Bitwig 5 browser is a mess

[Shifrin]

Is anyone’s browser in 5.1, the selection specifically, still jumping around like it’s had 10 espressos? I’m noticing it mostly in the right hand browser. It’s like the mouse wheel is scrolling (it’s not) so the selected item bounces around, sometimes quite dramatically. I reported that to Bitwig some months ago but mine is still trippin’.

Yep, mine too. Specifically the right hand browser. It's intermittent but still occurring..

[S950]

Hmm, sounds strange. My browser's sippin' herbal tea instead of espresso. No wild dance moves in my selection tab. Maybe time to ping the support guys again, they can help. Best to make a video of the hiccups!

I did attach a video to my bug report. They answered "hopefully we can make the browser better". It was in the midst of the changeover so maybe they were thinking it was related to some general complaints about the new browser.

[S950]

Is anyone’s browser in 5.1, the selection specifically, still jumping around like it’s had 10 espressos? I’m noticing it mostly in the right hand browser. It’s like the mouse wheel is scrolling (it’s not) so the selected item bounces around, sometimes quite dramatically. I reported that to Bitwig some months ago but mine is still trippin’.

Yep, mine too. Specifically the right hand browser. It's intermittent but still occurring..

Alright, I'll submit another bug report for 5.1. Thx.

[_leras]

Ha ha.. so my exact primary struggle appears to be...

I want to add an effect and I get a mix of plug ins and presets, all good l can just filter by Bitwig and/or UAD.... Ah... Except I can only see a creator option and not the Vendor option that it seems I need.

Vendor should be there. And you can save the default. For example, you can show all FX devices, not show the presets. Select Vendor (Don't know why you don't see it) but don't actually pick a vendor.

Now save that as the default for that context and next time you open the popup for FX, it will show all devices, no presets, and you will see the vendors listed in the left column.

Thanks, I appreciate the support!

I slowed down to give the browser a more detailed look...

When I want to add an instrument, it shows Bitwig devices and presets, but these presets include e.g. uhe diva presets. I does not show Diva itself... And only shows creator, not vendor

So... then I need to select Plug Ins, which then shows vendor, but actually doesn't have Bitwig as a creator as it has a Bitwig button to do this....

The old browser... Well this very clearly has:
The everything, plus my custom folders
the device type
Further filter vst2/vst3/bitwig device
Category
Creator (this includes vendors)
Then also at the top (with text), devices/presets/multi samples/samples

Here I can see and browse everything so easily... And it's really clear...

In the new one, I don't like the icons instead of text, the presets just seem jumbled in with things i.e. note under note FX, and it seems the actual hierarchy is hidden. It's fine if I know what I want, but a pain to kinda explore...

It also kinda hides my previous collections of presets... I guess I just need to work out a better way to make them more immediately available...

So.....pros and cons....

[pdxindy]

When I want to add an instrument, it shows Bitwig devices and presets, but these presets include e.g. uhe diva presets. I does not show Diva itself... And only shows creator, not vendor

Weird, it should show all instruments and presets... IIRC, that is the default before one sets their own. You may have saved it as you are seeing?

Anyway, you can configure it so it shows whatever you want.

[manfex]

Is there still no way to hide plugins? When I only use H-Reverb Stereo, I don't want to see this in the browser:

H-Reverb 5.0
H-Reverb 5.1
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long Mono
H-Reverb long Mono/5.0
H-Reverb long Mono/5.1
H-Reverb long Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.1
H-Reverb Mono
H-Reverb Mono/5.0
H-Reverb Mono/5.1
H-Reverb Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb Stereo/5.1

The same issue is with IK Multimedia plugins, which are all installed, own them or not, I have tens of plugins by IK I have no license for, and I don't intend to get them at any point, but I still have to look at them in the browser.

Another thing is that every developer has their own way of naming plugins, I would like to unify them by renaming them, but you can't. The only way is to make a preset for each of the plugins, and I have hundreds of them, and even then, the list is not alphabetical if presets are mixed with non-presets. It's annoying if you have one plugin called BM-VICE, another one Minimonsta_vstwin_fx_64, a third TyrellN6[x86] etc. when they could be nice an tidy like Beatmaker Vice, Minimonsta, Tyrell N6

[_leras]

Weird, it should show all instruments and presets... IIRC, that is the default before one sets their own. You may have saved it as you are seeing?

