Anyone using Mixcraft 5? Your Thoughts

[guscave]

This weekend I was messing around with this program: http://www.acoustica.com/mixcraft/index.htm

Very cool. It's like Garageband with a few extras (midi export, sends tracks, uses VST). Although I'm not a big fan of Windows, my Mac is pretty old and out-dated. I can see myself using something like this on my Dell laptop. Any thoughts from those already using it regularly?

[musicliner]

A little while ago, after reading a good review in Sound On Sound magazine covering Mixcraft v.3 I've downloaded demo, but I just never found real need to switch (I am a long time Sonar user)

[Cruciform]

Mixcraft 5 is what I use nearly every day. At the moment I'm not running any others. It's very stable and quite functional. Works well with most VSTs. Intuitive to use. There are some features missing but we keep badgering them at the forum and things keep getting added each release. The most noticeable lack to me is that we can't assign midi CCs to external controllers so things like sliders, knobs, transport buttons on hardware aren't directly usable by Mixcraft itself - though individual VSTs can. eg. I can't assign a slider to a track volume in M5 but I could assign it to a control on a VST running within M5. Also, it's still only available as 32bit.

If you already use one of the industry standard programs there probably would be no reason to change to M5, but if you're still looking or just starting out, it's definitely worth a go.

[guscave]

Thanks for the info. I'm a bit of a tech head and I like to try out different programs. I've worked with everything from Protools to Audacity and recently been using Logic and Ableton Live.

The thing is my mac is pretty old and my Mbox2 has been acting up lately so I may need to invest in a newer system soon. I can't dish out another grand right now for a new system, but I got an offer to finance a new Dell laptop very cheap. I was looking for something that was as convenient as Garageband but for Windows and MC5 came up.

Seems like it has everything I need to continue working on new material and editing old songs. Will research some more.