Where all is the "analog sound" applied in Mixbus?

[DeadRiff]

TL;DR - At which points in the recording and mixing process does Mixbus add the "analog color"? Does it add it to a DI signal on the way in or would I still get the same level coloring if I imported a DI track recorded in another DAW?

I've been using Studio One for a while and am considering picking up Mixbus for it's built in console and analog character, as having a channel strip on every track gets a little taxing on my CPU. Plus while using the demo I felt like my workflow was greatly improved. Basically, I'm looking at using Mixbus as a glorified analog-modeled channel strip VST, except it's built into the program and doesn't weigh down my CPU

Only issue is that I use midi to program drums and Mixbus was sort of a pain-in-the-you-know-what when it came to creating multiple tracks for my drum vst while S1 was just a matter of checking a box to create an output channel. My question is does Mixbus add color to a DI signal as it's being tracked into the DAW? Or if I tracked my guitars, bass, and drums in S1 then imported the tracks into Mixbus, would I still get the same effect?

Thanks in advance.

PS - how often does Harrison have sales? I saw they had a sale for 32c + a bunch of the AVA plugins for around $190, but didn't have the chance to jump on it

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Also, just wanted to bring up this thread I found from 2015 while trying to answer my question since it would basically solve what I'm trying to do:

http://mixbus.harrisonconsoles.com/forum...g+coloring

Comment from user RMorgan:

"Hi there,

Well, I'm note sure about Mixbus working as a plugin within a DAW, mostly because its strongest point is the simple and straightforward workflow. I think it would kind of defeat its purpose to make it work like Waves NLS, Slate's VCC, Sonimus Britson/Satson, Sknote's Stripbus, etc...

However, I REALLY think the guys from Harrison must work on a way to simplify and automate, as much as possible, the routing possibilities, meaning that they should make it simple for someone to connect his main DAW into Mixbus (and vice-versa) via Jackrouter, ReWire or similar alternatives, with just a few mouse clicks.

You know, something like: Open your main DAW > Open "Mixbus Loader" > Click "Launch" > Done.

I used to work with Computer Graphics. There are a lot of extremely complex CGI software which effortlessly communicate with each other via a similar mechanism. You just load the plugin from inside one software and it connects to another. After that, both programs are able to communicate in real time. A lot of standalone rendering engines work like this.

Anyway, honestly, I believe most producers wont be able to use Mixbus as their main DAW anytime soon. It will take quite a while until Ardour catches up with its competitors. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm just being realistic here.

So, yeah, in my opinion the guys from Harrison should find a simpler way to integrate Mixbus into people's workflow effortlessly. This is the way to go, if you ask me.

As far as I'm concerned, they could remove all the DAW features and make it strictly a virtual mixing board, as long as it's able to seamlessly communicate with other DAWs.

Just my two cents.

Cheers,

Morgan."

[Ben@Harrison]

Hi Deadriff!

Regarding your question about "is the analog sound applied during recording?" the answer is no: all of the "analog sound" (both the explicit stuff like EQ and saturation, and the implicit stuff like dither and ramping) is done in the playback and mixer engine.

Regarding your comment about multitrack drum plugins: In most cases it should be as simple as these 3 steps: (1) click New MIDI Track (2) select a multichannel VST instrument in the Instrument pulldown (3) in the next dialog, leave the box checked for "fan out to buses".

Regarding your comment about routing from one DAW to another: in the early days of Mixbus, we promoted that feature and we even included a routing utility, JACK, for that purpose. Over time we learned that, since the other DAWs aren't aware of each other, you end up with lots of subtle problems like latency-compensation, and of course the excess overhead of 2 daws running simultaneously.

Best,
-Ben

[DeadRiff]

Cool, so if I had songs I've already recorded in S1 and wanted to bring them over to Mixbus, I wouldn't lose out on any coloring that I would have gotten had I recorded in Mixbus itself?

The main issue with "fan out to buses" is that I couldn't customize how many buses were created. My drum vst has the option to have 48 buses, but that doesn't mean I want 48 buses haha. If you could change it to allow us to set how many buses get created, that would be a step in the right direction.

The other issue was that I was unable to process or add plugins to the individual buses separately. Maybe I was doing something wrong and need to try again, but like I said the process is so much more intuitive in S1.

As far as the routing idea goes, that's mostly just an interesting concept to me. I think Waves' CLA Mixhub works in a similar manner as described and it would be interesting to see a Harrison version of it.