Mixbus32C v8.1 with Mixer Scenes, native M1 support - Now Available!

[Ben@Harrison]

We have published a new, free software update for Mixbus32C : version 8.1.268!

This software update is FREE for both Demo and Licensed users of Mixbus32C.  If you have a license for v8, it will be found by the new v8.1 software with no additional steps required.

You can get the new Mixbus32C software from the Mixbus32C demo store page.  Due to high download volume, we use the FastSpring download service to provide you with localized, fast downloads of the Mixbus32C software.  You will be prompted for your email address and area-code so FastSpring can provide you a fast download link.

As always, I look forward to your opinion of these new features and I hope you'll write us (mixbus@harrisonconsoles.com) to tell us your thoughts!

Best,
-Ben Loftis
Harrison Mixbus product manager


New in v8.1: Mixer Scenes

Mixer Scenes allow you to quickly save and recall your knob settings of the mixer: this includes the fader, panner, sends, send levels, eq settings, compressor settings, and plugin settings.  You'll find the mixer scenes in the bottom-left corner of the mix window.  (If you don't see the mixer list on the left side of your mixer, click View->Mixer List in the main menu)

[Image: mixer-scenes.png]

Use mixer scenes to temporarily stash a mix, like "wetter vocals" or "vocal +2dB" and compare the 2 mixes.

Visit the Mixbus32C manual to learn more about mixer scenes: https://rsrc.harrisonconsoles.com/mixbus...xer-scenes



What else is new in Mixbus v8.1 ?

NEW: Stem export of MIDI tracks

• MIDI tracks (without an instrument) can be included in a stem-export, resulting in consolidated MIDI files for each track
  
• For tracks with an instrument, un-check the "Apply Track/Bus Processing" to stem-export the MIDI before a track's instrument plugin.
  

NEW: Freesound search added to the Import dialog (thanks to Colin Fletcher)

• Access millions of free, user-uploaded sounds
  
• Search the freesound database directly from the Import dialog
  
• Filter your results by popularity, length, license, or other criteria
  

NEW: native ARM builds for Mac M1, M2 computers (for TESTING)

• The "native' Mac M1 build uses Apple's latest OS and processor features to achieve effortless low-latency performance
  
• Non-m1 plugins may display oddly or not at all.  If your session uses VST or VST3 plugins, you should first check to see if the plugin manufacturer provides a native M1 plugin
  
• Links to the M1/M2 build are provided in your download links/information
  
• This package is provided for testing purposes only
  

Cue Page changes:

• Fixed a problem in v8.0 where some clips would stop looping, even though Follow Action was set to 'Again'.
  
• Fixed a problem in v8.0 where locating after a cue marker would make clip playback slightly out-of-time.
  
• Initialize the Follow Length control from the source's data length (instead of always showing '4')
  
• Given no other info, assume a clip is 1,2,4,8 or 16 bars at 4/4.  This makes third-party clips work much better
  
• Selecting a Range and choosing 'bounce to Clip Library' was failing on some systems.  this has been fixed.
  
• It was necessary to stop and restart playback before a change to the 'Play Cues' button would take effect; this has been fixed.
  
• NOTE: clip-launching features are still under heavy development!
  

MIDI improvements:

• Ctrl+D (Cmd+D on Mac) now duplicates selected notes inside a midi region (when in Internal Draw/Edit mode)
  
• Allow middle-button to delete notes in Draw/Edit modes
  
• Make default MIDI note range editable in preferences
  
• When transposing, expand MIDI note range when/as necessary so that notes do not vanish
  
• If a region is selected and we are in internal draw/edit mode, scroll the contents with the wheel
  
• Single-clicking on a region in internal edit/draw modes will now select the region so you can scroll it
  
• When drawing MIDI notes (with the Draw tool), enforce a minimum note length
  
• Drawn notes were always snapping to the grid, even if snap was off; this has been fixed
  
• 'Draw' tool was adding notes in the wrong location, in the case where the midi region start was trimmed.   This has been fixed.
  
