Mixcraft 10: Are Old Issues Fixed?

[Brother Charles]

Hi Greg and Mixcraft Team.

I see a lot of the same ole G-Sonique plugins bundled with version 10 “Pro” - are they now native 64 bit, or are they still just the old 32 bit “hanger on-ers”?

I noticed that you elected to bundle the free Voxengo guitar amp/distortion sim into the current iteration of Mixcraft. I’m not dissing Aleksey’s dandy freeware - it’s quite good - but, I am wondering why you couldn’t come up with something better. Sheesh! Why not partner with Audified, or Nembrini, or Overloud, or some other developer who makes pro-grade amp sims? I understand that Acoustica’s Dan is going two ends to the middle between working on Acoustica stuff plus crafting vintage-y looking Cherry Audio synths as often as possible. Be that as it may, maybe you could have out-sourced some programming duties to a qualified 3rd party team to develop actual Acoustica-branded plugins instead of just using past generation free stuff from Jeroem at Toneboosters and inexpensive 32 bit fare from G-Sonique. Jus’ sayin’.

The new interface looks great; yet it goes without saying that IF it weren’t scaleable, version 10 wouldn’t move off the shelves very quickly in today’s UHD and 4k world. The plugin manager (which I wrote about a few times) is at least 5 years overdue. Thankfully, Acoustica has finally addressed that sorely lacking need. The revitalized piano roll editor is really exciting; I always considered Mixcraft’s midi editor to be one of the best.

I see that you’ve made a nod in Reaper’s direction a little bit with regard to VST sandboxing. Nevertheless, I see no mention of MX 10 being capable of properly handling VST3s now. And please don’t give us the feeble line that v9.471 “fixed” VST3 issues because it really didn’t. The v9.471 patch was not much more than a duct-taped, semi-sufficient workaround at best. Mixcraft has always been able to handle VST 2.x plugins quite well - it was regarding VST3s specifically where it failed considerably.

What about Clap support? Why not support Clap!? It’s an open standard. Steinberg’s proprietary VST3 SDK is still not always stable, and it’s expensive closed source. An open worldwide plugin standard is beneficial to all.

Does the newer graphics engine finally handle OpenGL and direct3D rendering properly, or will it still manifest graphics tearing, lag, dropped frames, and generally be a pain-in-the-noodle? There were many OpenGL VIs and DSP plugins that would cause Mixcraft to choke and become unstable in my experience. I pretty much exclusively use Studio One Pro and Reaper nowadays because of it.

No DAW out there matches Reaper’s tight, EXTREMELY stable code, and its ability to handle any plugin format you throw at it. Reaper is also absolutely THE most robust, and CPU/RAM efficient DAW ever coded. Reaper is multi-platform with fully native builds available for Linux, Mac OS and Windows. Mixcraft is still a Windows only software, so I suspect that it possibly suffers from inefficient Win-specific spaghetti code. If it were pure C++, then it could easily enough be cross compiled for other OS architectures.

I long since stopped using Mixcraft (and recommending it to others) because of the previously mentioned shortcomings; I am really hoping the problems are eradicated in version 10. I’d be elated if the new version 10 of Mixcraft was finally able to function reliably, the way Studio One and Reaper do. I hope so, because there was always much about Mixcraft’s workflow that I really liked. I’ve used Acoustica products since back in 2010 (Mixcraft 4) - I’m not just some inexperienced new guy lookin’ to stir the pot for no good reason, or recklessly cause a ruckus.

I will forever have a soft spot in my heart for Acoustica and Mixcraft. Nevertheless, Mixcraft is always behind the technology curve and two or three years late to the table. Unless I know for sure that VST3 and OpenGL handling has been properly addressed, I will forego an upgrade. Nifty new features (albeit late) are wonderful, but unless the core nuts n’ bolts operability is rock solid and efficient, it’s a hard pass from me. Reaper costs less than half of what MX Pro Studio retails for, and a version 6.x license also covers version 7.x. I hope you can understand where I’m coming from, and why I cautiously view Mixcraft with a certain degree of skepticism.

[Ian Craig]

I couldn't care less about 4k support myself (by the way, I note that when grabbing the corner of the GX-80 plugin window the sound stops until I let go of it). Perhaps people who give up making cars to produce wing mirrors for Ferraris think they are moving forward, I don't know. Being able to see the thing properly for many like myself who do not have money or space for 4k monitors is much more important. The lack of any 3-d looking visuals is key here. If a look like the Mercury 6 had been employed it would be a lot clearer and pleasant.
I worked with the thing overnight (kept awake by noise outside) and I don't think I can use it.
I did buy it merely for the same reason that I get most things which are on sale i.e. time is more precious than money and I prefer not to have my time wasted coming to decisions about spending money when I can use the time more productively.
If user non-use is what you're going for then you may have achieved your goal with me.
The only reason I don't use Reaper is because it is hideous & makes me feel ill rather than creative. This all black background (or hideous unreadable slab grey) makes me feel unwell also.
That's all I have to say about it so far.

[Brother Charles]

Hi Ian - just casually mentioning that you can not only re-theme Reaper, but it’s not difficult to adjust its colours as well. I was put off by Reaper’s out-of-the-box appearance at first too, but after getting familiar with it over the past 18 to 24 months, I assure you that it is an absolute powerhouse in so many ways. I’ve learned how to make keyboard shortcuts and GUI alterations so that it’s super quick and easy to insert plugins and other tasks that seemed a little bit fiddly at first.

