Bitwig price, release date announced

[ObsoleteAcc99]

I'm certain that bitwig will stick to their release date this time, honestly my gut feel, but considering the product is a bit behind others I thing its a tad expensive. I would have thought 199 euro, 299 usd, street 249 was the right price. Just an opinion after following the info since the product was first announced. Personally I am not sure I understand why a couple in this topic think bitwig is a game changer.l I just don't see it.. It's another nice host.

On the flipside I think tracktion 5 pricing of $59 is ridiculously low and some even complain that is too high! I really don't understand people anymore tbh.
In fact if t5 is all they are promising, I'd love to see the value difference between it and bitwig, or any host for that matter.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

The price is 299 euros, ie $399, ie half the price of Live 9 Studio.

Features - to many for me to put in one post just now. I'm writing a full review which will go on bitwigtutorials.net nearer the time.

One huge feature is that you get a version of 'Session View' (Ableton's loop player) called the Launcher that is rotated 90 degrees, and is incorporated into the Arrange window, so removing the dichotomy of Session vs Arrange. Use both! So you can sketch out new ideas in the Launcher and Launch them as loops while playing the song in the timeline, and see everything.

There is also another version of Launcher in the Mixer window, which is in the traditional mixer layout with the tracks vertical. This is more for live use.

One of my favorite things is my top feature request for Live — the ability to chop, slice and dice audio within the Launcher's clips. In Live if you are working in Session View you have to go over to Arrange View to do this, and you cannot bring chopped up loops into Session unless you consolidate, which kinda ruins it as then you can't edit it any more.

You also get a proper Mixer you can load into Arrange.

Arrange can have Arranger Timeline, Launcher, or both. Plus the Mixer if you want.

Plus, loads of other goodies. Single key shortcuts. VSTs loaded all nicely configured with a scrollable list. Macros tucked away in every device. The list goes on!

With all those nice goodies, do you not find it truly bizarre that there are no group tracks? That's one of those organization things that I often think "Man would I ever hate to go back to the non group track days where tracks had to be sent to busses and everything getting messy etc." For me it's really put a damper on the Bitwig release.

Great example. It's "coming". So are a lot of other things.. Point being its just another daw that has some features others don't but equally is missing some others do.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

The price is 299 euros, ie $399, ie half the price of Live 9 Studio.

That's probably not the best comparison though as it's nearer to Live Standard in terms of features, so it's $399 compared to $449, so $50 cheaper.

I think they're taking a risk with that price in terms of bringing people over from Live, as that's not a significant saving, and it's close to Live users having to buy over rather than upgrade. For existing Live users $399 is $240 more than the current upgrade price of $159. That's going to be a hard sell to those who have put their money into Live.

We'll see though - they may be able to limp through weak initial sales if word of mouth increases them over time.

I don't really see it as $50 cheaper and lives street price is lower than that and we don't know at this stage if bitwig will be available through stores? Also ableton are often doing 20 and 30% sales.

[gamecat666]

BW is certainly out of my impulse buy range, but perhaps the competition might drive both down over time.

[chroma]

does note expression imply vst3 support?

[Chapelle]

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[jacqueslacouth]

gone

[Echoes in the Attic]

I am actually surprised at how many people are so unhappy with their current DAW that they are ready to pony up $400 for a new one. I mean, are all the others so sadly lacking or is it just the lust for something new and shiny. I've noticed in this thread that the included instruments are now being used to support the pricing….C'mon, how many of you actually need more instruments?

Look, I'm not being a "let's put it down" person, by all accounts from the Beta testers it may well be a fine DAW, but if you already have a very well specified DAW that does the job AND you are used to it's workflow (Iwould assume that is most of us here) AND you have a slew of VSTi that cover pretty much every base…..Then what IS this urge to buy the NKOTB as though your life has been incomplete without it all about….Go give your cats a stroke, more satisfying, greatly appreciated and CHEAPER!

It's maybe not that surprising for Ableton users. Or users of other DAWs that are more comfortable there but would like good clip launcher functionality. I've been an Ableton user for quite a while and have never gotten into the Arrange view. I don't know why but using it feels so uncomfortable to me. Mostly about the visuals and as silly as it sounds, the track functions and layout being kind of reversed from other DAWs. And also I was never that big of a fan of Ableton's devices, but loved the workflow other than the arrange view which I hate. Even when I first started using Ableton Live, I always thought if Logic came out with a clip launcher I'd go back. But I love the device management (device bar across the bottom, macros etc.), so it was hard going back to something else. Dabbled with Studio One for a while for strictly arrangement stuff but again missed too much about Live (even with it's latency problems).

To me Bitwig seems to have the right balance between what I like in non-Ableton DAWs and what I like in Ableton. So that's why I'm excited and I'm sure others are thinking similarly. And there's enough cool new things that no one else has done that it's like icing on the cake. I just hope group layers get added SOON.

[robogone]

C'mon, how many of you actually need more instruments?

You're obviously new around here...

Hi, welcome to KVR...

[frankz00]

Download reaper, to your /home/you folder
and from a normal internet ready linux install,
use these commands:

I may just try this one day! Thanks!

[frankz00]

I think I'll just stick with the Windows version if its all the same to you.

The other option is a VirtualBox under Linux which I've also considered...

[frankz00]

Umm,dunno,I'm a little bit excited about bitwig but I have lost touch with all the hype

What does it now offer that ableton doesn't?

better integration between arrangement and clip view (session)
note expression
bounce in place
better midi editing including multiple tracks at once
great looking modulation system
audio clip is a container for multiple bits of audio

If what they're saying is true. Better controller programming (in a sensible language to boot). I like that ALOT!

[The Mantra]

And also I was never that big of a fan of Ableton's devices, but loved the workflow

You hit the nail on the head with this one.
The Live audio FX sound thin and glassy to me, but they are forgivable because I enjoy their workflow and understand their weaknesses. The Live synths are garbage though. This is so disappointing because live could be an awesome place for sound design. I tryed to fix that problem when live 8 came out by upgrading all the way to the suite.

Suite is way overpriced because most of the content is mediocre to useless.
I was hoping that the suite would provide better presets to help me get inspired or show me another side of the live synths and it didn't. Some of the sample content is acceptable and the best sounding synths in the live suite are the sampled ones and even they aren't something I would buy. The loops are no better than the gigs upon gigs of free loops you can find on the internet. The only redeeming feature of the suite and the reason that I updated to suite again with Live 9 is M4l which is ok, but also the main reason I have crashes in live.

Yes, I eventually learned to bet a better sound our of the Live instruments but I always feel like I'm polishing a turd

I don't have a lot of VSTs but the 2 of the ones that i like a lot are 32bit only. BW will let me run them in a 64 bit environment. I want to use the vsts i like w/o clunky bridging and I want good sounding synths integrated into my daw so i can enjoy the Live like work flow and approach to sound design.

People want to work withing the Live like work flow for 1st party instruments, that's why Drum Racks are so popular, they are one of the few instruments Live got right.

As cheap as people can be around KVR I'm not sure why any one would assume every one has tons of synths 3rd party synths.

To me Bitwig seems to have the right balance between what I like in non-Ableton DAWs and what I like in Ableton. So that's why I'm excited and I'm sure others are thinking similarly.

Me too. I moved from Cubase to Live and now BW is offering the things I like about both daws.

[jacqueslacouth]

gone

[pdxindy]

audio clip is a container for multiple bits of audio

Yeayy! My number one feature request.

However putting a separate loops player into the arrangement view is pretty megatastic too!

yeah, being able to play from arrangement and still launch clips is excellent!