• When switching to midi 'layered' region mode, the midi piano is now hidden since it does not align with the midi regions, and was confusing
  

Tempo Map improvements:

• Fixed the tempo-map for sessions where initial meter (and therefore 1|0|0) was moved to non-zero location
  
• Added undo/redo for Tempo Map operations
  
• Re-implement tempo map editing: re-enable stretch tempo drag
  
• Ctrl-drag now correctly alters tempo for that section (instead of making a copy of the marker)
  
• It is no longer possible to move the first 'meter' marker to set the 1|0|0 position; instead we will add a new method to set the 1|0|0 in a future update.
  
• NOTE: tempo map features are still under heavy development.
  

Improvements to the Audio Setup dialog, and initial setup:

• Add a pulldown menu to select hardware-does-monitoring/mixbus-does-monitoring since you'll likely want to change this setting, if you select a new soundcard.
  
• Hide the calibration features behind an "Advanced" tab
  
• Move the Start/Stop button to the bottom of the dialog, where someone might expect an OK button.
  
• Enlarge the "Monitor" button on the master bus, and allow it to be visible even if there is no monitor section.  Clicking this button will create a monitor strip for you, if one doesn't already exist.
  
• Remove 2 pages ('use hardware monitoring?' and 'use a monitor section?') from the "New User Wizard", since you can now select these items in more prominent locations, instead of having to visit the session properties or preferences.
  

Editing improvements:

• Mix tools: separate menu entries for Local and Global store/recall, to avoid the extra dialog
  
• Mix tools: all stored channel templates to set the 'name' of channels they are applied to; this is especially nice when you save your mixbus master section
  
• Always place first automation point using the current value; also: automation-range-drag: if lane is empty, use current value for guard points
  
• When cutting or clearing an automation range, always add boundary points so values outside the range stay in place
  
• When pasting a Range of automation, first add guard points,  so the automation data before and after this range is retained
  
• Show-Automation-on_touch was not working for faders, this has been fixed
  
• Fixed behavior of the option 'move automation with regions'
  
• Fix undo for toggling region mutes
  
• Fix trim_region_to_{loop|punch} ... coverage logic was reversed
  
• Fix Copy+Pasting of Ranges, where the paste was occurring with a big offset
  
• Ripple was working on all tracks, even if RippleAll was not selected; this has been fixed
  
• RippleAll was moving markers to the left of the selected region(s); this has been fixed
  
• Support group-override modifier in Range mode:  Allow the user to hold 'Shift' when starting a Range selection, to select only the current track, not the associated grouped tracks
  
• Automation-range-drag: if automation lane is empty, use current value for guard points
  
• Prevent overlapping points in time when dragging control points that were created as 'guard points'
  
• Fix duplicate undo/redo when stretching multiple regions
  
• Add Range operations to the Edit menu:  Loudness, Spectrum and Polarity Analyzers, so they can be bound to shortcuts
  
• Fix 'Crop' operation: it should apply to all layers included in the Range
  
• Fix "Rhythm Ferret" 'split on note onset' behaviors
  
• timestretching a region was not exactly the correct length when 'Snapped'. This has been fixed
  
• Skip any post-processing when exporting for analysis only
  
• Region fades longer than about 1second could be corrupted/weird. This has been fixed
  
• Do not allow dir-separators (/) in session-template names
  
• Relax the requirement that Cue Markers must always Snap
  
• Provide brighter/more-saturated colors for the tracks&regions, by default
  

New shortcut keys:

• Added a shortcut for 'expand/shrink track height'
  
• Added a shortcut for 'Stem-export selected tracks'
  
• Added a shortcut for 'Create a Range from Selected Regions'
  
• Added a shortcut for 'Consolidate Range'
  
• Added a shortcut for 'Single Range Marker for selected region(s)'
  
• Added a shortcut to 'unlink (fork) midi region from linked regions'
  
