Feature(s) which keep MuLab from being your primary DAW?

[jonljacobi]

Hmm, I’m not sure that’s a great advertising for Mulab. My sense of satisfaction comes from taking what I hear in my head and translating it to the real world. Without that act of creativity, the whole exercise would be pointless to me.

[mgiambro]

When I first tried MuLab I was on Studio One Pro v2, a 'traditional' daw. I found MuLab incredibly comfortable and easy to use. I have either demoed or owned just about all the main daws and I cannot think of one which is easier to use. I get that the MuLab paradigm is different for those moving from traditional daws which some may find confusing, but if you're going to switch daw, what's the point of switching to one which is more of less the same as the one you are switching from? Switching to any daw will always require a degree of learning. Personally, I find MuLab very intuitive but everyone's brains are wired differently I guess. Ease of use is one of many reasons that MuLab is my daw of choice now, having plenty of experience of the other alternatives. The fact that it is such good value is a bonus. I just hope that this software gets the recognition it deserves so Jo is able to keep up his good work!

[Michael L]

My sense of satisfaction comes from taking what I hear in my head and translating it to the real world.

Me too. When I have a musical idea, I want a simple and fast way to express it. I think MuLab has the most 'elegant' design of all DAWs because each feature has many functions, and can be easily combined to do so much more. That workflow lets me focus on my idea while I develop it, and stay in the flowww....

[RichardSemper]

I was using cubase for my electronic compositions - as a hobby, i am no performer or professional.
Every time i ran cubase i would swear at it for something or other. For example the way it decides to spend an age scanning the vst database periodically whether i want it to or not, the way it stores presets etc in awkward predefined areas in windows where often cannot be backed up; the whole preset management system which i find difficult to navigate and hate. In short its very prescriptive and rather dictates your workflow and organisation. I have tried the likes of Live, Tracktion and bitwig, finding these seem to have similar annoyances for me.

Mulab for me is a breath of fresh air! The browser is perfect - allows me to determine how things are organised, allows me to browse samples and presets quickly and easily and listen to them without jumping through hoops. I can scan only the vsts I want to, when i want to, even on an ad-hoc basis.

It allows me to put my files where I want, making backup easy. I can easily transfer to another computer without having to mess about with re-installation, so can use it on the move.

Most of all I Love the whole modular concept. I find it very easy and intuitive. (I've always been a bit geeky) If there is a feature I want, generally there is a way to make it happen in a module. I felt like this software had been made specifically for me!

Things I thought I would miss, but find I can just about manage without:
- Ability to view and edit multiple midi parts at once - in cubase this is easy - select multiple parts, open the editor and the note information is all visible at once, with the first selected part displayed in a darker colour.
- The Chord track - this has some very useful functionality for composition

In fact, the thing I miss most is the amount of bad language aimed at my computer screen
My only reason for loading cubase these days is if some plugin or other does has a problem in mulab, eg only uses vst3 presets, or is only available in vst3.

Using mulab is a genuine pleasure for me. Many many thanks to Jo

[sl23]

I was using cubase for my electronic compositions - as a hobby, i am no performer or professional.
Every time i ran cubase i would swear at it for something or other. For example the way it decides to spend an age scanning the vst database periodically whether i want it to or not, the way it stores presets etc in awkward predefined areas in windows where often cannot be backed up; the whole preset management system which i find difficult to navigate and hate. In short its very prescriptive and rather dictates your workflow and organisation. I have tried the likes of Live, Tracktion and bitwig, finding these seem to have similar annoyances for me.

Mulab for me is a breath of fresh air! The browser is perfect - allows me to determine how things are organised, allows me to browse samples and presets quickly and easily and listen to them without jumping through hoops. I can scan only the vsts I want to, when i want to, even on an ad-hoc basis.

It allows me to put my files where I want, making backup easy. I can easily transfer to another computer without having to mess about with re-installation, so can use it on the move.

Exactly why I only use portable software! Absolute pain in the ass trying to find out where files are sometimes on installed apps!

Things I thought I would miss, but find I can just about manage without:
- Ability to view and edit multiple midi parts at once - in cubase this is easy - select multiple parts, open the editor and the note information is all visible at once, with the first selected part displayed in a darker colour.

Just a thought, but how about splitting the sequence edit window to show more than one, maybe just two parts?

