Letter to Bitwig: Stop Looking at Ableton for Audio Editing Inspiration

[kickinthedoors]

This was inspired by svervs response to track height in Bitwig and is my opinion on why Bitwig made that decision and others regarding audio editing. Curious to hear your thoughts.

If you haven't used the supreme god of audio editing - Pro Tools - then you won't know what you're missing when it comes to editing.

I don't think Bitwig guys ever used Pro Tools because well, they're Ableton guys. According to them zooming the track height in Ableton is only available as a workaround because you can't edit within clips. I get what they mean but I don't agree at all. It might be the case in Ableton but let's not diss the concept because Ableton got it wrong...

In Pro Tools for example, you resize tracks to your hearts delight and you can edit everything right there on the track more accurately and faster than any other DAW. In fact, much faster and more accurately than layered editing.

Unfortunately it looks like Bitwig folks studied Logic and Ableton for audio editing and tried to find a compromise and improve upon that. In my opinion that was a silly mistake and a solution to a false premise. Anyone who edits AUDIO knows Pro Tools reigns supreme in that department. It might be slowly developed but it's still miles ahead of every other DAW in that specific department. From keyboard shortcuts down to the waveform, the zooming, the tools, it's all made for the audio editing workflow. The way you can handle your audio in Pro Tools is inspiring, it's what Pro Tools innovated in. Thank the lord almighty Bitwig didn't get inspired by those crappy block waveforms in Ableton.

I like the fact that you can do layered editing in Bitwig but in my opinion that's just work around for not being able to edit in the arrange. They built on a false premise while looking at Ableton's weakness instead of Pro Tools greatest strength.

Editing audio in the arrange is the ultimate simplicity - You see the audio, you can touch it, move it and manipulate it however you want. You don't have to pop up a window to do it, you don't have enable a feature to see more than one track at a time, etc.

Clip View in Ableton is the reason for the contrary approach - You need to see clips, not entire tracks and so the arrangement view got second class treatment. It was an after thought because the clip view was such a great innovation.

I would love to see Bitwig stray away from Ableton when it comes to the arrange view. Right now it's basically just a place to place pretty looking blocks which is a good thing since they can take it anywhere from here.

[kickinthedoors]

ERROR

[codec17]

I don't think Bitwig guys ever used Pro Tools because well, they're Ableton guys. According to them zooming the track height in Ableton is only available as a workaround because you can't edit within clips. I get what they mean but I don't agree at all. It might be the case in Ableton but let's not diss the concept because Ableton got it wrong...

@5min.
https://soundcloud.com/kaneaudio/the-ka ... lms-bitwig

[kickinthedoors]

I don't think Bitwig guys ever used Pro Tools because well, they're Ableton guys. According to them zooming the track height in Ableton is only available as a workaround because you can't edit within clips. I get what they mean but I don't agree at all. It might be the case in Ableton but let's not diss the concept because Ableton got it wrong...

@5min.
https://soundcloud.com/kaneaudio/the-ka ... lms-bitwig

I know where this can go so let me just clarify - I'm STRICTLY talking about Audio Editing workflow.

[TristanMendoza]

I use Pro Tools in school and me and my teachers always joke around about the best DAW and stuff like that. I use Bitwig for everything unless I'm in class and I can work extremely comfortably with both.

[Bobby L'Avenir]

If you haven't used the supreme god of audio editing - Pro Tools - then you won't know what you're missing when it comes to editing.

I don't think Bitwig guys ever used Pro Tools because well, they're Ableton guys.

.

Mate you really need to try the Cubase or Studio One demo. The Pro Tools is king days are loooooong gone, not one thing in for fools, sorry pro tools that can't be done in Cubase or Studio One which are the 2 programs Bitwig should be taking even more inspiration from

[Coockie1176ln]

I use Pro Tools in school and me and my teachers always joke around about the best DAW and stuff like that. I use Bitwig for everything unless I'm in class and I can work extremely comfortably with both.