• Add shortcuts to Recorder and Virtual MIDI Keyboard windows
  
• Changed shortcut (secondary+c) from Big Clock to Cue page
  
• Moved "audio patchbay" from Alt-P to Shift+Alt+A, making it more consistent with Shift+Alt+M: MIDI patchbay
  

Export improvements:

• Always use "Wav (tagged)" as default export profile, instead of alphabetical first (was selecting Amazon by default)
  
• Retain last export's settings, including channel state (realtime settings etc)
  
• Keep export-format dialog on top of export dialog
  
• Fix a short audible glitch noise between each export in a multi-range export
  

General Fixes & Improvements:

• Fix XT-GV license check
  
• Recover missing tickmarks on faders, and 'DRIVE" text on the mixbuses
  
• Allow to configure vari-speed resampler quality, or disable it altogether
  
• LV2: pass patch-set messages to replicated plugin instances, also fixes impulse-analysis display
  
• Fixed nudge-playhead-backward
  
• Tweak the deflection of the shuttle slider
  
• Correctly restore mixer-list pane sizes for the mixer window
  
• Fixed an issue with the mixer-sidebar treeview not listing VST3 user-presets
  
• In the Add Track/Bus Dialog, change the default setting of the "Show On Cues" toggle button to OFF
  
• Use terminology "time signature" instead of Meter everywhere  (meter is too easily confused with audio metering)
  
• Fixed some glitches, and generally improved the speed of resizing tracks vertically
  
• Speed improvements for drawing & editing regions with lots of midi pitch-bend events
  
• Optimize ACE High/Low-Pass Filter plugin dsp performance a bit
  
• Clarify stop-at-session-end preference tooltip
  
• Allow port-resampling (varispeed) to use all processor cores again
  
• Do not allow dir-separators in session-template names
  
• Fixed a crash when exporting multiple timespans with MIDI tracks
  
• Added MIDI MAP for Alesis Q49 V2 master keyboard
  
• Fix for region export on windows (Clip Library Bounce)
  
• Add plugin tags for some Harrison, Apple, and x42 plugins
  
• Replace the missing Color Palette buttons
  
• Better handle some cases where the master-bus limiter and meter were pegged due to invalid input
  
• Likely fix for a long-standing crash related to nested 'undo'
  
• Fix the zoom/scrolling crash introduced in the .106 update
  
• Fix a hang or crash when clicking 'record' from MIDI or OSC remote controller
  
• Video import/export overhaul and ffmpeg-5.0 compatibility
  
• When right-clicking on a midi note and changing the channel for that note, the length would be truncated.  this has been fixed
  
• When adding new tracks: fix some crashes, reduce the redrawing time, and fix scrolling to newly added tracks in the mixer window.
  
• Import dialog:  Fix save/restore of Insert-At position
  
• Record With Count-In:  the metronome was not counting correctly during the count-in time.  This has been fixed.
  
• Session->Cleanup: retain sources used by triggers in this session
  
• Fixed displaying note events across tempo-changes
  
• Brighten the minor grid lines (fixes an issue where quarter- and eighth- note grid lines were too dim)
  
• Fixed some issues with creating midi notes, when the track mode is set to 'percussive'
  
• Track->Mix Tools->Reset Mixer was not working or would stop audio from working. This has been fixed.
  
• Mute and Solo buttons now show a complete list of available modifiers (group override, fine adjust, momentary mode, etc)
  
• Fixed printing keybindings
  
• Fixed some cases where region gain lines and/or region fades would not apply to an audio region that was 'glued to bars&beats'.
  
• Fixed a graphical issue in layered->stacked view, where a region on an upper layer would visually 'gray out' the lower region as if it were covered, when it was not
  
• Fixed latency compensation for hardware inserts on a mixbus
  
• Fixed the example lua 'send tracks to bus' script
  
• Many other crash-fixes and areas of potential crashes
  

Control Surface improvements:

Mackie MCU protocol fixes (thanks to Caleb Potter!)

