When comparing Audacity vs Harrison Consoles Mixbus, the Slant community recommends Audacity for most people. In the question“What are the best DAWs for UNIX-like systems?” Audacity is ranked 6th while Harrison Consoles Mixbus is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Audacity is:
Audacity is available for free on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux with source code available [here](http://audacityteam.org/download/source).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free, open source and cross-platform
Audacity is available for free on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux with source code available here.
Pro Well maintained
Audacity is constantly updated.
Pro Great community backing it
Pro Great for vocal track editing
Pro Easy to learn
This DAW has an intuitive layout that is quite easy to grasp and learn.
Pro Great mixer
works great as a mixer for stems exported from another DAW; this is arguably one of it's best uses. Otherwise, the general UI is a vast improvement over vanilla Ardour.
Pro Based on Ardour
All of the best parts of Ardour, with the great included plugins, plus improved UI for track routing and EQ, along with built in analog summing. This does add some proprietary code to the otherwise open-source foundation, though.
Pro Great customer support
Their customers support is fast and personal, absolutely unmatched in the industry. They also listne to their customers, take feature suggestions which really make it into one of the next versions (if feasible).
Pro Detailed manuals including video links
Pro Emulation of their award winning physical, analog consoles in software
Great built in summing on mixbusses and final output bus. Use with an actual console for the double whammy, if you can afford it.
Pro Sound
Pro Supports plugin AU
Cons
Con Not seen as a full DAW
Audacity doesn't have the capabilities of popular DAWs and generally isn't considered to be good option.
Con Doesn't retain audio integrity
Audacity uses destructive editing, meaning applying effects, cutting, etc is non-reversable after you've saved a project.
Con No real time effects
Users are unable to change effects in real time with Audacity. If effects are to be changed, no sound can be playing or recording.
Con Unable to use Synthesizers / virtual instruments
You can only use effect plugins or record live with this DAW.
Con No native 64-bit version, therefore does not support 64-bit VST plugins
Audacity is available only as a 32-bit application, therefore even when running on 64-bit machines, it only supports 32-bit VST plugins unless they are converted to 32-bit using an application such as JBridge.
Con Not free
Not free, and not open source.
Con Can be a bit resource heavy
Adding more tracks and plugins is surprisingly easy on the RAM, but the base system usage is a tad high. 8 GB of RAM as a minimum is a very stern recommendation.