Some Facts and Opinions About Mixcraft

UPDATE! Apparently this blog caught the attention of on the folks at Acoustica and now Mixcraft is a very stable DAW. Mixcraft 6.1 works quite well even when you push it hard. Finally Mixcraft has reached its potential. Let's hope they don't fuck things up when they release Mixcraft 7.

For me reliability is paramount and now Mixcraft is very reliable. The plugins that come with it are as good as the industry standard and you get lots of them. I have gone back to Mixcraft because I have not found another DAW that I like better. Other DAWs such as Cubase, Pro Tools, Presonus Studio One and Audition may work out their bugs but don't count on it. Go with what works. Mixcraft is now one of the few DAWs that work well.

WARNING TO ARTISTS: DON'T USE TUNECORE CLICK HERE

Mixcraft is a DAW. DAW means digital audio workstation. On the surface Mixcraft seems pretty good. It has a very user friendly GUI and the learing curve is not steep but that is where the good stuff ends.  Mixcraft is as buggy as a roach motel. After several weeks of evaluating Mixcraft 6 and trying to deal with crashes, freezes, driver and latency issues what at first glance seems like an answer to the many shitty and hard to learn DAWS reveals itself as piece of poorly designed software with more issues tha your average fat girl drama queen.

Latency is that annoying thing that happens when you record on many DAWs. Here's an example. You have just recorded a drum track and now you are playing the bass track but as you are plucking the strings what you are hearing in your headphone is not in sync with the drums. That's latency and it sucks.

Acoustica, the company who sells Mixcraft would like you to believe that 40 - 80 millisecond is acceptable latency. It isn't. It gets sleazier. Mixcraft's marketing implies that Mixcraft will run seamlessly on nearly all computer and that's a lie.

With most computer when you fire up Mixcraft you will get this warning and sugesstion.

The problems with this are many and this is the is them main reason Mixcraft sucks. With the sound cards that come in standard in most computers you cannot adjust latency low enough to record without MixCraft crashing. The other thing you can do is use a USB interface but that will become a matter of trial and error with no guarantee that it will work with Mixcraft and no gurarantee that Mixcraft will even find the device driver.

You can go to the Mixcraft forum for support and you will be told to download ASIO4ALL. It doesn't work. When you present a problem the geek droids will immediately blame your computer but if you do a Google or a Bing search you will find that you are not alone. Mixcraft latency issues are a problem for everyone unless maybe you are lucky enough to find the mystery soundcard or find the right USB inferface with the right drivers. Ask Mixcraft to what that sound card is ad you will get wrong answers and non answers.

Maybe if you are a computer geek you can get around the bugs in this shitware or maybe if you had enough time you could. Trial software may not reveal its flaws during the short trial but you can download a nice little free program called Run as Date from Cnet that will allow you to run trial software indefinately.  I don't know if it is legal to do so but since RunAsDate is on CNET I'm guessing that it is. Is it moral? That's between you and your morals but as I see it when a company can make billions of work on a product that cost them less than $100K to develop all I can say is fuck those greedy cocksuckers. IMO software copyrights should expire are a few years or a certain number of downloads.

Acoustica will tell you to upgrade your sound card  or by a very expensive USB interface that will cost you more than a stand alone digital multitracker like a Boss or a ZOOM multitacker that will double as a DAW controller.

Here is what Mixcraft users are saying about Acustica's bullshit suggestions.

James Andrew 

If you are running Win7 you can use exclusive mode to get the latency as low as 3ms. This does nothing to solve Mixcraft's terrible plugin delay compensation however, which makes mixing a multi-miked drumkit using parallel compression a lottery.

merlijn1998 

i have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and with my ASIO driver, i still got a little bit latency. but when i dont have latency, i have a lot of noise, and after a few seconds, the signal is gone. Help please!

David Pierson 

I think mixcraft, has a huge problem with its converters. How can the same .wav file when converted down in audition sounds great, but mixcraft boxes it in and really makes my mix cheap sounding.

By the time you upgrade your computer you can and still not be sure Mixcraft will run properly on it you can get 

Compare TASCAM DP-004 4-track SD Recorder with 2 1/4" Inputs, Headphone Output, USB 2.0, 16-bit/44.1kHz Resolution, 1GB SD Card The DP-004 is an easy to use 4-track recorder with a layout much like TASCAM's groundbreaking cassette recorders. Yet, it has modern conveniences, such as USB 2.0, is smaller than a paperback book, and features built-in microphones, so you can take it anywhere. If you want to connect other instruments or..

Compare Boss MICRO BR BR-80 8-track Digital Recorder/Audio Interface with 2-track Simultaneous Recording, 8-track Playback, 64 Virtual Tracks, and COSM Effects The BOSS MICRO BR BR-80 is the ideal multitrack recorder for guitarists and recording musicians. With 8 tracks of playback and 64 virtual tracks for overdubs and alternate takes, the BR-80 takes you from inspiration to production without getting in your way. The BR-80 gives you more than multitrack recording...

Compare TASCAM DP-008EX 8-track Digital Studio and SD Recorder with Built-in Stereo Microphones, 2 x Microphone Preamplifiers, Built-in Tuner and Metronome, and USB Data Transfer 8-track productions made easy! The DP-008EX from TASCAM gives you all the features you need to record straight to SD - with a intuitive design, so you'll be up and running fast. Record up to two tracks at once - the DP-008EX has built-in microphones to grab ideas, and it also has inputs for microphones, guitar,...

Compare Zoom R8 Special Offer: 24 Months Interest Free Financing! 2-track Digital Recorder/USB Interface with 8-track Playback A true studio-to-go, the Zoom R8 multitrack recorder gives you all of the tools you need to turn your ideas into finished tracks. This ultra-compact recorder packs many of the best features of Zoom's R series recorders into a road-ready format. Toss one into your gig bag and you're ready to record, wherever your....          

Compare TASCAM DP-03 8-track Digital Portable SD Recorder with Built-in Stereo Microphones, 2 Mic Preamps, Mastering Effects, USB 2.0, and CD Burner Brilliant recording, anywhere and anytime! In the truest sense of home-recording technological progress, the TASCAM DP-03 takes the widely popular DP-02 feature set and installs it into a revised, smaller, and more-portable format. The DP-03 records two tracks at a time (for a total of eight discrete tracks), and... More Info... (6 reviews)   

Compare Zoom R16 Special Offer: 24 Months Interest Free Financing! 16-track Portable SD Recorder, USB Audio Interface, and DAW Control Surface with 8 Microphone Inputs, Built-in Stereo Condenser Microphones, Built-in Effects, 1GB SD Card, and USB - Mac/PC With Zoom's R16 in tow, you've got a full mobile recording and studio recording solution! This affordable and portable device lets you record the whole band at once, thanks to its 16-track recording system with eight XLR microphone inputs. You've got your choice of recording straight to SD cards (up to huge 32GB... More Info... (43 reviews)