Mixcraft 7 is here

[trimph1]

That is always the rub, isn't it?

Perception is key. IIRC I seen a lot of people say that the GUI was very influential in what it was going to sound like.

As for the EQ issue, it seems like the thing does suck huge.

[hibidy]

But I think that if something is lacking, or there are many other alternatives, it's a fair assessment.

For price point, tracktion, reaper and even a second-hand copy of studio one producer is a superior choice. I think even something like cubase elements has a better workflow.

I'm impressed by the direction it's going. Seems to be stable but the rent is too damn high (for the top-shelf product)

[lfm]

But I think that if something is lacking, or there are many other alternatives, it's a fair assessment.

For price point, tracktion, reaper and even a second-hand copy of studio one producer is a superior choice. I think even something like cubase elements has a better workflow.

I'm impressed by the direction it's going. Seems to be stable but the rent is too damn high (for the top-shelf product)

I'm not sure what you need in workflow:

Tracktion - not mixer view at all, rackbuilder is cool, but I use Metaplugin for that.
Elements - no track lanes at all to handle takes, a lot of fiddling to create a bus if you make a track folder, and I hate this split of instrument tracks into either instrument tracks or vst channels(synth rack in Sonar).
Reaper - to get a multiout vst in order is quite bundle of operations, but very cool track folder treatment with integrated bus. And very customizable.
StudiOne Producer - been there, done that. Horrible midi handling to use external instruments. You have to setup everything properly according to their plan which is not smooth.


Mixcraft - track lanes very easy to use, even as tracks withing tracks with it's own automation volume on each. And works nicely doing loop recording. Multiout VST is a treat, and all audio outs are in a folder by default,and just collapse and they are out of sight. Want to record midi with external instruemnt - just arm for record and record - nothing to setup to get that going. You want a couple of synths in unison or an arpeggiator before a synth - just add them after each other on the same track - not like Studio one to create on track for each, feeding each other.

That's workflow for me.

[hibidy]

Well, cool

[AlesisVi61]

But I think that if something is lacking, or there are many other alternatives, it's a fair assessment.

For price point, tracktion, reaper and even a second-hand copy of studio one producer is a superior choice. I think even something like cubase elements has a better workflow.

I'm impressed by the direction it's going. Seems to be stable but the rent is too damn high (for the top-shelf product)

Depending on an individual's needs and comfort level,I expect opinions to vary greatly at times...but Tracktion is superior..really??
Like already mentioned,there is no conventional mixer in Tracktion and it costs as much as Reaper...wtf?
If I was starting from scratch & I was financially destitute,I would just download a free copy of Ignite...a bit more rudimentary than Tracktion...but the price is right.

As for Studio One,I've had it for several years now and the mastering tools are superior,as is the stability...but the included instruments are nothing special,no video support and the workflow is not quite as speedy as Mixcraft and since I have the full version,it's way overpriced in terms of the feature/price ratio.
Unless you get it used like you mentioned,you have to spend at least $200 for the Producer version,just for the ability to use 3rd party VST's.
S1 Artist would be a good contender to Mixcraft 7(if S1 Artist had 3rd party VST support),but S1 Artist as is,is ridiculous.

One thing about Mixcraft 7 that I don't care for,is that it takes quite a bit of tweaking,to get it running smoothly...but once that's done,it's really an amazingly fluid DAW with plenty of useful functionality to it and I actually prefer a very cheap DAW with a basic VST/effects set,because it allows me to allocate my funds towards the optional VST's at my choosing(rather than spending $400 on a DAW with a pitiful library of sounds that for the most part,I do not use.)

[hibidy]

Well I didn't say artist. Obviously that is not in that range. Also I did start with PRICE point. I think when it comes to handling vsts and midi it's better for 60 bucks.

Anyways, I've decided against it......not that my opinion is terribly important.

[LawrenceF]

You often do get what you pay for. Cherry picking aside, a $2-400 app will be better developed in areas where applications functionality and designs overlap.

They all work, workflow is pretty personal and subjective, and you can make music in any of them, but there is no $100 app as well designed across the board as a 3-4-$500 app. The world simply doesn't work that way. Reaper tries hard to break that general rule and is successful in many ways but still falls a little short.

Mixcraft isn't S1 Pro, or Cubase, or Logic X, or DP, or Sonar X3 or PT, so we should stop pretending it is. Otoh, not everyone even needs what those thing bring to the table so people should buy what they need and ignore everything else.