I couldn't care less about 4k support myself (by the way, I note that when grabbing the corner of the GX-80 plugin window the sound stops until I let go of it). Perhaps people who give up making cars to produce wing mirrors for Ferraris think they are moving forward, I don't know. Being able to see the thing properly for many like myself who do not have money or space for 4k monitors is much more important. The lack of any 3-d looking visuals is key here. If a look like the Mercury 6 had been employed it would be a lot clearer and pleasant.
I worked with the thing overnight (kept awake by noise outside) and I don't think I can use it.
I did buy it merely for the same reason that I get most things which are on sale i.e. time is more precious than money and I prefer not to have my time wasted coming to decisions about spending money when I can use the time more productively.
If user non-use is what you're going for then you may have achieved your goal with me.
The only reason I don't use Reaper is because it is hideous & makes me feel ill rather than creative. This all black background (or hideous unreadable slab grey) makes me feel unwell also.
That's all I have to say about it so far.

[Ian Craig]

Hi Ian - just casually mentioning that you can not only re-theme Reaper, but it’s not difficult to adjust its colours as well. I was put off by Reaper’s out-of-the-box appearance at first too, but after getting familiar with it over the past 18 to 24 months, I assure you that it is an absolute powerhouse in so many ways. I’ve learned how to make keyboard shortcuts and GUI alterations so that it’s super quick and easy to insert plugins and other tasks that seemed a little bit fiddly at first.

Hi Charles - I know about the Reaper themes and I know the potential power of it. I even stuck notes up on my well saying 'use reaper' but I ignored them, because it just doesn't feel like home so it becomes distractingly bleak for me to use. I even used Studio One every day for 5 months last year but ended up back using mixcraft 9 with the version 8 skin. Presonus (who make Studio One) seemed to be really excited when they introduced the ability to organise plugins last year, a feature that has been in Mixcraft for as long as I can remember, but at least Studio One has a clean pleasant look to it (a bit like the Mercury 6 plugin does) and the shades are adjustable.
I recall seeing a video about the making of a Black Sabbath album a couple of months ago, I forget which album it was, but they talked about having to go into a cellar to record the album -it was cold and horrible & that they didn't want to be there, being their point and all of these things about software environments leave me the same way. I need to feel inspired, not ill from looking at something the moment I close a plugin window.

[Brother Charles]

I couldn’t help but notice that my pointed questions have not been answered yet. I speculate it is because honest answers to the questions I’ve raised would reveal that many failings persist in Mixcraft.

While a refreshed interface and resizeability is good (and necessary), stability and compatibility are what’s really important. I really don’t think that Acoustica have to worry about piracy too much - even nasty ole pirates want good software that works well! I suspect that PreSonus gets hit by pirates a lot heavier than Acoustica suffers from. Obviously, piracy is not fair to any developer or company.

I haven’t tried version 10 - and I probably won’t if my questions aren’t properly addressed (without double talk, defensiveness or hyperbole, that is). I do know this: Mixcraft versions 8 and 9 absolutely choked on OpenGL plugins (such as those by Melda Productions, Softube and FabFilter) and MANY VST3s from many different developers. If you tried to use Addictive Drums 2, EZdrummer 2 (or EZdrummer 3), Superior Drummer 3, IKM Hammond B-3X, Arturia V Collection, and so many more, for any amount of time in a Mixcraft project, the GUI would start to lag and glitch - audio playback would eventually tank. If a plugin UI was large, then Mixcraft would chop part of the plugin’s GUI off and just display black blocks in place of plugin graphics and torn window frames. This was not Intel, AMD or nVidia GPU specific, by the way.

Other highly regarded DAWs, such as Cubase, Studio One Pro, Samplitude Pro X2 - X7, Cakewalk, Bitwig, Reaper, Abelton Live, Motu Performer, Tracktion Wavefrm, and others, don’t suffer from these problems so frequently - albeit no DAW is perfect and they all have some degree of finickiness. Acoustica Mixcraft is simply not robust and pro-grade. It is obviously not coded with the same kind of refined, expert low level programming that is put into other developers’ Pro DAWs. In all fairness, Mixcraft has Dan Goldstein, and maybe a couple of other programmers working on it, whereas PreSonus and Magix have cherry-picked teams of a dozen or more.

Acoustica is always trying to copy what the more prolific developers have done two or three years earlier. Mixcraft is ALWAYS late to the table where current DAW technologies are concerned, and Acoustica ambiguously sidesteps or makes excuses for its software’s lack of stability and compatibility with 3rd party plugins. The Mixcraft-bundled plugins are either very old, or are outdated freeware that anyone can find for themselves, or are amateurish third party non-starters such as the 32 bit G-Sonique fare.

Something great that Mixcraft has going for it is the easy-to-use workflow. Newcomers to home recording don’t have a steep learning curve with Mixcraft, as compared to most other DAWs (Mind you, most of the other pro-grade DAWs are considerably more expensive). The Mixcraft piano roll editor is great - one of my favourites. However, stability and compatibility are even more important than simplified workflow.

If Acoustica are willing to give a full refund, if their version 10 still fails in certain key areas noted in this comment, and my original post, then I would be willing to roll the dice. Otherwise, no dice.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Mixcraft 10 is 64-bit only, but it can still load 32-bit plugins. We have some optional 32-bit plugins in the store for backwards compatibility.

Thanks for your feedback on which particular plugins you'd like to see included in Mixcraft.

More improvements and fixes have been made for plugins in general and VST3s in particular. You can try Mixcraft 10 to see if any of your plugins still have issues. Of course, sometimes plugins are just buggy or quirky and we can't guarantee that they will always working in Mixcraft.

Thanks for the Clap suggestion.

Graphics issues have been improved, but your mileage may vary.

As just one example of the many improvements in Mixcraft 10, we realized that 32-bit plugins were preventing the playback cursor from moving smoothly, so we corrected that.

If you do run into any problems with particular plugins in Mixcraft 10, send in a log file and we'll check it out.

Greg