Anyway, you can configure it so it shows whatever you want.

Thanks pdx.

I'll keep working through it. I'm better able to find things now after your help, the manual and comparing directly to v4.

I might ask them to tweak parts of the screen. I.e. text alongside some of the icons. I don't think this window needed to be narrower.

I'll probably also ask for the option of keeping the old browser style as an option.

[JHernandez]

Is there still no way to hide plugins? When I only use H-Reverb Stereo, I don't want to see this in the browser:

H-Reverb 5.0
H-Reverb 5.1
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long Mono
H-Reverb long Mono/5.0
H-Reverb long Mono/5.1
H-Reverb long Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.1
H-Reverb Mono
H-Reverb Mono/5.0
H-Reverb Mono/5.1
H-Reverb Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb Stereo/5.1

The same issue is with IK Multimedia plugins, which are all installed, own them or not, I have tens of plugins by IK I have no license for, and I don't intend to get them at any point, but I still have to look at them in the browser.

Another thing is that every developer has their own way of naming plugins, I would like to unify them by renaming them, but you can't. The only way is to make a preset for each of the plugins, and I have hundreds of them, and even then, the list is not alphabetical if presets are mixed with non-presets. It's annoying if you have one plugin called BM-VICE, another one Minimonsta_vstwin_fx_64, a third TyrellN6[x86] etc. when they could be nice an tidy like Beatmaker Vice, Minimonsta, Tyrell N6

Don't install plugins you don't want to use? Uninstall or trash the ones you don't need? Rename the actual plugins you want to rename?

Works for me.

[Trancit]

Is there still no way to hide plugins? When I only use H-Reverb Stereo, I don't want to see this in the browser:

H-Reverb 5.0
H-Reverb 5.1
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long 5.0
H-Reverb long Mono
H-Reverb long Mono/5.0
H-Reverb long Mono/5.1
H-Reverb long Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb long Stereo/5.1
H-Reverb Mono
H-Reverb Mono/5.0
H-Reverb Mono/5.1
H-Reverb Mono/Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo
H-Reverb Stereo/5.0
H-Reverb Stereo/5.1

The same issue is with IK Multimedia plugins, which are all installed, own them or not, I have tens of plugins by IK I have no license for, and I don't intend to get them at any point, but I still have to look at them in the browser.

Another thing is that every developer has their own way of naming plugins, I would like to unify them by renaming them, but you can't. The only way is to make a preset for each of the plugins, and I have hundreds of them, and even then, the list is not alphabetical if presets are mixed with non-presets. It's annoying if you have one plugin called BM-VICE, another one Minimonsta_vstwin_fx_64, a third TyrellN6[x86] etc. when they could be nice an tidy like Beatmaker Vice, Minimonsta, Tyrell N6

Don't install plugins you don't want to use? Uninstall or trash the ones you don't need? Rename the actual plugins you want to rename?

Works for me.

This doesn´t work for VST3 in general and Waves plugins especially...

- renaming VST3 doesn´t affect the name in a DAW (unlike to VST2)... the display name how the DAW reads it is coded in the plugin no matter what you name the file...
- if you install the Waves H-Reverb it does come automatically with all the other versions via their silly wavesshell... no way with VST3 to get rid of the others if the DAW doesn´t offer hiding these...

It stays what it is... either you have to make a huge effort with making default presets and collections to build up what you like to see or Bitwig has to implement some way to hide plugins and rename them...

These are the only options...

[xbitz]

^^^ Why don't you mark it/them as favorites, then with a simple shift-double click/right-click on the plus signs, only those will appear

[Trancit]

^^^ Why don't you mark it/them as favorites, then with a simple shift-double click/right-click on the plus signs, only those will appear

Even if this is nice... it´s not completely helping out...

To make everything working the way it (imho) should be, you have to do/prepare seperate things...

1. To have a custom name, you have to make your own default presets of every plugin you want to rename...

Silly side effect... Saving presets with capital letters looks silly in the browser... writing them in a normal way looks silly and is hard to read on the plugin once it´s loaded because the Bitwigs thought it would be a good idea to rename plugins loaded this way how the preset is written... was better before...

2. as you do not just want to work with favourites you have to make collections for Note FX, Instruments and FX plugins...
Here already is the problem that identification is harder to realize as collections in the quick panel doesn´t support text and no custom icons neither so all you´ve got is color coding...

