Can Mixbus export PolyWav files? I have a Sound Devices MixPre6 which imports them to work multitrack......

Mixbus can "import" multichannel wave files (for example you can import a 6-channel wave from the recorder into 6 mono tracks of Mixbus, for mixing).

Is that what you mean?

Actually no. I wanted to see if it would export them. I'm thinking not, that I'd need to do that some other way? The Sound Devices recorder will import them.
I use the unit as a stand alone recorder and Mixbus for mixing.....

@ ardis : if the SD is the remote recorder, and you want to mix in Mixbus, then you will be importing the files into Mixbus. That should work great!

Yeah I get that, but I record and mix and then re-import tracks into the recorder for overdub. I'll do a base mix and then have soloists/singers come in. Make sense?

please clarify .. you want to export individual tracks out of MB .. to mix in another program ??? or just to use as stems when recording vocals in another DAW or recorder i assume !!!

Yes Sound Devices Mixpre only imports polywave files. I was asking if Mixbus can export them. Thx!

downloading the 5.1 update now ... how many tracks can the SD import in a Poly ??

I made a session with 6 tracks ..

Stem Export - Creates 6 separate files ..
Audio Files Export Creates a Stereo File ..

i do not see any POLY options ...

I’ve done that also. Mix Pre can import 12 tracks on a polywave file

If you want to generate a polywave file in Mixbus, the only way is to record to a multichannel track, and then export the resulting region.

Mixbus tries to limit all tracks and buses to stereo, but you can force a track to have more channels (inputs). Try this:

Create a new track. Right-click on the track and choose "Inputs", then click on the track's name and select "add audio input port" until you reach the desired number of inputs.

Then connect your various tracks to feed that track's N inputs, and record it ("bounce" it).

Finally, right-click on the resulting region and Export it using the desired sample rate, format, etc.


-Ben

Thx Ben! A great answer as usual. Sound Devices also has a Wave Agent tool that supposedly makes poly wav files also. Will try. The combination of recording on the Mixpre and mixing in Mixbus really is a winner in terms of sound!

i second that ... thank you Ben !! and thank you for your help yesterday with my waiting more than 7 days to install 5.0 .. but honestly i my dog ate my installer !! working out of town really !! thank you again .. do you think we might see in the mainstream (menu's and features) ?? i wish people at home had LCR at least .. that 3rd Source (Center) can really open up a mix .. i miss mixing 5.1 content .. !!!

cheers john

Mixbus gets an awful lot right. The Achilles heel IMHO is the GUI. It is just too cramped to use without a monitor the size of Rhode Island.

Turning the tiny virtual knobs is a patience-trying experience. Reading the strip names? Impossible without a magnifying glass.

What's needed is a zoom in/scaling feature.

Hi, try this

How is the newest version of MB treating your CPU and other resources?
I've read it's still quite heavy on those.

I still like MB but it still is difficult to see on my laptop, scaling only does so much. Track names are incredibly important and are the smallest things in the layout. Please try to do an alternate layout option that would expand window areas or something. I don't care that it tries to look like a mixer....... I bought the update but that didn't change and is so basic...... The old gray version was far superior, option?........

There was a thread in here elaboratly explaining how to route Cubase + Jack + Mixbus.
Anyone?

Search and find. Personally I wouldn't do that, if you want the Mixbus sound, edit your tracks in Cubase and mix in Mixbus. Or export Stems from Cubase and import them in Mixbus. I did a null test between Cubase and Mixbus 32c not long ago and as long as you don't engage the EQ/filters and leave the saturation on the busses rather conservative, you won't get any real benefit. The beauty and the sound of Mixbus unfoldes if you use it for the whole mixing process, at least in my opinion.

I have been using Mixbus for Mastering for a while now and pretty happy with the results. I became curious after receiving the last thread talking about using Mixbus as a virtual console and getting that hi-end console sound very much sought after without spending millions on a real Harrison console which i had the privilege to record on and it does sound great.
Taking all that into consideration, it makes sense routing your favorite DAW for recording/editing/midi/pre mixing into Mixbus and getting the channel character + eq/saturation + summing for a nice sounding mix.

1. Why not route Cubase into Mixbus? are the Mixbus character trates lost that way? When you did the null test did you observe that the channels/busses themselves are completely "clean" therefor same as Cubase? Then what is so special about Mixbus? Routing Cubase into Mixbus IS using it for the whole mixing process isn't it?

2. I tried doing a batch export from Cubase into Mixbus and and this resulted in a time consuming, mess of mono/stereo tracks. One of the points in using Mixbus for mixing is the work flow and it seems exporting is a massive work delay.

3. In your opinion, is this whole procedure worth while, does it make sense investing the time into this? Are the results tangible?

Thanks alot,
Yaron.

P.s. still looking for that link explaining to to hook up Cubase to Mixbus, havn't gotten there yet.

1. Maybe you got me wrong: I love Mixbus and use 32c regularly. Once you invest the time to learn its editing functions you really don't need Cubase for editing. But that's a different story. I often edit in Cubase and mix in Mixbus 32c. The reason why I would not recommend using Jack to connect the two is simply because you introduce another possible source of trouble. You have 2 DAWs running at the same time plus a software to connect their ins and outs - in my experience, this is something I would want to avoid at all costs and would possibly cause me more trouble, headaches and therefore delay than I want.

2. I'm pretty sure you did something wrong. This is a really easy and straightforward process. After editing and gainstaging and making all your tracks mixready in Cubase, you'd do a batch export: One pass for all stereo files (select appropriate tracks and/or groups in the list), one pass for all the mono files (select appropriate tracks and/or groups in the list and hit the mono button further right). When importing them to a new Mixbus session, select the preferred mapping method. If you wanna keep your stereo and mono files exactly the same, use "one track per file".

