MusicRadar

The Mixbus is Harrison's attempt to bring their expertise to the software market.

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• Review

Harrison is an American console manufacturer with a long history of outstanding achievements. Countless hit records (Michael Jackson, Queen, ABBA, Led Zeppelin to name a few) have been recorded and mixed on Harrison consoles since 1975.

The company, however, maintains a particularly solid reputation in film mixing, having installed some of the largest analogue and digital film consoles on the planet in the best dubbing theatres.

The Mixbus is Harrison's attempt to pour its expertise into a dedicated DAW.

Against the stream

Mixbus was developed in partnership with Ardour, and crafted as a Harrison-style, custom version of its DAW. This is an unusual choice - Ardour is an open source, collaborative software development, but for this reason it's easily adaptable and draws from a solid userbase, all plus points for a new product.

"This is a very musical EQ - the Q narrows with the gain increase, modelled on Harrison consoles."

Mixbus also relies on JACK - a low-latency, free audio server, currently available for Linux and OS X. JACK works as a patchbay within Mixbus, but also sets up an audio network with any other CoreAudio compatible application, allowing you to exchange audio between them.

At present, Mixbus can only be purchased as a download from Harrison's website. Only two files are supplied: an installer and an authorisation file. Linux users will need to source JACK separately, while OS X users will find it in the installer bundle.

JACK must be installed first, as it provides the backbone for the DAW, and launching Mixbus will start it up. In OS X, Mixbus will scan and recognise AU and LADSPA plug-ins on the system. VST support is under development. Linux users can also use LV2 plugs instead of the OS X-only AU.

Working with Mixbus

As first time users of Mixbus, we found the software fairly familiar to use. Mixbus could be operated with a two-button mouse (a standard Apple Mighty Mouse just won't do - right- clicking is the only way to access essential pop-down menus), but a three-button mouse with scrollwheel is highly recommended.

There are only two main windows - an Editor and a Mixer. The Editor features the channel strip for the currently selected track on the left and timeline, markers, transport and editing options at the top of the screen.

"It's hard not to like Mixbus - Harrison has done a great job with it - its few quirks are easily forgiven."

Audio tracks follow a conventional horizontal arrangement, and automation data of all controls and plug-ins is either superimposed or displayed as additional streams beneath each waveform.

Transport and editing options are all laid out at the top of the page. we happily discovered that the Editor window can be expanded to full-screen without any framing, menu bars and transport controls, thus reclaiming an extra 15-20% of space for editing-intensive sessions. A collapsible sidebar deals with region management, tracks show/ hide and edit groups.