3. to get rid of the wants you want to hide now you have to assign all plugins you want to use to the corresponding collections... and most likely get rid of the default collections in the quick panel...

4. now you have to make new defaults for the pop up browser when to show what... for adding to empty instrument tracks... before instruments... after instruments... etc...etc...

5. as you´ve mixed plugins and presets but want to have them shown equally you have to set for each new browser default as well to have alphabetic order...

All of this just because the browser is lacking hiding plugins and renaming plugins...
I don´t know what you are thinking... but I find this a quite harsh punishment for people being keen of this kind of organization... while there are other bad side effects too...

[xbitz]

^^^

2. as you do not just want to work with favourites you have to make collections for Note FX, Instruments and FX plugins...
Here already is the problem that identification is harder to realize as collections in the quick panel doesn´t support text and no custom icons neither so all you´ve got is color coding...

tab key "knows" the collection names (too), specifically, I haven't added them to the quick panel, I'm still able to type in three characters for a tab

Képernyőfotó 2023-12-14 - 19.46.46.png

where "Fab" is the name of the collection of the FabFilter plugins, favorites might still be added as an extra filter(if the browser was opened by shift-clicking), then it jumps to the favorite FabFilter plugins



I'm not very demanding, I've put in the collections what I use and also in the favorites what I use very, very often ... it's good this way.

[JHernandez]

Is there still no way to hide plugins? When I only use H-Reverb Stereo, I don't want to see this in the browser:


The same issue is with IK Multimedia plugins, which are all installed, own them or not, I have tens of plugins by IK I have no license for, and I don't intend to get them at any point, but I still have to look at them in the browser.

Another thing is that every developer has their own way of naming plugins, I would like to unify them by renaming them, but you can't. The only way is to make a preset for each of the plugins, and I have hundreds of them, and even then, the list is not alphabetical if presets are mixed with non-presets. It's annoying if you have one plugin called BM-VICE, another one Minimonsta_vstwin_fx_64, a third TyrellN6[x86] etc. when they could be nice an tidy like Beatmaker Vice, Minimonsta, Tyrell N6

Don't install plugins you don't want to use? Uninstall or trash the ones you don't need? Rename the actual plugins you want to rename?

Works for me.

This doesn´t work for VST3 in general and Waves plugins especially...

- renaming VST3 doesn´t affect the name in a DAW (unlike to VST2)... the display name how the DAW reads it is coded in the plugin no matter what you name the file...
- if you install the Waves H-Reverb it does come automatically with all the other versions via their silly wavesshell... no way with VST3 to get rid of the others if the DAW doesn´t offer hiding these...

It stays what it is... either you have to make a huge effort with making default presets and collections to build up what you like to see or Bitwig has to implement some way to hide plugins and rename them...

These are the only options...

Well for the extra plugins this person doesn't intend to ever use, obviously delete/uninstall them.

There's a way to separate all those waves variations from the shell. I had to do it myself. I just can't remember how because I gave up on waves and their BS some years back. It can be done on both Windows and macOS. It shouldn't be that hard to find out how online.

I don't use VST3 unless I'm forced to so that explains it in my case. Now I'm curious to find a way to change the name of VST3's. Can't be that difficult, I don't think.

Obviously you can just use collections to make life easier.

I'm just tossing out ideas to try and solve the problem now instead waiting around for updates that may never come.

[Trancit]

There's a way to separate all those waves variations from the shell. I had to do it myself. I just can't remember how because I gave up on waves and their BS some years back. It can be done on both Windows and macOS. It shouldn't be that hard to find out how online.

There are these free "shell to VST/VST3" wrappers ...yes but this is an extra part which can cause errors...
would be easier to be able to hide plugins in the browser...

I don't use VST3 unless I'm forced to so that explains it in my case. Now I'm curious to find a way to change the name of VST3's. Can't be that difficult, I don't think.

Good luck... if you found it, please tell me!

Obviously you can just use collections to make life easier.

Sadly it´s not just making collections but the whole other part I wrote in the other post...

But that´s the way it is for the moment... it´s not a biggie though... just some inconvinience...

[zerocrossing]

I’m experiencing the browser jumping around and full folders of plugins being there one second, gone the next. What a f’n disaster. I feel like asking for my upgrade money back and going back to 4.