The All In One Source Bitwig Information & Speculation Thread

[ThomasHelzle]

And I I believe I've seen plenty of demos of people using it to control the envelope of a sound manually like a string instrument.

Yeah, for slow stuff this works great for whatever parameter you want to control. You just can't really do any fast drum-like attacks etc. with AT, at least with the keyboards I've tried so far. After-touch is a rather good name for it actually

Cheers,

Tom

[Ogopogo]

That would be really cool if you could do it with percussive sounds, now that I think about it. If they got poly AT working with push (since i think you said it does poly at) that would make me more interested in getting one. And then if you got really hi def poly AT working with a pad controller like push it could be heaps of fun. Make a chromatic tom preset and go to town, or make really complex rhythms by tweaking envelope automation. Its interesting that poly AT seems to be such a non standard thing because I'd think that the ability to control the envelope of each note individual is sort of a natural thing to think of doing with a midi controller. Maybe its due to the old midi standard hanging on for so long or maybe keyboard makers just don't want the added cost of the keys.

[ThomasHelzle]

I never said what Push can do or not - I don't have one, I don't want one and have no idea about it's specs

Well, maybe try some aftertouch yourself - using it to control the envelope of several notes at the same time live with your hands may be slightly taxing to your agility
It works great and very natural for some non-sine-vibrato, some filter manipulation and stuff like that, but controlling precise things would need something way better than the usual pressure sensors.

My MPD18 is cheap but can be set to Poly AT and it's a lot of fun, but I personally don't see me do anything too precise with that anytime soon

Cheers,

Tom

[Ogopogo]

Oh that's right you are not interested in push. I thought somebody said that once, I guess I'll go looking for it.

Ah it was px:

I dream of a polyhonic AT controller but so far I only have an ages old Döpfer LMK3 with rather funny channel AT (Piezo based, so self-releasing over time but it's the only keyboard I ever liked )...

Cheers,

Tom

Tom, there are more options:

1. Old Ensoniq VFX and some of their other boards have Poly AT, but not GM. (I still have my Ensoniq VFX SD)
2. There are two different crowdsource projects going on right now that take entirely different views of PolyAT. One of them is a surface you lay down on top of existing keys for an x-y touchpad on each key surface, the other uses swing velocity of the keys as a source for polyAT.

Stay tuned for links......

Ah yes, there it is - this article addresses both:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/08/t ... -keyboard/

The QueNexus has PolyAT

Ableton Push supports it in the hardware, but Ableton has no incentive to use it cause Live itself does not record PolyAT... so more new controllers are supporting PolyAT due to the different approaches to controllers that are becoming available.

[pdxindy]

@Thomas. Thanks. I thought so about velocity, just making sure i wasn't missing some spec. About aftertouch, yeah I wasn't really thinking when I wrote that. I knew that it could be connected to anything but the fact that it has to do with applying pressure to the keys groups it with velocity in my mind. And I I believe I've seen plenty of demos of people using it to control the envelope of a sound manually like a string instrument.

@px Yeah it's a big bunch of mostly useless text but at least I learned something.

I appreciate any such technical discussions... plus a bit o humor

I don't usually use Aftertouch for a volume envelope... Generally I use my Expression Pedal for that... much more controllable in a smooth way and my keyboard has relatively good AT plus curves settings. But of course, you can do it.

[ThomasHelzle]

Interesting bit about Push. Internal Poly AT (I guess basically the same as my MPD 18, since Push is built by AKAI) but not used. Sounds like the typical Ableton approach to me LOL Like having a database based filesystem but not use the database for what it's best at....
Yeah, I'm still not over that one

For what I need, I'm rather happy with my MPD right now. And for the future I'm sure we will see a lot of even more interesting controllers in that realm.

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

And I I believe I've seen plenty of demos of people using it to control the envelope of a sound manually like a string instrument.

Yeah, for slow stuff this works great for whatever parameter you want to control. You just can't really do any fast drum-like attacks etc. with AT, at least with the keyboards I've tried so far. After-touch is a rather good name for it actually

Cheers,

Tom

AT is bit crude for that... even in the best implementations...

On my Korg Z1 (which is what I use for a controller) there is an X/Y pad... That works much better as a quick envelope control because you can tap different spots on the pad and jump to different values. There is also a button that will hold the value wherever you release it, or return to center... and of course it has 2 parameters to modulate.

[pdxindy]

Interesting bit about Push. Internal Poly AT (I guess basically the same as my MPD 18, since Push is built by AKAI) but not used. Sounds like the typical Ableton approach to me LOL Like having a database based filesystem but not use the database for what it's best at....
Yeah, I'm still not over that one

For what I need, I'm rather happy with my MPD right now. And for the future I'm sure we will see a lot of even more interesting controllers in that realm.

Cheers,

Tom

The AT is problematic in Push anyway... If you hold the pad lightly, it easily re-triggers... if you hold it harder to not re-trigger notes, then the AT is active... Besides that I very much like playing the pads on Push.

And I agree, controllers are moving in interesting directions and we will see one that really hits it right fairly soon...

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, controllers like modwheel and AT have that problem: no sudden jumps.

I'm a Wacom tablet user instead of a mouse and each time I am forced to use a mouse (mostly by audio software), I have the same problem: you want to go to the top of the screen and you actually have to MOVE there With the Wacom, your muscle memory just directly clicks to where you want to be...

I would guess that the seaboard or the haken are much better in that regard, since you can directly tap a specific area on the keys. But in a discussion at NAMM, one very good player of the haken made it quite clear that it is very hard to play with the 3 axes of freedom you have.

I'm curious what else we will see.

Cheers,

Tom

[ThomasHelzle]

The AT is problematic in Push anyway... If you hold the pad lightly, it easily re-triggers... if you hold it harder to not re-trigger notes, then the AT is active... Besides that I very much like playing the pads on Push.

Same here with the MPD.
At first I hated and basically shelfed it since it felt so totally non-sensitive. Then I read in the Ableton forum that you can put Gaffa Tape strips under the rubber so the sensor is closer to the actual pad and reacts right away, and now after I modified it they are very sensitive and pretty fun to play.

Cheers,

Tom

[Regnas]

It's possible to move the Bitwig's browser to the left side and the inspector to the right side?

just curious...

[kennyda]

It's possible to move the Bitwig's browser to the left side and the inspector to the right side?

just curious...

I don't think so. I actually prefer the browser on the right, it seems more natural even though I'm used to it on the left. They both have single key shortcuts anyway, B for browser and I for inspector, so toggling them is ridiculously easy.

What I will say about the browser is that it is extremely straightforward yet versatile, unlike Live 9's, which is neither. It is also faster.

[Ogopogo]

I only demoed live but the browser bothered me. All those categories but the only thing that is organized is the included content. Tagging makes so much more sense. Every daw will eventually be metadata based I think, and that seems to me like one of the things that ableton could implement right away to catch up.

[emef]

It's possible to move the Bitwig's browser to the left side and the inspector to the right side?

just curious...

I don't think so. I actually prefer the browser on the right, it seems more natural even though I'm used to it on the left. They both have single key shortcuts anyway, B for browser and I for inspector, so toggling them is ridiculously easy.

What I will say about the browser is that it is extremely straightforward yet versatile, unlike Live 9's, which is neither. It is also faster.

i'm really glad the inspector/track channels are on the left side, it still bugs me that live has it on the right

[Regnas]

It's possible to move the Bitwig's browser to the left side and the inspector to the right side?

just curious...

I don't think so.

Hmmm, so, the bitwig's UI is not customizable?
That's bad...