I like the audio editing in bitwig, never used ableton or pro tools. I have experience from reason, bitwig and fl studio and a bit reaper but not much. The three first mention daw i can find around like the back of my hand. Reasons workflow is bad but reason is really fun because of racks! And the streching algorythm in reason just wow strech 8 times original length still sounds normal, fls pianoroll is so nasty and sick and i like the step sequencer in fl, bitwigs easy modulation and great workflow of straight forward and easy to use. Love them all and all daws i have used have something they are better at.

[SLiC]

Every DAW needs to decide what it wants top be, you cant be all things to all people. Protools and Cubase literally drowned me with options and workflow choices- probably great if your a full time pro producer (rather than a musician at home recording your own stuff) but I found I used 5% of the available tools and it took me ages to find my way around an accomplish even simple and obvious tasks...

I swapped out Cubase for Studio One because it was simpler and faster to work with almost no menu diving, the stuff 'I' needed was in front of me and the way it worked just seemed logical and fast to me. Same deal with BitWig, you can just use it, its relatively simple (but deep in its modular nature) if you start trying to make it have too many audio editing features it will bloat and become less immediate. If you really need deep and advanced audio editing for what 'you' do, then take try Cubase, Protools or even Studio One...personally I would like to keep BitWig as a fairly light and immediate music creation tool (concentrating on clips, routing, modulation and racks) rather than another Protools type DAW- we have a bunch of those already...we only had Live as an alternative type of DAW before BitWig...

[maschinelf]

That may be so, but cubase does allow for zooming track height in the arrange view. I'm all for bitwig keeping its workflow clean & simple, and not getting too muddled like cubase, but zooming track height is a pretty big omission imo, and one of the things I find most frustrating about bitwig. Is it correct that they've confirmed this won't be added before v2.0?

[kygo___]

personally I would like to keep BitWig as a fairly light and immediate music creation tool (concentrating on clips, routing, modulation and racks) rather than another Protools type DAW

Thats why i'm worried about 1.2. This new "second" browser looks very cumbersome and cluttered. And its popup in front of everything. Thats a big step back in workflow imo... I would prefer the same old "quick add" window that you can just customize with your own things and just extend the functionality of the sidebar browser. But now we have 2 different browsers...oh well.

[Bobby L'Avenir]

Every DAW needs to decide what it wants top be, you cant be all things to all people. Protools and Cubase literally drowned me with options and workflow choices- probably great if your a full time pro producer (rather than a musician at home recording your own stuff) but I found I used 5% of the available tools and it took me ages to find my way around an accomplish even simple and obvious tasks...

I swapped out Cubase for Studio One because it was simpler and faster to work with almost no menu diving, the stuff 'I' needed was in front of me and the way it worked just seemed logical and fast to me. Same deal with BitWig, you can just use it, its relatively simple (but deep in its modular nature) if you start trying to make it have too many audio editing features it will bloat and become less immediate. If you really need deep and advanced audio editing for what 'you' do, then take try Cubase, Protools or even Studio One...personally I would like to keep BitWig as a fairly light and immediate music creation tool (concentrating on clips, routing, modulation and racks) rather than another Protools type DAW- we have a bunch of those already...we only had Live as an alternative type of DAW before BitWig...

People want a daw that can do it all without swapping files back and forth, it's a workflow killer and a waste of time. Basic audio editing tools, clearer midi functions and modern daw routing to help workflow along with some bug fixing is all bitwig needs. I don't think many want as many features as pro tools or cubase but we do want the basics without having to go external. Love bitwig but man the time it's taken to finish my current project because of the lack of audio editing tools and the bugs I'm running into to

Remember people rewire Live for a reason

[Eleventh]

the supreme god of audio editing - Pro Tools

[Andrei Marchenko]

Folks am i understand right that this new browser created to replace "Quick Add" window? :/

[tooneba]

use pro tools... problem solved

[qtheerearranger]

you realize every DAW has looked at ableton for audio editing inspiration.

From what I know, pretty sure ableton was the first DAW to introduce warp markers and every single DAW does this now because it is such an amazing idea.