But comparing them only makes sense if you actually don't need what the other things bring.

[LawrenceF]

rather than spending $400 on a DAW with a pitiful library of sounds that for the most part,I do not use

That's a common fallacy argument from people who make those kinds of false comparisons about products. You're not paying for "sounds", you're paying for professional level features, like more than one simple automation mode where you have an "Arm" button and that's it (trim, latch, touch, fill, etc, etc?), or scripting and edit macros and a well designed key binding system or the large collection of other stuff that loop assemblers or casual users don't want or need or seem to ever notice. That's what you pay for, not "sounds".

That's why those apps cost more because - fundamentally - they're more functional. But if you only want to do basic stuff it doesn't matter, you can do that with Garageband or Sequel or anything. These price comparisons get silly because they make people who otherwise have no gripe with some products like Mixcraft point out deficiencies because some of it's users are running around the net pretending that they're all really much the same, the $80 products and the 3-$400 products.

It's a shame really. I like Mixcraft and I would never point out it's shortcomings other than countering some of the crazy stuff people are implying. That's the real problem with cherry picking, once you start it often ends up being counterproductive, unless you ignore all of the cherry picks against you, which are legion.

It also has what may be my personal single most annoying workflow gripe of all, no tabbing through data fields. As someone who's spent years doing data entry in corporate jobs, that thing annoys me more than most. I typically won't use any product that makes it hard to name 24 tracks or whatever for very long.

Be happy. If you can make your music in Mixcraft and you're happy doing that, cool. But stop pretending that it's Logic X, it's not.

[lfm]

You often do get what you pay for. Cherry picking aside, a $2-400 app will be better developed in areas where applications functionality and designs overlap.

They all work, workflow is pretty personal and subjective, and you can make music in any of them, but there is no $100 app as well designed across the board as a 3-4-$500 app. The world simply doesn't work that way. Reaper tries hard to break that general rule and is successful in many ways but still falls a little short.

Mixcraft isn't S1 Pro, or Cubase, or Logic X, or DP, or Sonar X3 or PT, so we should stop pretending it is. Otoh, not everyone even needs what those thing bring to the table so people should buy what they need and ignore everything else.

But comparing them only makes sense if you actually don't need what the other things bring.

In my view the market economy world works like this:

If company gets away with charging $1000 and makes good business - that is what the price is going to be. So just going by price is not adaptable at all on software as I see it. Until maybe 10 years ago ProTools did not have all that much competition but Logic - and market for home studio didn't bloom like it now has. Avid are still trapped by this and is now going through transformation being a publicly listed company and all.

Espcially when it comes to software you also have a correlation between what you expect a customer to pay. A very niched field - you try charge like crazy. A consumer field - you adapt to that and expect volumes.

Take computer games - maybe 100 people for a couple of years on AAA titles - that is plenty more than put on any daw on that time range - and they charge silly money like $90 or so at launch, and then maybe $15 after a year. I wonder if any top daw vendor has more than 10 people as devs, but then some on marketing and stuff - but then charging $500-$1000 for top shelf product.
So price is not related to the amount of work involved - it's more about expected market.

As the music home studios has grown pretty good there are also good entry level software, much more capable today than anytime before. This is thanks to indy developers been taking on this field.

Slowly the top vendors are adapting to this by introducing entry level products. Some like Steinberg still strip entry products a lot but still not as much as before. PT Express is also next to useless even for a beginner, and compared to PT HD then PT also has artificial limitations.

Looking at going the Cubase route - I compared every little thing passed summer and found that 80% of what I pay for compared to Elements, I will never use anyway. Just a few strategic things they put there.

Price has little or no relation to how useful the product is for the vast majority. It's just semantics - unless you run a studio taking on clients.

A lot of namedropping is going on:

DP is nowhere near stable for windows to consider pro work, on Mac another story.
Sonar X3 is entry level, Studio and Producer are almost the same software just som bling-bling plugins basically. So X3 is $90 about as regular price if I remember correct and hardly stripped of anything - but prochannel in Producer.

Mixcraft is the same principle - same software as Pro Studio - but more bling-bling plugins. For anybody like me just wanting a tape machine to hold clips and host plugins and fiddle some automation for mixing - and done - MC serves well. And I gather for those wanting loops and stretching and some video work too.

S1 Pro - nothing in there worth the money compared to producer unless you use external rack effect units.

