Is anybody using both Mixcraft and Cubase?

[ulrich001]

I know this borders on being a sacrilege, but is anybody using BOTH Mixcraft and Cubase?

- Mixraft is really great, but for composing linear orchestra-centric stuff, i feel cubase is better.
- For creative drafting and anything not classical, Mixcraft fits me better.

[cactus-head]

Hi,

I use different tools for different functions. For music scoring and notation, i use Notion 6 and Finale. I'll dump midi from either into MC then add VIs or I'll record audio directly into MC from them. Depends on what i need to do.

Any complex piano roll stuff i'll either compose in a notation program or ill try and play it and record it live in MC. I dont really build clips from the piano roll note by note. MCs notation entry doesn't have the level of functionality like Finale or Notion 6 so it's not something I really use.

[ulrich001]

Hi,

I use different tools for different functions. For music scoring and notation, i use Notion 6 and Finale. I'll dump midi from either into MC then add VIs or I'll record audio directly into MC from them. Depends on what i need to do.

Any complex piano roll stuff i'll either compose in a notation program or ill try and play it and record it live in MC. I dont really build clips from the piano roll note by note. MCs notation entry doesn't really work how i want it to so its not very useful to me.

Hi Cactus, thanks a lot! I just invested in Mixcraft Pro 10 - Melodyne alone is worth the Pro version. MC 10 is IMHO the DAW with the slickest work flows right now. I sure hope Acoustica keeps that level!

[Northfield.Lenox]

Hi

I decided to try the free trial of Cubase Elements 13 as pricewise it's in the same ball park as MC. No complaints, like the workflow, and very intuitive to move to, coming from MC. However, to have a version of Cubase similar in features as MC Pro Studio I would want to get the Cubase Artist version which is pushing $500.00 CND. I can't see any advantages to moving to it. But, I at least know that I could use it if for some horrific reason MC was not available anymore. (Which I could not see with ether Bitwig or Abelton Live both of which I tried and 'didn't get')

As for your orchestral comment, what I thought would be excellent about Cubase was the ability to have more than one track open in the piano roll at one time, which I now know you can do in MC10!

[Acuboy]

I just upgraded to Mixcraft Pro 10 and I'm really looking forward to use it. It's a great program with a lot of depth and it's fairly easy to use by DAW standards. I haven't dived in that deep yet, but so far I've been able to work things out ok.

I use Cubase 12/13 Elements mostly. I have the Pro version but a lot of the time it's not needed for how I work. I could do tracks from start to finish in it as I know it quite well and have been using it since Cubase v.1.0 on the old ATARI 1040 ST/FM.

I like to use a mixture of DAWs because as we all know there is no perfect "One". I could use just one DAW if I had to, but I find it both fun and interesting to explore different workflows. Plus there are some things that some DAWs do that no other DAW can do at all. Reaper has quite a few features like that. Even though I don't use it that much it certainly comes in handy for those times. I find its workflow a bit clunky on the whole but I can and do finish whole tracks with it occasionally when it's the right tool for the job. Or maybe just experimenting with new ideas.

My main DAW is probably Ableton Live. I like the workflow of that and it suits my music making. It's not been very stable or efficient the last version or so, so I'm hoping that they can make that better with version 12. I bought Bitwig a little while back and haven't used it that much. It's a nice DAW. I have some great templates set up in that for working with certain VSTs.

Other DAWs I have that I don't use that much are Samplitude Pro X and Reason. I tend to use Reason Rack more and more as a VST plugin. Samplitude is extremely powerful but is overkill for many things. It's got some nice features though like object editing that very few DAWs have (to my knowledge). I suppose Studio One has a similar kind of thing going on even though it has a different name. I use Studio One quite a lot and again, I enjoy working from templates I make up myself to make the music making process more efficient/fun.

Finally, I use FLStudio also quite a lot as I'm familiar with it now and I kind of get on ok with its workflow. It's also a bit clunky and clumsy in places, but no real showstoppers for me. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and that's all that matters. I like to use it as a VST plugin but I find a lot of DAWs don't always render out the files properly, Ableton and Reason being two that come to mind. But it's a great program to have as it automatically bridges 32bit/64bit plugins and does it very well. I have the All Plugins edition and so I have access to all the great synths it contains. it's also a very efficient DAW and starts up quickly. Ableton I would say is the least efficient DAW (on my system). I like that you can just download FLStudio from wherever you are in the world and get the latest version quickly and get it set up ready to go within minutes, including authorisation. Little things like this all add up to a better experience.

And so we come to Mixcraft. I've been using Mixcraft 9 Pro for a little while now. I tried the demo version of Mixcraft 10 so I know it works great on my system. It's a very efficient and fast DAW. That is one major thing it has in its favor. Obviously I don't really need any more DAWs so anything coming in to my music making world has to have the really important things down. Speed/efficiency is right up there with stability/lack of crashing.

