone have any luck getting and VST or AU plugins to work on MixBuss in Windows 7? I haven't tried yet, again, trying to fish for some tips before setting off on a fools errand.
Thanks in Advance,
roy
PS - so far the video Lawrence posted is exactly what I experienced - an overall improvement in the "organic sound". For $60, its cheaper than buying most other analog emulators. Just trying to figure out how to retain all the goodness and power of Reaper, add this cool new sound/interface option, and minimize the impact on my work-flow.
This is exactly what I use Mixbus for also. What I do is get the mix 90% there & then render each track individually out of Reaper. They "why" is because Reaper seems to dull down the mix when doing stems, and it still does a little when saving each track at a time.
This the ONLY REAL problem I have with Reaper since the 4x series started. 3.26 renders exactly what the mix sounds like, so I use that. As for VST's in Win7, it has been a serious hit & miss on stability. The Plug & Mix 2x series does fine, the 3x series crashes Mixbus a lot. MY older Sonnox plugins, which are stable in Reaper, laugh every time I open them in Mixbus. It is one of those "try it & see" type of things.
Reaper is my scratch pad anymore. When I need a lot of automation I use PT MP9. Then everything is ran thru Mixbus....works for me!
__________________ Yep's First 3 Years in PDF's
HP Z600 w/3GHz 12 Core, 48GB Memory, nVidia Quadro 5800, 240GB SSD OS drive, 3 480GB SSD Sample/Storage drives, 18TB External Storage, Dual 27" Monitors
I'm considering updating MixBus when it gets some of the new Ardour 3 stuff. I bought version 1 way back just to kind of play with it on Mac a little, but going forward I may mix with it regularly in Win 7... once it updates again, and if it has another $50 sale or something I can catch... and if (dunno) I can even remember what email I registered v1 Mac with.
There was no Win version then (IIRC) so I couldn't really give it a good go in the studio.
I probably wouldn't use it for anything but mixing stems.
Edit: Curiously enough, I don't even see an upgrade path from v1 to v2 on the website.
Hi Smurf, thanks, in fact it was some of your posts extolling MixBus that helped push me off the fence and go ahead and buy it. I have to say, the sound is exactly as you say, excellent overall "vibe".
Couple of quick questions, if you don't mind:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smurf
This is exactly what I use Mixbus for also. What I do is get the mix 90% there & then render each track individually out of Reaper.
Excellent to know - any tips or macro suggestions for how best to do this to make subsequent import into MixBus as painless as possible? - i.e.., how to keep the name of each track, the appropriate volume levels, best sample-rate to use for the WAV file rendering (so it is not re-rendered by MixBus sample-converter) etc.?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smurf
...As for VST's in Win7, it has been a serious hit & miss on stability. The Plug & Mix 2x series does fine, the 3x series crashes Mixbus a lot. MY older Sonnox plugins, which are stable in Reaper, laugh every time I open them in Mixbus. It is one of those "try it & see" type of things.
Sorry for the dense question - how do I even get access to VST's on MixBus? Is that discussed somewhere on their webpage? Or is there a forum for MixBus similar to the fabulous one here for Reaper?
This is exactly what I use Mixbus for also. What I do is get the mix 90% there & then render each track individually out of Reaper. They "why" is because Reaper seems to dull down the mix when doing stems, and it still does a little when saving each track at a time.
I'm curious about this and Mixbus, too (on KVR Tim from Harrison said that the sale will go through the end of March, BTW). I would like to learn more about exactly how you render each track to stems. When you say you get the mix 90% there, do you mean that you are using compression and EQ on the individual tracks to where you think you want it (using VST plugins), and then render that treated audio to a stem, with final compression and EQ in Mixbus?
This is exactly what I use Mixbus for also. What I do is get the mix 90% there & then render each track individually out of Reaper. They "why" is because Reaper seems to dull down the mix when doing stems, and it still does a little when saving each track at a time.
This the ONLY REAL problem I have with Reaper since the 4x series started. 3.26 renders exactly what the mix sounds like, so I use that.
OK I'm going to ask my question in this thread since it would likely not be as hijacking due to the age of the thread and the OP likely got his answer...
What!!! The renders are truer from version 3 than version 4? I hadn't heard about this until I saw this thread. Are people not using 4x to render and instead using v3x?
Using Harrison MixBus with Reaper Tips?
Hybrid Mode
