Are ghost/instance clips in yet, or officially due in the near future ?

[shadiradio]

For me this is the one feature that's holding me from getting Bitwig, and it's the top reason why I bought FL Studio only a few months ago, which currently suits my workflow needs best.

The ability to manage automation as blocks that can be easily manipulated is a huge bonus:




Also especially valuable for electronic music producers, is the "DRY rule" (Don't Repeat Yourself), essentially ghost copies, all of which share identical data, clip title and color.



Note FL Studio's clever implementation, which allows two instances of the same clip to be resized to different lengths.

Bitwig has the Clip Launcher, multi-clip editing, you can copy paste automation regions, duplicate them, you can loop each individual parameter automation lane with its own loop length, you can layer multiple automations of the same parameter using relative and multiply modes to create complex automation shapes.

You can put automation clips in the Clip Launcher and trigger them whenever you want.

Of course you are free to use whatever software works for you... but I think there's a tendency to get used to working a certain way and then have a hard flowing with different software that has other creative potentials and ways to accomplish stuff.

I think Bitwig automation and the flexibility of its various tools are quite powerful.

+1 for ghost clips & automation clips

Normally I'd agree, but I don't think this is a case where functionality overlaps and is treated in different ways. Without ghost/alias clips, if you have something repeated in Bitwig in many locations, there is no way around having to remember to change them all if you change one. No amount of nesting, clips, automation (free looping or not), or crazy routing will get around this. Those FL studio gifs are great - I would love automation clips too!

I'm sure it's on their todo list, and just like all the other features in BWS, I'm sure they'll go above and beyond what people are expecting.

[pdxindy]

+1 for ghost clips & automation clips

Normally I'd agree, but I don't think this is a case where functionality overlaps and is treated in different ways. Without ghost/alias clips, if you have something repeated in Bitwig in many locations, there is no way around having to remember to change them all if you change one. No amount of nesting, clips, automation (free looping or not), or crazy routing will get around this. Those FL studio gifs are great - I would love automation clips too!

I'm sure it's on their todo list, and just like all the other features in BWS, I'm sure they'll go above and beyond what people are expecting.

Sure they are convenient... but IMO far from show stoppers that Bitwig doesn't have them. It is not so hard to multiple select some clips and edit them.

Bitwig has a sophisticated automation system...

There are plenty of other things I would prefer to see Bitwig add before ghost clips.

[shadiradio]

+1 for ghost clips & automation clips

Normally I'd agree, but I don't think this is a case where functionality overlaps and is treated in different ways. Without ghost/alias clips, if you have something repeated in Bitwig in many locations, there is no way around having to remember to change them all if you change one. No amount of nesting, clips, automation (free looping or not), or crazy routing will get around this. Those FL studio gifs are great - I would love automation clips too!

I'm sure it's on their todo list, and just like all the other features in BWS, I'm sure they'll go above and beyond what people are expecting.

Sure they are convenient... but IMO far from show stoppers that Bitwig doesn't have them. It is not so hard to multiple select some clips and edit them.

Bitwig has a sophisticated automation system...

There are plenty of other things I would prefer to see Bitwig add before ghost clips.

Oh I'd agree with you there - it is definitely a convenience vs. a showstopper, and not high on my priority list either.

[xbitz]

notemods can be nested into each other(just a draw a single note with the given length into a clip and add some pain/timbre/pressure curve to them), clips can be edited together, u can try different automation using the clip launcher(automation lines can be switched on off) system so it's better than the FL one, anyway the notemod/macro control based automation is quite powerful in BWS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLpA25f ... e=youtu.be

[Eleventh]

As someone who works a lot with MIDI clips, I think this is a feature that should be available sooner than later kind of a standard feature, and a huge help when you have MIDI all over the place.

The ability to manage automation as blocks that can be easily manipulated is a huge bonus:

This is really f**king sweet! I've always looked down on Fruity Loops a bit... but when it comes to automation it should be the gold standard of DAWS

Bitwig automation is pretty good, yeah, and has some innovative stuff like the additive and multiplicative automation, which is even clip-contained. This is not the case with the basic automation mode unfortunately, which overrides track automation if you place a clip containing automation points, and later move/remove it. So yeah, there's definitely room for improvement.

[Eleventh]

notemods can be nested into each other(just a draw a single note with the given length into a clip and add some pain/timbre/pressure curve to them), clips can be edited together, u can try different automation using the clip launcher(automation lines can be switched on off) system so it's better than the FL one, anyway the notemod/macro control based automation is quite powerful in BWS

To me this seems like a workaround to achieve a FL Studio -like workflow, which only works with note mod events. How is it better exactly?