All DAWs crash at some point. It used to be for a while that programs like Reason would NEVER crash. But as things changed, so did the stability. It's still usable, as they all are, but you have to take the rough with the smooth as DAWs and computers get more complex in general. FLStudio was another one that only crashed once in a blue moon, but things have changed there as well.

So Mixcraft is fast and efficient and stable. It's a mature DAW by this point. I'm late to the party on this one, but I got there eventually!

Next up would be the features it provides, and the nice little extra features that make the music making process that much more fun and interesting. It also doesn't overload on features and throw in the kitchen sink just to mark boxes to be a jack of all trades, like some DAWs try to be. But all the really important and "nice to have" features are built in to the core of the program (at least for me). For example Melodyne. I own the full version of that program but don't have it on this machine right at this moment, so it was nice to see a copy of it installing along with the Mixcraft Pro installation. Things like that.

The extra included plugins are very good too. Very generous selection of very useful synths etc. etc.

I really like the integration of the loop library in to the program and the way you can experiment with different things. It's quick and it's easy and the included selection is rather excellent and wide-ranging. Stuff I never would have bought, but is really nice to have. They are high quality and really cut the mustard with a real sonic bite to them I find. I have full Kontakt 7 and Halion 7 and all that stuff, but the built in library and sounds Mixcraft contains have a certain "oomph" to them. It's a nice touch the way they are tempo matched as well to fit in to the song you are working on. Surprisingly (or maybe not), not all DAWs do this in such an elegant and successful manner.

One thing I really love about Mixcraft is the clever use of tabbing. That can be a bit much in certain other DAWs. You don't want too many of them. But in this program it is kept to a minimum and makes the DAW all the more efficient for having them. Very well thought out and implemented from a User Experience (UX) point of view.

It has been really great to see the GUI come such a long way recently, making the DAW much easier to use as well as making it look rather modern and with just enough "eye candy" to make it a pleasure to use, not a chore. I love how you can resize the window panes within the tabs once they are selected. Then snap them back when you are switching to something else. GUI stuff is very hard to get right and implement in a complex program like a DAW. Even implementing it in a synth is a notoriously difficult ask. Mixcraft is really going in the right direction with this. I expect to see even more improvements with the next version. All the while the program is logically laid out. I don't get the sense anything has been implemented at the expense of usability.

Some times DAW makers just change things for the sake of it (or so it seems). Take for example Cubase. The flat look making it resemble Studio One more has not been very well received by many long time users. And that has come at the expense of usability for them as they have actually broken some of the parts of the GUI. I have no doubt they will sort it out, but imho I think they should have just not "fixed" something that was not "broken" in the first place. It really came across as change for change's sake.

With Mixcraft you get the impression things are very much moving in the right direction and whatever changes have come about have been done for not just a better look and feel, but because they enhance the program in other ways as well. To be honest, I'm not actually that familiar with a lot of aspects of the program, so I am saying all this from a beginner's perspective, though obviously I'm not a beginner to DAWs in general. So I probably should just leave it at that for now after making this somewhat long post.

To sum up, I think that Mixcraft is a hidden gem. I try to "promote" it wherever I can on forums around the place. It's a very saturated market as I'm sure the makers of Mixcraft must be very aware. But I don't think it will be long before more and more people pick up on it as it's really starting to get interesting in its current state. The website does well to sell the program. The comparison charts are a nice touch, making things clear to new users. Mixcraft isn't mis-selling anything. You know exactly what you are going to get. The graphics are tastefully done and not over the top. Things are explained in an informative and congenial manner.

I would have no problem recommending it to new users, and I know personally that even experienced users will find it brings something a bit more to the table than what they already have. Cubase is a great choice for many people, but it also might just rub them up the wrong way. Live is a great choice for many people, but some people just don't click with it at all.

I think everyone should try Mixcraft at least a few times, whether they are a new user getting in to the game or an old pro just looking to pep up their game with something a bit different to what they already have.

It was nice to find this forum to go along with this great program. I had no idea it existed before tonight. Other DAWs have forums too, but some of them are really hard work.

Anyway, ulrich001, you asked a fairly open ended question, and I've given a fairly open-ended answer. Sometimes it is nice just to chat with no particular goal in mind or axe to grind. I was going to send a little thankyou to the developers of Mixcraft tonight, but then I stumbled upon the forum and saw this post. So consider this reply of mine to be just that (though not so little of course).

I find it interesting comparing DAW software, so this forum was a good find for me, this thread even better!

All the best.

[cactus-head]

and another note on clasical composition: You can use musescore for free. You can compose or transcribe complete and complex classical scores if you want. This can all be dumped to MIDI for use in Mixcraft.