Is Bitwig dying?

[Biscotto]

I forgot Logic.
No dead but deep coma as of now.

[Silaris]

It’s a fun tool to use, but missing too many necessary features. I’m not sure why they keep focusing on sound design features when there are plenty of 3rd party plugins that do it way better. I hope they switch to tooling and midi/audio editing features after 3.0. Bitwig could easily become the best future daw if they just change their feature priority a bit. If they don’t change their focus, then yes, the company could go out of business. That’s how business works. If you lose customers, you lose your business.

+1

[SLiC]

I bet we disagree about what is necessary in a DAW to make music.

The indisputable fact is that Bitwig is adding features and evolving faster than any other DAW, you may not want the features, you may not like the way evolving, but it is more ‘alive’ than any other DAW in terms of development....

[dellboy]

Let's rewind a bit, shall we? This is a topic about whether or not Bitwig is dying and the guy is saying it's unintuitive,

Rewind might be a good idea. For the record. I do not believe that Bitwig is un-intuitive.

I am only here because of a criticism that you made about Cubase, which I had just bought and installed.

@antic604 said...

"A software can't be great at everything, which Cubase is a great example of - it's super powerful, but it's also cluttered and messy, because it has every option you can imagine, but probably the top 20% of features are only used by 1% (or less) of people. Bitwig's MO is to limit the features to those 80% and make them easy, fast and intuitive to use instead of menu diving, jumping through several windows, etc"

Rather than getting hurt and defensive I agreed with you, I replied...............

@dellboy said...

"I am not sure why you keep attacking Cubase, I am not a Cubase fanboy, and now you say it, yes it is very cluttered."

You made the claim that Bitwig is "fast and intuitive", whereas Cubase is "cluttered and messy". I merely replied that my memory from months back did not give me the impression as a rank NEWBIE (for emphasis,not shouting) that Bitwig was especially intuitive. It may well be "fast and intuitive" for veteran users,but it was not my impression at the time from memory.

[T71]

The grid was supposed to be THE thing, but a search on you tube reveal only a handful of videos covering this. there is about one new video per month about Bitwig and most of them have only a couple hundred views. almost nothing on facbook too.

is bitwig painting itself in the corner by acting like a synth and pretending to be a daw?

Yep, you called it. The Bitwig devs have EOL'd Bitwig.

[neverbeeninariot]

The indisputable fact is that Bitwig is adding features and evolving faster than any other DAW, you may not want the features, you may not like the way evolving, but it is more ‘alive’ than any other DAW in terms of development....

Indisputable? I think you may be straying into hyperbole there, SLiC

From personal experience, Bitwig's development pace seems to be roughly on a par with Cubase, and behind Reaper. Although, my perception of rate-of-change is partly influenced by which one I'm using most at any particular time...

[neverbeeninariot]

Talking of DAW mortality, I had a really close call today. I had to administer CPR to my copy of Bitwig after it collapsed on the floor during a particularly demanding session. Thankfully it made a full recovery. I'm so relieved.

Not only not-dead, but resilient too

[pdxindy]

My Bitwig 2.5 is definitely on life support... Bitwig 3 is getting all the attention!

[SLiC]

The indisputable fact is that Bitwig is adding features and evolving faster than any other DAW, you may not want the features, you may not like the way evolving, but it is more ‘alive’ than any other DAW in terms of development....

Indisputable? I think you may be straying into hyperbole there, SLiC

From personal experience, Bitwig's development pace seems to be roughly on a par with Cubase, and behind Reaper. Although, my perception of rate-of-change is partly influenced by which one I'm using most at any particular time...

I don't think so, I have Cubase 10 (been a user since Pro24 days) and Reaper (and Live Suite and Studio One 4) I keep most of them update (didn't upgrade to Live 10- maybe 11!) so I can say categorically that none of them are delivering major new feature updates every 3-4 months. I also think (although this may be subjective) that even taking away the frequency, the amount of new stuff when listed year Vs year feels much higher with Bitwig - I own and use all the DAWS listed, I have no need to favour one over the other (Studio One is probably the one I use most) but Bitwig is developing faster in my opinion that any of the others (unless Logic has been developed faster, don't have that one!)