And some seem to stare at whether the product is used by the professionals - look at me I run the professionals version. I saw a comment by someone that he could very well cope with what's in entry level products - but no he rather downloaded a cracked copy of the top shelf product. It's like we are boosting our ego by what we use, what we drive etc.

Sometimes it's nice to feel you invest and have headroom for anything. But better invest in plugins since so many low cost daws can host them for you. That makes most the difference in what you can do.

Buy Cubase Pro 8 for €550 - or buy Elements or Mixcraft or something else and spend €450 on the actuall tools that makes a difference in how it will sound. You can pretty much buy Waves Gold(30+ plugins) now for $199(even less at retailers), and have plenty money left to buy favorite synths and stuff. Or the full Platinum(40+ plugins) bundle for that excess cash.

And the best thing - having 3rd party plugins you can shift daws any time and still have your tools - that you know well. That will influence what your mixes will sound like a lot more than the daw you use.

[LawrenceF]

nothing in there worth the money

That's kinda my point tbh, that users tend to create their own personal realities and extrapolate that into a universal truth, when it's really not.

There are quite obviously many thousands of people who would strongly disagree with a comment like that about any workstation product. How much something is "worth" is a purely individual evaluation. Most of the comments here are based on consumer points of view where the vast majority have no intent to make any money from using any of the products, so "worth" is largely attached to budget or hobby cash.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that... but the two things too often get mixed up in the same discussions. A lot of it revolves around confirmation bias, where we make whatever we use and really like of great worth, even if very few others agree. That's the way it should be though, since we work for the money we spend and we should spend it any way we see fit.

But making that a truth for the masses is another story. While all of these products, with no exceptions, are nice, there is a literal truth, and that truth is that the expensive products are by and large more functional, for people who actually need all that, which of course is never everybody.

You see the same types of thing in the Open Source discussions where people are often adamant that open source app A is as good as expensive commercial app B and that's actually - never - true from my experience. Good stuff, sure. Better or even just as good across the board? Never that I ever saw.

The logical flip side of that is a wacky assumption, that millions of people running professional studios or scoring films with subjectively expensive software are just suckers and they all could just get by with $90 Mixcraft. That, on it's face, is just kinda ridiculous.

Be happy. No need to try to convince anyone that what you're happy with is as good or better than what the other person likes or *needs*. It doesn't matter. It only matters that you're happy.

But then again, if we all did that the host forum here would be full of cobwebs.

Mixcraft is great, but it 'aint PT or Logic or Samp. You can't buy all that for $90... which works out ok since most don't need all that anyway.

[memyselfandus]

just messed with Mixcraft 7. I love the look of it. some questions though.

How the hell do you record a performance into the clips area?

Why in the hell does the grid change in the piano roll while zooming? it shrinks.

I have some more but I'm going to read up on it.

[memyselfandus]

I like a shiny GUI as much as the next guy, but if the product offers something in workflow that is refreshing, it's not a deal-breaker for me. I haven't demoed it yet......I'm hosted out

tonight's a good night..

[hibidy]

haha! I demoed it (actually, I'm not 100% done) but it's not much imho. It's like every other host......many cool good things, but nothing is "finished"

I like the comping

[memyselfandus]

but it has the clips thing.. I have to mess with it. as soon as I figure out how to record into clips..

[lfm]

Be happy. No need to try to convince anyone that what you're happy with is as good or better than what the other person likes or *needs*. It doesn't matter. It only matters that you're happy.

Mixcraft is great, but it 'aint PT or Logic or Samp. You can't buy all that for $90... which works out ok since most don't need all that anyway.

I don't remember anybody saying that busíness studios taking on clients should replace PT or Logic with MC.

But I remember folks dismissing a daw completely because you cannot solo busses properly.

Well, I started this thread to promote MC a bit - I am happy with it and without showstoppers and until a month ago unknown to me.

It was a link to 19 top daws or whatever it was called - where I learned about it. If listed beside the top daws - how bad can it be.

Not bad at all, was the answer. But I record everything live - nothing programmed and stretched and stuff.

And I like smaller companies, rather than the folks that are prepared to run you over to take your money - another upside. Short route to devs.

If any downside it's maybe that they try to please too many fields of work - instead of making the core daw top notch. If the part you are mostly interested in and a smaller company it might be it's a standstill providing anything new or improvement. A couple of devs can only do so much. If to make new plugins, please those editing video, and those wanting more of live features and the core daw - might tell why v7.0 and still much to do.