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Mixbox CS: What's the Latest?
I bailed on Mixbox with the disastrous reboot IK Multimedia did that really pissed off a lot of people and was honestly too confusing to follow.
But since then, things are sorted, yes?
I know IK made a big show of constant professional presets that were meant to drop once a month, but as far as I know they only did three of them.
BUT.
Despite the fact that I pretty much have all the effects individually that Mixbox offers, I'm a sucker for simplicity and nice design. The app is $39.99, down from $79.99, though I'm not sure for how long. (The IAP reverbs are not on sale, which I think is a mistake; might have tipped me into pulling the trigger.)
Anyway, is it worth it if you have pretty much every style of AU effect already?
Comments
The presets really are what makes Mixbox worth it for me. I have Audio Units that give me much finer control of the individual effects. Bespoke apps for reverb, delay, and all manner of effects that have much deeper interfaces.
As someone who is trying to learn, being able to dissect the presets is helping. I like the sound of the EQ's and the compressors and saturators. I think it has helped the overall sound of my mixes.
Your milage may vary.
While maybe not the most resourceful on cpu, it provides a great custom channel strip per channel for me. I like being able to access all the vintage equipment emulations in one place and it sounds quite good. I was pretty ticked off I’ll admit when everything went down but they worked on getting it right so I’m satisfied. I have quite a lot of effects as well but still find a lot of use for this because I like their effects and am used to using them throughout their other plug-ins
The aftermath of that sneaky money-grabbing non-upgrade fail is over. Mixbox works smoothly for me, on the iPad and on the desktop.
I notice I tend to gravitate toward using it more and more on both platforms - not just (not even primarily) because of the simplicity of a one-stop-shop solution, but because it often comes out on top (to my ears) when I do compare it to other options on a track.
The glitches have all been fixed and the app works well.
The only thing I really wish it had is some options for oversampling, but otherwise it’s really very good.
The LA2 emulation is terrific, and is the only one of its kind and quality on iOS. But it’s chock full of great modules.
I should add that I use it on every single song I record, it’s my go-to for vocals.
So this is a universal app? One purchase will work on iPad as well as in Ableton on a laptop?
Oh, right, I remember the love for this compressor.
OK then....
Personally, I'm happy with where it is right now. All of the prior issues have been corrected.
I picked it up today. Very impressed with it so far.
I use it.
I use the cassette emulation, saturator x and I used to use the amps but now I use tonestack mostly.
Sometimes I use that compressor too and modulation fx like chorus.
Its useful to have but not a necessity
I don't think so. At least I bought the desktop version separately, in one of those mega group buys that IKM had over the last years. (Mixbox is one of the very few apps that I actually use from the huge collection I amassed there.)
No. The desktop version is a separate purchase.
It is very easy to be super critical and watch the world burn instead of taking the time to understand, and possibly even, being understanding. All IK did was move from an app that you had to buy, to an app that you could download free with several modules included as a trial. An IAP would then unlock the remaining modules. The issue was that, people who had already paid for it should have simply been able to press restore purchases after the update and everything would work as normal. But this functionality was broken. IK took an absolute hammering for this but the truth is, it isn’t possible for a developer to test an IAP like this - it goes live and then they find out whether they set it up right or not. There are many cases of IAPs going wrong for other developers in similar ways - this is very much an App Store problem. I know people at IK and I can tell you that first of all, they were mortified and secondly they worked like crazy to fix it. This situation led to people saying ludicrous, unfounded nonsense like they were being money grabbing and trying to make people buy it again. Not the case. That is just again, people who would rather cut a developer to pieces than take the time to understand. IK did not do this on purpose, they did not stand to gain financially and in fact, did not gain financially. IK we’re the first of the big companies to bring us desktop ports, and to stick with iOS and continue to do so. There is little money in iOS for a company like that. For them, they’re investing in the future. MixBox is the most pro level set of rack fx available on iOS and is a steal at full price. I have made quite a few videos with it, including one about the Sunset Sound IAP which is stunning, but there seemed to be little interest in it on iOS.
If the iOS app is fully registered you’ll get some Jam Points in your IK account - on top of a sale price I bought my wife got a copy for her laptop for iirc something like £50.
It's all up to you, right? If you like simple and nice looking things and don't mind shelling out 39 bucks, den Mixbox might be worth it. But if you already have all the effects you need, you may not need Mixbox. You have to think about whether this is good or bad, and decide whether you want it or not.