One Track Per File: Each file will be appear on one track. If the file is stereo, it will be a stereo track. If there are more than 2 channels then they will be ignored.
One Track Per Channel: Each channel of each file will appear as a track. If a file is stereo, it will be converted to 2 mono tracks. An 8-channel wav file will be converted to 8 mono tracks.
Sequence Files: If this option is selected, then the files will be imported to a track, and will be imported sequentially on the timeline.
Merge Files: This option ONLY appears when 2 files of identical length are selected. “Merge files” will load the 2 mono files as a stereo file.

Exporting, closing Cubase, starting Mixbus and importing into your session will cost you no more than 5 minutes together unless you're computer is quite outdated. ;-)

3. For me, mixing in Mixbus is definitely worth a shot. Do I use it exclusively? No. When do I use it instead of Cubase? When I know a certain production will benefit from the different workflow AND doesn't require sophisticated routing and a lot of FX's and busses. This is where the real benefit of Mixbus lies: It has a lot of limitations other DAWs don't have, but it combines it with an intuitive mixer workflow that's a joy to use. You simply mix faster and have a great time doing so.

Concerning the sound and null test: If you route your tracks straight to the master bus in Mixbus (WITHOUT engaging any EQ, filters, compressor) you basically get the same audio as when exporting the tracks with the exact same level and panning from Cubase. They DON't null completely but the difference is so low in level that the meter's don't move even the slightest bit. As soon as you engage EQ's and filters in the Mixbus mixer (without doing anything) it changes as the nonlinearities of the circuits are engaged. If you use the busses and drive their saturation a little harder the difference becomes even greater. So as soon as you start using Mixbus for mixing and use its EQ's and saturation you get its unique sound. Can you get a similar sound with native plugins in Cubase? Absolutely. But in Mixbus it's already there for you ready to use and you see coming your mixes together in no time.

If you still wanna go the complicated route: I didn't find the thread here either, but i didn't have much time to look. A minute of Google spat this out:

Routing to MIXBUS
(basic principles explained for Sonar, same with Cubase)

YouTube
(he's spanish and it's Pro Tools, but pretty self-explanatory)

On the Jack homepage there are a lot of detailed instructions as well.

Oh, and if you have ANY questions, be sure to hit Mixbus support - Ben, Nik and the crew are amazingly helpful!

Bringing this back from the dead.

I dig into Mixbus 32C two nights ago and I must say I am impressed with the sound. I only have experience mixing ITB and on one console (a custom Neve 75), and this “feels” like a console to me. The way I can push into it, the way it responds, it doesn’t sound like the Neve I am used to, but it definitely doesn’t sound like any other DAW.

The sound is good, but the main reason I use Mixbus is for editing. I've used Logic, Reaper, Sonar, Studio One, and a few other DAWs over the years, but Mixbus provides by far the most efficient and enjoyable editing interface I've encountered. Ardour has most but not all of the editing features, as a few things have been added to Mixbus that aren't yet available in Ardour (e.g., the audition tool, which is implemented differently in Ardour).

Great someone brings this up because so many guys slash Mixbus' editing because they haven't bothered to learn it.

I ran two DAWs for a long time because I thought I didn't like editing in Mixbus. Got tired of this so I decided to commit to using Mixbus only. Once I learned how to do it in Mixbus, I realized that it was well thought out and way better!

What was your 2nd DAW that you found MixBus to be better than?

where are you guys finding good tips for editing? On line? or manual.....

The manual is good, but there are a couple of useful tutorials on Harrison's youtube channel. Also check out the summary here: https://www.admiralbumblebee.com/mus...#basic-editing

Many of Harrison's video tutorials use older versions of Mixbus but most of the workflow hasn't changed. The big new-ish feature that really helps is the audition tool (simply typing "a" over a region invokes it). Here's a quick example of an editing workflow I used a month or so ago to attenuate some loud raspy breaths from a singer:

With the "smart" object tool enabled I could easily draw a range around each breath, audition by typing "a" to make sure I had captured what I wanted, adjust the range as needed, then invoke the draw tool to quickly drag down the volume in the region, then move on to the next breath. A lot faster than using automation or splitting the region.

Another key feature in editing efficiency is using the skimmer bar and enabling the mouse as the edit point -- it took a while to get used to it since I'm used to basing edits on the playhead in other DAWs, but the skimmer and mouse-based editing make everything faster and if I want to move the playhead to the mouse position I can simply type p and it's there. I like the intuitive keyboard shortcuts.

I also made a quick cheat sheet for myself with a few useful tips:

Save good parts of a take (e.g., a well-played triplet that the player didn't play as cleanly in other parts of the take) in the region list: right click and choose save as region in the region list, then copy those in to replace mistakes.

Change waveform appearance to logarithmic in the preferences (under appearance) if you want to see bigger waveforms.

View menu—rulers to remove unwanted rulers like CD markers.

Use shift-mousewheel to scroll left-right in the timeline; Command-mousewheel to zoom in and out (control-mousewheel in Windows)

Pressing*P*will set the playhead to the current position of the mouse pointer, if it is within the editor track area.

Slip editing: Go to the beginning, or end, of a region and hover the mouse over it so that the cursor changes to the trim cursor. Hold down Command (CTRL in Windows) and drag left or right. This will move the audio within the region without moving the region.

Man this is why I love GS! Thx so much for this great info. I'm really losy at tech stuff and really appreciate the help!!