It's really simple - sometimes I want a track to fade in / out gradually and - obviously - I don't want to automate the track's volume fader, because I might want to adjust it later in the mix, so I'd have to re-do the automation as well. Intuitively, this should be achievable with some kind of a tool, right? There's "Tool" device, so I thought I can do it there, but it turns out it's limited in range.Tearing Riots wrote:I think we're talking past each other here, do you propose a 'drive' setup with a single knob as a bitwig feature?
The tool's amplitude knob is a gain adjust. Just like the gain knob on a mixing desk. Use it for gainstaging. If it had a bigger range it would be harder to use.
A volume fader is scaled more like human hearing. I think the fx layers volume slider is indeed meant for that. It even shows up in the mixer.
If you still insist that it's all wrong you could roll your own, even switching exp/lin/log behavior using the upcoming polynomial modulator.
Hope that helps
That's all I'm saying: using FX Layer - or anything else - to do the Tool's job is not intuitive and I've seen the same discussion several times on Live's forums and Facebook groups with regards to its Utility device, because it's confusing and not obvious at all. How can an average user know Tool is meant for gain staging and not for volume adjustment? Or even understand the difference? How would they know they should use FX Layer instead, when - according to the manual - it's meant for something else?
Just make the Tool bi-modal (or whatever that's called) to act as linear gain/amplitude knob or non-linear volume knob depending on situation and need. Or split them in two separate devices, like they did with Dual Pan and DC Offset that - logically - could've been part of the Tool as well. I have the same issue with LFOs or Envelopes, where we have 3 of either but none of them have a complete feature set - if it has one thing, it will miss something else.
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BTW, this whole discussion comes back to something I fear the most about Bitwig's future - if it's not done smartly, the planned opening of the modular system can alienate a lot of users, pushing Bitwig into a small, niche product. Not everyone is keen on (or capable of) creating their own devices from scratch or putting several pieces together to build a device, that other DAWs give you in one easy to grasp piece. My favourite example is simplicity of Live's Rack chain selectors, which - if you want to replicate them in Bitwig - requires elaborate multi-modulator setup and still doesn't work as good. Sure, it's more flexible and capable, but Live's solution covers 90% of use cases. Or a discussion with a guy lamenting how bare bones Polysynth is compared to Live's Operator, without realising that you are expected to pair it with modulators and layers to compete. There's a very fine balance that needs to be struck between complexity and accessibility.
I love Bitwig and it replaced Live for me, but I'm looking with a mix of excitement and fear into the future, hoping that their end goal is something like Reaktor 6: hugely complex environment that lets you patch and script the tiniest details of signal flow, but one that also provides a carefully curated abstraction layer - Reaktor Blocks - for those that don't ever want to see or touch the details, but still want to reap the benefits of using a modular synth/effect.
I'll be the last one to criticise Bitwig for its flexibility or how it provides several options to do same thing in different ways. Unless the unintuitive workaround is the only way to achieve certain goal.
