Recording cc automation and clips into arrangement

[mjudge55]

Hey all, I’m a Bitwig newb coming from Ableton. Live is unable to record cc automation in arrangement so I was excited to learn Bitwig can. What I’m struggling with though is triggering clips and recording an improvised arrangement while also recording cc automation at the same time. I’m able to trigger clips and record the sequence into arrangement but the cc automation from my parameter changes on my hardware synth doesn’t get recorded. I can overdub the cc automation in arrangement once I’ve got an arrangement already recorded, but I can’t seem to do both at the same time.

Whereas I do seem able to record my improvised arrangement and automation at the same time using eg Bitwig’s Polysynth.

Can someone explain whether I can do this and how? Thanks in advance.

Matt

[antic604]

Just guessing here, but maybe make sure you have automation write enabled and that it's the correct one (there are 2: one for arranger, 2nd for clip launcher, with the rectangle around it):

[mjudge55]

Thanks, antic604, I definitely have arrangement automation write on. Can you confirm you’re able to record both your triggered clips and cc automation at the same time on your setup?

[antic604]

Thanks, antic604, I definitely have arrangement automation write on. Can you confirm you’re able to record both your triggered clips and cc automation at the same time on your setup?

As I said, I'm just guessing (looking for possible causes). I don't have any hardware hooked up to Bitwig.

But let me understand your setup - you have some clips with MIDI notes in clip launcher and a HW Instrument device that sends the notes to the hardware and receives back the audio and at the same time you tweak the knobs on the hardware and would like that recorded as a CC automation. Is that correct?

So the problem seems to be that HW Instrument only receives audio, I think - not CC? Again, guessing here, but maybe you need to set up another track whose MIDI input is set to your hardware synth and there would be a MIDI CC device that'd send back the automation once it's recorded?

[mjudge55]

That’s correct. You might be onto something, I’ll try that.

[mjudge55]

Just an update, for some reason if you use the MIDI CC device and assign the CCs through it, then you can record clip launches and CC automation into the arrangment at the same time -- nice! Sad thing about the MIDI CC device is that you can't get the names you give the CCs to show up in the automation lane -- it still just shows as a meaningless "P1".

In Ableton you simply can't record CCs into the arrangement at all, but the workaround is similar to Bitwig's where you assign CCs to an Max for Live device and automate it -- thing is in Ableton you can name those parameters in that device so they show up in your automation lanes.

It surprises me with all the hardware synths on the market that the implementation in these DAWs isn't better. Hopefully the developers will address it.

[stamp]

Time to write a feature request!
https://www.bitwig.com/en/support/tech-support.html

[mjudge55]

Time to write a feature request!
https://www.bitwig.com/en/support/tech-support.html

Done!

[stamp]

Time to write a feature request!
https://www.bitwig.com/en/support/tech-support.html

Done!