Except, if you remember the comments here, this was not the (main) issue, Jamie. The main problem was how IK handled the situation when it turned out they did a few bits wrong. They didn't talk to users, then blamed users, then lied (I mean misspoke) - they did everything except honestly and fairly owning up to their part and communicating to users. So, with respect, this:
"All IK did was move from an app that you had to buy, to an app that you could download free with several modules included as a trial"
is just not correct imho. They did this and screwed up the whole process by not planning, not communicating, etc.
This forum is indeed way too hard on developers, but in this case IK's communications problem was entirely unenforced, so with respect I don't think it's fair to use it as an exclusive explanation for the storm that they generated. My two cents anyway.
@Jamie_Mallender Unfortunately as well as the IAP thing there was a secondary issue which is that the plugin ID got changed. This meant that any project that used the plugin no longer recognised it as being MixBox, losing whatever presets the user might have set up for each instance. I did not have many projects that use MixBox so was happy to wait it out but I could understand the frustration of those who had more reliance on it. I do agree that some of the histrionics on show were not great but then I don’t know to what extent each person was affected.
Fortunately IK did come up with a fix which I believe bundled both plugin IDs into the one app. Changing the plugin ID is something that IK could have anticipated would cause problems and that part could have been tested for and caught before release, but they did a good job in the end to fix it.
IK did in fact put out a statement at the time apologising and explaining. They accepted the blame for it and as I know people there, I can tell you, fixing it was absolutely priority. Sure, a mistake was made. But I think this situation goes to show just how difficult it is making modifications to how an app is sold or how IAPs work. Quite a few developers have told me that when they make a change to such things, there is no way to actually test it. All I see is a company that made a mistake, for no sinister reason and apologised and did their best to fix it asap. And the vitriol I saw in iOS forums was outrageous. To say that they were money grabbing is entirely inaccurate and unfair. I think we can afford to be little more forgiving of a genuine mistake.
Yeah, I remember people talking about that issue but it didn’t affect my projects at all. I think that may be because I always save my MixBox chains in the app itself. I do this partially because I share them on my Patreon, but I think it is good practice anyway. I can imagine that, that situation could have been immensely frustrating but you know, it was a genuine mistake. I’m sure they learned from it. Sadly we also learned how immensely unpleasant people can be in forums when something goes wrong.
You're wrong about that: the changed plugin ID actually meant that Mixbox would not load in older projects as the DAW would not recognise the plugin. So if you updated to the broken version and opened any project that contained Mixbox the plugin slot would be empty (app not found on this device) and all the settings lost forever.
And while IK immediately acknowledged the missing IAP problem, it took them two or three weeks to even acknowledge the issue with the changed plugin ID (which was the much bigger deal of the two bugs), and that is why people were angry with them.
A few posts from the thread on this subject (https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/48180/don-t-update-mixbox-if-you-have-purchased/):
You get the idea
I agree with you. And you can find examples of that here on the forum as well.
At the end of the day, IKM did solve the problem, users did calm down, mixbox is really good, so ultimately it's all fine. I do notice a tendency in some of the forum comments to appreciate the developers' situation and call for more measured responses. It's still an area for further improvement...
Whether IKM have used the occasion to learn something in terms of crisis communication (which I maintain is what they screwed up) will be seen during the next crisis. 🙂👍
You need to review the previous (long) thread on this. The app is now fremium. If you have more than 9 or 10 modules, you're probably good. Otherwise, you may need to contact IK support to unlock your previous purchase.
People were angry immediately, before that issue came to light. Some people love to be angry and go to great lengths to try to justify why it’s ok to say horrible things, when clearly it never is. It didn’t have any effect on my projects at all and pretty much all of them do use MixBox. Whatever the reason for this, I think perspective is in order and trashing of developers, not giving the benefit of the doubt is out of order. I mean, this is a forum for grownups right? Not a playground.
At 39 £$€ it’s an absolute steal imo, if you consider what a single app can cost these days (and that’s not a complaint).
Yeah, I mean this is the full price of some of the niche boutique plugins being ported now, it's a great deal
€47,99
While I do like MixBox my 'problem' is that I many times forget I have it installed
You have the exact same effects that you always had, the sunset ones are just a new IAP.
Agreed. When you do the maths, it’s the best value for money app on iOS.
I passed. 43€ seems to be quite a lot of money for collection of FX that most of us already have. I would rather use this money to invite a girl for dinner.