Beta Testing of Bitwig Studio 5.2

[jens]

probably there is a reason for them why they named it 5.2 and not 6.

Yeah... point releases are more for enticing current customers to keep their plan active while major releases are more for potentially attracting new customers, I'd guess - so I wouldn't expect too much headline-worthy new stuff in point releases.

(Which is why personally I am not that disappointed that there's still no hint of ARA whatsoever. If it still won't be in 6.0 then I'll join the choir of doom)

[SLiC]

I thought the whole point of the upgrade plan was that there were no major releases, things are just released when they are ready, every release is a point release ( and I am paraphrasing the Bitwig developers) . V6 is no more likely to have big features than 5.2.

[Gam456]

Major version updates are major which is good and so Im thankfull for little „free“ updates.

It's not really free though, is it? It's a couple of months - probably half a year - of a paid year. So in a way you could say this one costs about 85€.

Major vs point releases are really relatively insignificant when it comes to Bitwig - especially as compared with DAWs which have more conventional ways of collecting development-payments.

thats why a wrote „“. different business models of companies but probably there is a reason for them why they named it 5.2 and not 6.

Go back to 5.0. I don't think it was a revolution

[syntonica]

Does the new GUI mean that they dumped the Java underpinnings?

[pdxindy]

It's not really free though, is it? It's a couple of months - probably half a year - of a paid year. So in a way you could say this one costs about 85€.

Yeah, it depends on when someone activated their upgrade. If someone activated their last one when 5.0 was released, then for that upgrade, they got 5.0, 5.1 and now 5.2.

Assuming someone bought the upgrade on sale (and there is no reason to pay full price, that is 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 for $130. Combine the changelog of all 3 and the list would be huge.

[Jac459]

There is so many threads open to comment 5.2, can we at least keep this one to share experience with new features and not have it polluted by broken dreams drama?

[Rivanni]

Yeah, it depends on when someone activated their upgrade. If someone activated their last one when 5.0 was released, then for that upgrade, they got 5.0, 5.1 and now 5.2.

Assuming someone bought the upgrade on sale (and there is no reason to pay full price, that is 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 for $130.

IF 5.2 is released before June 29th.
And for me personally before June 10th.

[pdxindy]

Yeah, it depends on when someone activated their upgrade. If someone activated their last one when 5.0 was released, then for that upgrade, they got 5.0, 5.1 and now 5.2.

Assuming someone bought the upgrade on sale (and there is no reason to pay full price, that is 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 for $130.

IF 5.2 is released before June 29th.
And for me personally before June 10th.

If your account is active when the beta is announced, then you get 5.2 regardless.

[jens]

there is no reason to pay full price

That depends on the individual circumstances, no? Without ARA support, I'm not going to ever drop any money on them - but if V6 (or any other update) adds ARA, I'll gladly pay for it and I don't think I'll wait several months for a potential sale.

(So far I haven't even been using it productively at all because of the lack of ARA - I stopped using Reason - which I love otherwise - because it lacks it too, so for me it doesn't make any sense to invest quality time and/or money on any other DAW w/o ARA.)

[Rivanni]

Yeah, it depends on when someone activated their upgrade. If someone activated their last one when 5.0 was released, then for that upgrade, they got 5.0, 5.1 and now 5.2.

Assuming someone bought the upgrade on sale (and there is no reason to pay full price, that is 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2 for $130.

IF 5.2 is released before June 29th.
And for me personally before June 10th.

If your account is active when the beta is announced, then you get 5.2 regardless.

I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding.

[xbitz]

that's why Splice is handy. just create an email account (it only takes 2-3 clicks on gmail) to try out the new features for 14 days for free. If you like them and find them useful, can buy the update-plan on your main account... so fortunately, Bitwig doesn't map the registration to some hardware-specific key...yet

[Jac459]

Anybody have already thought about the compressor+ and EQs ???

[pdxindy]

Anybody have already thought about the compressor+ and EQs ???

Preliminary thought... they all sound good.

I've been playing with Compressor+ and hitting it hard and the low end sounds great! Stays coherent and solid with pleasing distortion. It's a complex device and I barely scratched the surface, but I'm liking what I hear.

Sculpt is

Over is a solid addition too.

[Dionysos]

I only played with it briefly on a basic drum loop, but what surprised me about Compressor+ was how much the different modes affect the compression. They aren't subtle colouring modes, in some cases they drastically change the sound and require re-adjustment of timing and threshold settings.

So at first glance it felt like a bunch of different compressors bundled into one UI to me, quite the beast. I don't really understand the multiband aspect of it yet.

[Jac459]

Anybody have already thought about the compressor+ and EQs ???

Preliminary thought... they all sound good.

I've been playing with Compressor+ and hitting it hard and the low end sounds great! Stays coherent and solid with pleasing distortion. It's a complex device and I barely scratched the surface, but I'm liking what I hear.

Sculpt is

Over is a solid addition too.

Did you find any use of it in relation of Bitwig specific ecosystem ?

What I mean by that is a feature that make it superior in some scenarios compare to using a VST ?
Example: with EQ2, if I want a surgical sidechaining between my kick and bass, I will use audio side chain modulator, and if I want to duck by say, -6db a band, I will be able to directly see -6db in the macro of EQ2. If I want to do the same with Pro Q3, and I want to duck exactly -6db, I will have to open the plug-in and do trial and error because the macro doesn't show -6db but a value from 0 to 128. (I could use the sidechain of Pro Q3 directly but the one of Bitwig is far superior).

Likewise, I wonder if there is equivalent scenario with the new tools.