Nice tip though! Better than nothing even though you can only automate one parameter per track with it.

[Scoox]

@pdxindy I don't think using the clip launcher for triggering automation clips is quite the same as what I am talking about. Once you've got an arrangement down, is it possible to change all identical clips simultaneously by editing just any one of them? In Bitwig, the answer is "currently not" (unless I'm mistaken). I use several DAWs, depending on the task, and this is a feature I'd rather have. It's not a show stopper but for electronic music it is a great time-saver. Each user has different priorities depending on the nature of their work. For me this is important so for the time being I'll stay with FL. Once this feature is implemented I'm definitely buying Bitwig.

[digitalfix]

As someone who works a lot with MIDI clips, I think this is a feature that should be available sooner than later kind of a standard feature, and a huge help when you have MIDI all over the place.

The ability to manage automation as blocks that can be easily manipulated is a huge bonus:

This is really f**king sweet! I've always looked down on Fruity Loops a bit... but when it comes to automation it should be the gold standard of DAWS

Bitwig automation is pretty good, yeah, and has some innovative stuff like the additive and multiplicative automation, which is even clip-contained. This is not the case with the basic automation mode unfortunately, which overrides track automation if you place a clip containing automation points, and later move/remove it. So yeah, there's definitely room for improvement.

FL's automation is amazing. Double click on the header and you can convert the clip to an LFO with more options than I've seen anywhere else. It's then possible to modulate those options with more automation or further LFOs so you can make some really wonky stuff like this:

[xbitz]

which only works with note mod events. How is it better exactly?
Nice tip though! Better than nothing even though you can only automate one parameter per track with it.

"with note mode events" used one long note which can drive anything
"only automate one parameter" do u mean four: can be gain, pan, timbre, and pressure based (ofc more than one note also can be used as modulation source with nested notemods and putting notefiltering in their NoteFX slots but it would be a bit overwhelming IMO but in this way u can drive unlimited parameters, shows well how flexible is Bitwig )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk5EOO51p_Q

it's loopable, can be edited together (so "patternizable" ), can be put any modulation on top of it like LFO etc, can be soloed, can be muted, can be disabled, grouped etc., yepp the only issue that they needs auxiliary tracks so this pattern was unusable in the pre 1.2 era but now they can be grouped together so happy times here we go

//
FL Studio modulation vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_mQUV2iwiI
cmon guys they are not on the same level

so

@pdxindy is it possible to change all identical clips simultaneously by editing just any one of them? In Bitwig, the answer is "currently not" (unless I'm mistaken).

so as u can see on the first video u can because the multi clip editing can be used on the same (and the Ctrl+A based selection selects all the clips on a given track first) clip instances(clips with the same content) too, ofc. an official way would be much better

[xbitz]

for fun, just a proof of concept about the multi note/notemod/notefilter based automation

[Eleventh]

Cool to see such things made possible by the modular nature of Bitwig, but it's also a trap for ending up creating endless workarounds (and wasting a ton of time ). That's why I'm requesting a "native" solution. Best of both worlds.

[Scoox]

I'm really glad to see that this request has met with a unanimous positive response from current Bitwig users. I requested this on the Studio One forums a while back and most people thought it was not necessary. I think that's because a lot of Bitwig users are electronic musicians.

[pdxindy]

so as u can see on the first video u can because the multi clip editing can be used on the same (and the Ctrl+A based selection selects all the clips on a given track first) clip instances(clips with the same content) too, ofc. an official way would be much better

You could also put all the duplicate clips on one group sub-track... super easy to select all then

And of course, there is the Clip Launcher... I can use follow actions to loop clip A twice, go to Clip B, go to clip C which is played 4 times then go to clip D... when D finishes it goes back to the Arrangement.

I can trigger that sequence whenever I want... without any duplicate clips at all (ghost or otherwise)

[Scoox]

You could also put all the duplicate clips on one group sub-track... super easy to select all then

In practice this is not convenient as you need a new track for each group of "similar" clips, and you have to actively remember to select all the clips each time you want to change one.

And of course, there is the Clip Launcher... I can use follow actions to loop clip A twice, go to Clip B, go to clip C which is played 4 times then go to clip D... when D finishes it goes back to the Arrangement.

I can trigger that sequence whenever I want... without any duplicate clips at all (ghost or otherwise)

I dont't think Next Actions are meant for arranging complete tracks (even if it's possible). Also, I don't think there is an option to jump to specific clips, at least I couldn't find it, but I'd like to know if this exists.

[Eleventh]

Nothing to do with ghost clips though... I think pdxindy might be misunderstanding the concept?