Bitwig 2.4 MPE fixed?

[Reckon104]

Thanks Roger.

Yeah, I agree it is a bit of a pain. But I typically wait until I am satisfied with the modulation parameters, etc. of a sound before "mpe-ing" them. Also, with most I'll just use two instances so I can do subtle slides on double stops, etc., so it isn't that bad to change it if the need arises. And I personally do use y axis mpe on certain pads I use, etc...I actually find that important for several instruments I have set up at this point.

Anyway, I'll be very interested in actually downloaded ver. 2.4 of bitwig.

best, Steve

[John the Savage]

John: The main reason I am thinking of moving away from Reaper for Live performance is that reaper does not have midi feedback (i think that's what its called) At any given time in the live set I am developing, I may have as many as eight midi controllers active going at any one time. For several of these it is helpful to get feedback from the DAW (for instance my BCR2000 and it's endless encoders or my quneo). That is the main thing that I am missing in Reaper. Also, I do find that the integrated clip launcher in Bitwig is quite nice. Reaper's works well, but suffers a bit from being an add-on I think. All in all, though, Reaper is awesome and boy, it's efficiency is second to none, which for what I am doing may be the ultimate reason to stay with it.

Thanks Stephen, I appreciate you taking the time to lend some insight into your personal workflow and the various sound sources you've been experimenting with. It seems we're all here to gather opinions and suss out the pros and cons of each other's setups. I know I'm still searching for the optimal MPE solution. Welcome to the proverbial bleeding edge, right?

For me, the world of hardware can't catch up fast enough.

Dear Novation:
I would like a Peak 2.0 with a USB host port on the back and full MPE implementation including MIDI channel filtering... (sigh).

Cheers!

[John the Savage]

You can get polyphonic pressure over a single channel, and most people don't find polyphonic Y-axis to be very useful.

I personally do use y axis mpe on certain pads I use, etc...I actually find that important for several instruments I have set up at this point.

I too use the y-axis polyphonically. In fact, it has become a fundamental part of the sounds I design and the way that I play them. I manage the potential chaos by simply setting the y-axis to start at zero and curbing its range; effectively using it as a polyphonic mod-wheel of sorts. Regardless, I wouldn't want to play without it now. And so the search continues for the perfect MPE synth...

Cheers!

[BobDog]

And so the search continues for the perfect MPE synth...

I know it's software but Strobe 2 has an excellent MPE implementation, Cypher 2 is even better but you will still have to wait a while for that one...

[John the Savage]

And so the search continues for the perfect MPE synth...

I know it's software but Strobe 2 has an excellent MPE implementation, Cypher 2 is even better but you will still have to wait a while for that one...

Must. Resist.

(smirk)

Thanks Andy, but the problem with software is that it's trapped inside a computer (wink). Seriously though, not a day goes by that I'm not tempted to resign myself to using my laptop onstage; but the more peripherals I need to rely on, the more something is likely to go wrong. If I didn't have to integrate with so much hardware, I might consider it; but unfortunately, I think it would simply prove to be too flimsy in the context of my live rig.

That said, I'm currently using an iPad onstage (sheepish grin) - which is really no more reliable than a computer, and certainly subject to the same kludge of peripherals - but I'm using it sparingly. Never mind that the iPad and the apps I'm running on it represent a relatively cheap foray into the MPE forum. Streamlining my laptop (or buying a new one), on the other hand, purchasing some decent software, choosing a new DAW (because Ableton is an MPE dead-end at the moment), and all the troubleshooting that comes with a setup like that... Well, let's just say I'm concerned that it would prove to be more time-consuming, and a greater hassle, frustration, and expense than I'm willing to throw at the problem right now; especially when you consider that we're sure to see some proper hardware solutions crop up in the not-too-distant future (I hope).

Regardless, if I do decide to use my laptop for live work, I will likely purchase Equator first, because it's cheap, designed specifically for MPE, and works standalone. But I'm trying not to waste money on speculative ventures. Patience is a virtue, right? Unfortunately not one of mine (smirk).

Cheers!

[Reckon104]

Well, it appears that my wish for midi channel filtering is in fact going to be a part of the new upgrade, based on reports and expectations on the bitwig forum. I probably should have read that forum before posting my frustrations here.

Also, in addition to reaper and usine hollyhock 3 having this functionality, it appears that cubase does as well:

viewtopic.php?p=6076443


So I am cautiously optimistic.

[Reckon104]

Testing the beta now. They implemented the basic channel filtering that I was hoping for! Nice Job Bitwig!!!

Now, back to work!

[Reckon104]

Well, unfortunately it turns out the pitch bend issue will in fact end my experiment with Bitwig until either all my vsts, including NI instruments, change their pitch bend max to 48 or bitwig enables that parameter to be changed.

I guess i've been operating in something of an "MPE bubble." I had assumed that things like midi channel filtering (which they did fix) and flexible pitch bend settings would be core components of any DAWs attempt to make their product MPE friendly, given that everything is early on in the development of the protocol and in order to make things work some jiggering on the user-end is necessary. Clearly I was wrong.

Lesson learned.

[Roger_Linn]

Hi Reckon,

I feel your pain. Like any new standard, MPE will take a while for synths to implement and to implement optimally. Alas, this is the problem of being an early adopter who sees the future before the future has arrived.

It is worth noting that the official MPE specification states that Bend Range should be 48 semitones. The reason is to permit pitch slides up to 4 octaves on longer instruments like the Roli Seaboard and Continuum, which I think makes sense. And it's easy to set LinnStrument's Bend Range to 48.

Given that the MPE landscape is not yet perfect, I think there are two ways to approach the choice of a DAW: 1) reject solutions that aren't perfect, or 2) choose the best available option. If you like Ableton's workflow but also want MPE and expressive control, I'm not aware of a better alternative than Bitwig.