[Kalamata Kid]

Multi-touch capability and ARA support will make me a happy Mulab owner.
Mulab will not be my main DAW but my one and only DAW!

[RichardSemper]

Things I thought I would miss, but find I can just about manage without:
- Ability to view and edit multiple midi parts at once - in cubase this is easy - select multiple parts, open the editor and the note information is all visible at once, with the first selected part displayed in a darker colour.

Just a thought, but how about splitting the sequence edit window to show more than one, maybe just two parts?

Certainly, this is do-able, but requires several steps to set up, and uses considerable screen space.

In cubase you simply select multiple parts across several tracks, double click to edit, and all those parts are overlaid in the same editor window. Click on a greyed out note brings its part into focus, select multiple notes across all parts and move or edit together at once. Workflow-wise this is pretty elegant.

On the other hand, cubase midi editing has many annoyances, eg navigation - there are many options for navigation; mostly you have to locate a tiny icon with a drop down list for zoom options or nudging etc, and it nearly always then centres the view around the wrong spot (aargh) Mulab is so simple and elegant in this respect: click and drag the background and zoom with scroll wheel, its so smooth and easy (Yay!)

[nenneb]

RichardSemper, I think the same way as you do! I also use Cubase sometimes, as it is much more powerful than MuLab. But it's overloaded and no way inspiring. Therefore MuLab IS my nr.1-DAW

Concerning multi-edit: I asked for that quite a while ago. At least for the option to get the same song-position and zoom-setting when selecting another track in edit-mode (I could remember a few notes while switching to another track).
I would prefer that to the Cubase-solution, as it can happen there, that notes are overlapping and you will select the wrong one by accident.

Also I miss the chord-track, as this would give harmonic orientation. "Negative" for years. Workaround so far is:
1. Create a new automation-sub-track (no matter what, e.g. aftertouch).
2. Move it to the very top. You also may reduce it's height. Name it "chord" or similar.
3. Create a new (automation)part of desired length. It won't need any content.
4. Rename the part to the chord of your choice.
Repeat 3/4 until you are done. You can copy/paste ...
Unfortunately you won't see it in edit-mode ...

[acid alex]

I’m looking at buying it for my DAW as well as Mux but only if it’s going to support Catalina in the future. I hope it will be updated

[Raph-T]

I like mutools for its creator Jo as he is simple,humanist,positive,creativ.What i dont like in mulab is highlighting pressed keyboard key in note editor still not available.

[shorty]

I´d like to see Ableton Live-like non-linear midi/audio clip-recording/playback. But I know it´ll be too much work.

Maybe workaroundable with a Mux-Midi, whatever that is... a Midi-Clip inside a mux.

But MuLab is great for what it is

[sl23]

Mulab is so simple and elegant in this respect: click and drag the background and zoom with scroll wheel, its so smooth and easy (Yay!)

This doesn't work for me. Sounds like a good tip though. Is there a settings to enable it?

Talking of settings, I would like to have settings grouped somehow. Currently the naming isn't very intuitive imho, and trying to search through that list when the need arises fills me with dread!

[Costa33]

A lot of interesting comments here. Now we are in 2022 and IMO the new MuLab 9 is one of the best daws with the clip launcher new feature, but still underrated.
As a reply of a previous post, yes Reason 11 or 12 can be used as a plugin, MuLab can be used also as a plugin in the DAW of your choice if you purchase the plugin version.
I use Reason 12 as a vst plugin inside MuLab, with vst3shell.dll and R12 works perfectly. Same with all VST3 that I use. The only problem with vst3shell is that the plugin eats a little bit more CPU, while in a DAW supporting VST3 (Bitwig, S1,...) the CPU is more safe.
So, I think that only the support of VST3 is missing now in MuLab

[wibem]

What I really miss in Mulab, is the feature to set a value for the audiobuffer. The audiobuffer is fixed to 512 (on my computer), which is too much for recordings and too small for a playback with CPU - hungry vsts. If your audio interface has no driver, in which you can setup the audiobuffer, you're lost. I wonder, why nobody mentions this as a big minus. The lack of this setting makes the Mulab DAW for me not usable. So, I have to use the Mulab plugin in Reaper, which for me is a perfect combination.

[pljones]

OK, so MuLab doesn't have a feature to ask the driver to set the buffer size.

But Reaper does -- that doesn't mean the driver will respect it.

You still need an audio card with a driver that lets you set its buffer size.