• Add ability to bank 'send' and 'plugin' subviews (access sends 9-12 using the arrow keys)
  
• Fixed an issue where monitor section gets stuck on mute
  
• Fixed an issue where MCP controller strips got stranded switching banks
  
• add MCP button to toggle between master fader and monitor fader
  

Improvements to iCon Pro Audio control surface support (thanks to Caleb Potter):

• Remap button handlers specific to iCon QCon ProG2
  
• Add support for iCon QCon ProG2 controller
  
• Add support for iCon Platform X+ extenders with iCon Platform M+
  
• Add support for iCon Platform M+ controller
  

Improvements to Tascam US-2400 control surface support (thanks to Caleb Potter):

• Map track parameters and sends to vpots
  
• Use Bank- and Bank+ to page over sends on pots
  
• Allow user to bank over sends while in TrackView 
  

[Tassy]

Tried and works fine with my workflow

[krans]

I'm so happy for this!
Finally it seems I'll be moving from v7 to v8.
So far everything works like a charm.
And wow, those MIDI improvements really make a difference. Great work!

[Tassy]

It was mentioned on the beta that some Diskreader error keeps being listed in the log. What "filling" can mean? During mixing and playing there is no sign of any error. Mixing goes fine. 

What can this filling point to? Filling the waveform or some program language nothing to do with filling? Just want to understand what it might refer to.
In a new project I compared the tracks mentioned and the error message is quite independent of the fact whether the track is one range , it is separated a lot places or have deleted parts between regions in the track.

track "you are the one instrumental Left" is "error" but its Righ track is not. imported both and never touched. Both routed to the hardware out.
Good news:
Reopening the session all log is green. No errors in it.
Funny
best
Tassy
win7/64

[jeff_sloan]

It was mentioned on the beta that some Diskreader error keeps being listed in the log. What "filling" can mean? During mixing and playing there is no sign of any error. Mixing goes fine. 

What can this filling point to? Filling the waveform or some program language nothing to do with filling? Just want to understand what it might refer to.
In a new project I compared the tracks mentioned and the error message is quite independent of the fact whether the track is one range , it is separated a lot places or have deleted parts between regions in the track.

track "you are the one instrumental Left" is "error" but its Righ track is not. imported both and never touched. Both routed to the hardware out.
Good news:
Reopening the session all log is green. No errors in it.
Funny
best
Tassy
win7/64

I get a lot of those errors too, but nothing seems missing so far...

[Andy76]

Amazing work as usual, Harrison!

[Stephan S]

Regarding Apple Silicon:
What if I want to open Mixbus with Rosetta in order to use all Plugins?
Should I install the Intel version or wait until Rosetta option is implemented in the M1 Version?

Or to put it straight: Are there conflicts to be expected when installing both versions?

[Ben@Harrison]

@Stephan:

We provide 2 discrete installers for Mixbus: the Intel version and the ARM version. The ARM version has a different name, so you can have both versions installed on your computer at the same time. They share all the same preferences and other data folders. The only exception is the plugin-cache. The ARM version keeps a different plugin cache, and requires its own scanning process.

Since we don't use a 'universal binary', you don't have to worry about the Rosetta option. If you run the Intel version, you are running in Rosetta. If you run the ARM (M1) version, you are not using Rosetta and you are highly encouraged to use only M1-compatible plugins.

Apple will automatically 'wrap' your intel AudioUnit plugins to work, *but* this only works for your AudioUnit plugins, and we are having some difficulty with the plugin GUIs through that wrapper. We can likely resolve the gui issues, but we do not plan to wrap VST/VST3 plugins; so if you want to use the ARM build I suggest that you go all-in with a complete M1 system including M1 plugins.

-Ben

[Stephan S]

Fantastic, thank you Ben

[abcdaniel]

Excellent with an ARM version for mac!
When you say it is for testing only, what kind of testing do you refer to?
Is there something in particular we should be aware of in terms of wonky functionality, or something in particular you are looking for us to test?
Is it a beta-level release in terms of stability or is it already beyond that?