[Reckon104]

Thanks so much for the response Roger. If every tech company had your level of support, response and positivity...well, life would be a whole lost easier.

A couple points:

I know it can seem like these complaints amount to sort of whining about imperfections. My issue is not imperfections, but that fact that my "MPE" experience is significantly downgraded in comparison to the other two main DAWs I've been using recently (Reaper and Usine Hollyhock), neither of which mention anything about MPE in their marketing. I just can't go backwards at this point.

Unfortunately, when you say "it's easy to set the Linnstrument's bend range to 48" that is in actual practice a bit misleading (obviously unintentionally), at least it was to me when you mentioned it above. That works fine with Bitwig's internal synths, but not with VSTs (as far as I can tell and what I've been told elsewhere). So in actual practice, for any VST that doesn't have 48 pb range, using the Linnstrument one only gets half the pitch bend that the VST itself supports. I use NI synths all the time, which have 12 as their limit...and with Bitwig all one gets is 6 with the linnstrument. It's a bit confusing, but try to load up a vst synth that has 24 pb and see if you can get it to work (and please let me know if you can somehow). In fact, for synths that do support 48 pb (like falcon) you actually have to set the linnstrument to 24, which took a bit for me to figure out. Again, if I'm missing something here I am absolutely all ears.

This is extremely frustrating to me because in Reaper there is no issue with this at all. The pitch bend is controlled by the linnstrument in combination with the software. No issues whatsoever with this, or any other aspect of actually playing and taking full advantage of what the linnstrument has to offer, whether with MPE-supported VSTs or non-mpe VSTS that need to be cajoled into doing MPE.

As to your last point: again, I don't feel that I am out of hand "rejecting" bitwig because it is imperfect. I am rejecting it right now because it is simply not as robust in its implementation of MPE as several other DAWs on the market are (apparently including Cubase).

Finally, to your point about the Ableton work flow and Bitwig being the only option. In my opinion, that's not entirely true. With the "playtime" add-on, Reaper has a fairly robust ableton-style clip launching functionality. So this is a very legitimate option for people who want an ableton-esque work flow. The downside, as I've mentioned, is that it does not have midi feedback, which I"m sure for some would be problematic. But that aside, Reaper + Playtime is most definitely an option for an ableton-style work flow that works impeccably with the current state of MPE (and expressive midi in general) implementation.

I really, really wanted to love bitwig, as I think it's got a lot of great things about it. However, at this point I just can't go backwards in terms of the way I use the Linnstrument.

[Roger_Linn]

I didn't quite understand the problem you were describing with requiring external plug-in MPE instruments to have a bend range of 48. I don't really know BW that well due to lack of time, and I hadn't tried BW 2.4 so I just did. The problem I found was that it that in order to have correct pitch slides, I need to set the plug-in MPE synth's bend range to double that of LinnStrument, which seems odd. For example, I can use an external synth with a bend range of 12 if I set LinnStrument's bend range to 6. In my test I was using Roli Equator. I just wrote to BW and when I get a reply,will post it here.

[John the Savage]

And as we run toward the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, the hallway stretches out in front of us like a dream sequence from "Nightmare On Elm Street". Someday, my fellow MPE pioneers... Someday.

(sigh)

Cheers!

[BobDog]

I didn't quite understand the problem you were describing with requiring external plug-in MPE instruments to have a bend range of 48. I don't really know BW that well due to lack of time, and I hadn't tried BW 2.4 so I just did. The problem I found was that it that in order to have correct pitch slides, I need to set the plug-in MPE synth's bend range to double that of LinnStrument, which seems odd. For example, I can use an external synth with a bend range of 12 if I set LinnStrument's bend range to 6. In my test I was using Roli Equator. I just wrote to BW and when I get a reply,will post it here.

Thats interesting, if a bit strange!

Some plugins have the bend range set where the range is - to +, so 12 would be -6 to +6. Where you testing with a plugin like this?

Edit: Ah just read more closely you were using a hardware synth, now that is strange!

[pdxindy]

You can get polyphonic pressure over a single channel, and most people don't find polyphonic Y-axis to be very useful.

I personally do use y axis mpe on certain pads I use, etc...I actually find that important for several instruments I have set up at this point.

I too use the y-axis polyphonically. In fact, it has become a fundamental part of the sounds I design and the way that I play them. I manage the potential chaos by simply setting the y-axis to start at zero and curbing its range; effectively using it as a polyphonic mod-wheel of sorts. Regardless, I wouldn't want to play without it now. And so the search continues for the perfect MPE synth...

Cheers!

I also use the Y-Axis regularly... I set it up in a variety of different ways...

[pdxindy]

Thanks Roger.

Yeah, I agree it is a bit of a pain. But I typically wait until I am satisfied with the modulation parameters, etc. of a sound before "mpe-ing" them.

For me, there is zero chance I would ever spend my time setting up multiple instances of a synth with the same preset. Way too clumsy for me.

I have that luxury also because I have plenty of synths that work great in MPE mode. Which is more than enough to do anything I want. So for me there is no reason to bother with non-MPE synths.

I use Bitwig and Logic. Bitwig is strictly adhering to the MPE standard which is a bit of a hassle. Bitwig (2.4) would be perfect if it allowed one to set the PB range. Logic is not as good for editing as Bitwig, but it allows me to set the pitchbend range... plus it can also use modwheel or breath for Timbre and not just CC74.

With Logic I have these synths working in MPE
Kaivo
Repro
Hive
Diva
Bazille
Ace
PPG Phonem
Wavegenerator 2
Infinite Pro
Sculpture
Alchemy

There are half a dozen others that work, but I just don't need em.