Bitwig

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:39 pm

Hello Bitwig,

Long post but worth it, promise!

First I would like to take the time to thank the Bitwig team for such a feature packed software. You are doing things RIGHT! Because you bring yourself down to the level of the user and ask yourself "what would they like"... I have a lot of that in me and unfortunately the market place these days offers less and less of that so I want to thank you for being this way. Please keep it up, as I am a proud owner of your software, I spend money only on things that are done right! Consider yourself talented!

In addition, I want to take the time to point out something which is greatly missing that would truly benefit everyone and I'm saying this in hopes that you add it exactly the way I mentioned it... I cannot force you, but I will offer you some insight that I promise will be extremely useful...

The big fad these days is that everyone wants not only lots of features (which translates into power), something that Bigwig has, but people also want ergonomics and a human like interface because production is moving more and more towards a live production mindset. For example, take a look at the groove-box workflow killer: NI Maschine! They thought about specific details I will list bellow. Like-wise, if you bring yourself down to the level of a DAW user, you will find that people want less and less mouse clicks, more ergonomics and live performance with buttons. You can spend time doing your own "Bitwig push", but it won't necessarily translate into better ergonomics... Here's what you should do and why it's better this way. When you take a look at Maschine, the reason the workflow is so great is because of this:

1. With Maschine you can add your own custom tags on ANY sample. (Bitwig's are predefined tags which is NOT useful)
2. With Maschine You can add your own custom sub-tags on any sample. Ex Drums (tag1) Kick (subtag2), etc.. (Bitwig has that but again predefined and not up to 3 levels)
3. A hot-swap function is available that allows to swap not only hits according to their tags but also patterns/loops according to their tags.

Now imagine the implication of this for speed and live performance... You have a controller, and regardless of what controller it is, you can run through an entire library of hits that you categorized with the same tag while the loop is still playing. (Cannot be done in Bitwig 1.2 unless you added custom tags). So this means my search is not only specific to my needs but also really fast. In addition, you can then choose to hot-swap the entire loop that you've used before for another part of the song while still performing live. Every sample is categorised neatly through tags in a non-destructive way which COMPLETELY substitutes a 3rd party sampler library with the ability to be embedded into the DAW directly for off the hook hot-swap features. If it was implemented within Bitwig, it would be a workflow killer! Guaranteed! Just like Maschine, but for that does not work properly in Bitwig and it translates into time wasted. You really have to do custom tags and more than one level of tags or having unlimited multiple tags for each sample would be best. But most importantly the ability to tag midi loops also in the same custome way! This creates a modular librarian system with fast and precise choices. Without customer tags, no one can be precise and the end-user will have to stop what they are doing to try and find, click mouse within folders.

Take a look at other software... Ableton Live does not have tagging and so it suffers greatly. Bitwig does but not custom, so it's not precise and workflow of hits has to stop while composing. As a result Maschine is more popular for workflow because of the tagging/hotswap with loops/groups feature. Bitwig cannot grab a piece of the pie within that market as a result and the demographics of live performers goes untapped. Why not have that in the most feature-packed DAW?!?! If Maschine was a more feature packed DAW, I would have switched, but I have faith with Bitwig that it will come. We end-users suffer from workflow because we have to pause each time and search for something. It doesn't matter if Bitwig comes up with the next "Maschine pad" or "Bitwig Push" hardware, it will never work properly if I can't scroll through a ton of precisely self-categorised samples. See... The hardware scroll knob is only there to go faster, but the methodology for workflow is in the custom tagging/hot-swap system combined together with hits and loops/groups... If you take a look at Maschine, the only true difference it has than any other software/hardware combo, is exactly that! The tagging/hotswap combined system! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do it right! Then if you wanted, you could come up with your own "Bitwig Push" but that's an extra for the demographics that don't like setting up hardware. That is not necessary, although it would open up for you another demographics for marketing. As long as you have the functionality I mentioned, the workflow will be enhanced by 10x at least. Trust me!

I have faith in you Bitwig, so please do it right and don't argue! It is the most needed! And small changes can make a huge difference!

llze · Post by **llze** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:41 pm

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9&t=420129

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:56 pm

Good to know, I'll send this link to them now.... Still worth a discussion if someone has better ideas.

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:07 pm

Oh and in addition, i forgot... If all this tagging could be applied to vst patches, then it would be crazy good! Not sure how that would work with 3rd party VSTs but NI did it...

llze · Post by **llze** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:19 pm

Maybe use a less screaming way to open a discussion. People might get distracted.

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:33 pm

Sorry, I don't consider caps-lock screaming. I consider caps lock articulating every syllable SLOWLY! And exclamation are important !!! lol. And BOTH CAPS LOCK AND EXCLAMATIONS make it even more important and clear!!!!!

Liquinaut · Post by **Liquinaut** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:37 pm

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:38 pm

YES!!! lol

llze · Post by **llze** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:48 pm

then good luck..

Jiloo · Post by **Jiloo** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:51 pm

First day on the internet? Read some netiquette rules.
http://netiquette.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_n ... e_all_caps

qtheerearranger · Post by **qtheerearranger** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:57 pm

while I would kill for this feature, I think the browser at its core needs work before this comes along. Currently, there is no master search function like abletons command f. yes you can press b, then s, but this takes you to a subfolder specific directory of your overall resources, unlike ableton. So yeah, until there is more of a master search, hot swap will be hard to include in bitwig.

also, it is so annoying pressing b, then s to search the browser, not to mention having to manually delete what is in the search bar from before.

dream on my friend, dream on.

Ogopogo · Post by **Ogopogo** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:04 pm

Hot swap is coming in 1.2.

alexisk · Post by **alexisk** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:14 pm

You got that right. I completely agree: " also, it is so annoying pressing b, then s to search the browser, not to mention having to manually delete what is in the search bar from before. " Ableton I guess has some advantages in the search, close but no cigar due to lack of tags.

" Hot swap is coming in 1.2." it isn't coming with custom tags like I said and I feel like the two together is what makes it so good. Like I was saying in the entire post earlier, the purpose of this is to be able to get browse really fast through exactly what you want. Precision + Fast browsing. What good would it be if I'm scrolling through 1000 kicks that I can't name differently. And let's not forget midi-loop swap, where you can retain hits but change the patter for faster live performance... That needs tag capablity as well... Maschine had that, they removed it... But anyways... They need to function together... Custom tags/midi hotswaps

Ogopogo · Post by **Ogopogo** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:20 pm

Yeah, I agree custom tagging takes the system to another level. Just wanted to clear up that one point since I didn't see you mention it and q said it wouldn't be coming for a while.

Edit. Oh you did mention it. Sorry, I skimmed.

ri0t · Post by **ri0t** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:17 am

Yeah, we know, we know. This is on our wishlist - but to do it right, it needs to be thought through - there's already enough bad tagging systems out there

In the meantime, the auditioning browser will probably make you a lot happier - not only the hotswapping!

Cheers,
riot

Bitwig

KVR Audio

MOST IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION TO BITWIG!!! HOTSWAP TAGGING SAMPLES EMBED LIBRARIAN!