Note also I said 'evolving faster', that is simpler for Bitwig as it is relatively new and some of the big DAWS have pretty much everything already so there is nowhere for them to go (looking at you Cubase!) so adding new (useful) stuff is easy for Bitwig, but with some other DAWS its starting to feel like updates for updates sake ($$$) and cluttered GUI's rather than optimised workflow.

Also, Bitwig has been able to invent new paradigms based on feed back, some of the things they added like the intelligent pop up browser and VST handling are more difficult for other DAWS to add due to legacy code and a legacy user base that like things the way they are (on of the reasons people left the Cubase team and wrote Studio One and the Ableton team to write Bitwig!)

I am hoping Studio One 4.5 will be a big update, but they are taking there time....meanwhile I always seem to have something new and fun to occupy me with Bitwig

I am not trying to convince anyone, but pushing updates out every 3-4 month give users time to learn (and appreciate) them rather than dropping a major update every couple of years (or paid .5 updates in the case of Cubase).

[pdxindy]

I don't think so, I have Cubase 10 (been a user since Pro24 days) and Reaper (and Live Suite and Studio One 4) I keep most of them update (didn't upgrade to Live 10- maybe 11!) so I can say categorically that none of them are delivering major new feature updates every 3-4 months. I also think (although this may be subjective) that even taking away the frequency, the amount of new stuff when listed year Vs year feels much higher with Bitwig - I own and use all the DAWS listed, I have no need to favour one over the other (Studio One is probably the one I use most) but Bitwig is developing faster in my opinion that any of the others (unless Logic has been developed faster, don't have that one!)

Note also I said 'evolving faster', that is simpler for Bitwig as it is relatively new and some of the big DAWS have pretty much everything already so there is nowhere for them to go (looking at you Cubase!) so adding new (useful) stuff is easy for Bitwig, but with some other DAWS its starting to feel like updates for updates sake ($$$) and cluttered GUI's rather than optimised workflow.

I don't keep up on other DAW's much anymore. So I don't have much of an opinion on the subject. Bitwig development feels more creative and fresh.

I can say that over the past 10 years, Live has not developed much. Mostly peripheral additions to a fairly unchanging core application.

I think the best thing that could happen for Cubase at this point would be a complete revisioning of it.

Logic development has been impressive the past few years. Partly my impression of that is because all the updates are free and still very extensive.

[Belka]

this is by far one the most stupid shit threads of all time, but to answer the initial question: no its not, is doin the opposite and for me personally they won the Superbooth.

[SLiC]

https://www.bitwig.com/en/home/news-arc ... -Year.html

Wait till they get a look at 3

[apoclypse]

yeah... just seemed like he was describing his own experience...

...as an example of why Bitwig is un-intuitive. But OK.

He made it clear it was unintuitive to him. Not sure why that has to be defended or argued about. Are people not allowed to not like what you like?

Let's rewind a bit, shall we? This is a topic about whether or not Bitwig is dying and the guy is saying it's unintuitive, backing it up with a SINGLE example that he had to hunt for keyboard shortcuts because they were not in Help or Edit menus. I'm disputing that huge leap in reasoning, not the fact that it's his own experience which - I thought - shouldn't need explaining on an internet forum? Unless the poster provides statistically valid survey/poll data to back their opinion up, it's always user's opinion based on their own experience...

He didn't even really say it was unintuitive he said he found Live and Cubase more intuitive. If his reasoning is because it was not easy for him to find a certain feature where he expected it to be (based on his experience, but that goes without saying like you said) then that's good enough as any imo.

[apoclypse]

The indisputable fact is that Bitwig is adding features and evolving faster than any other DAW, you may not want the features, you may not like the way evolving, but it is more ‘alive’ than any other DAW in terms of development....

Indisputable? I think you may be straying into hyperbole there, SLiC

From personal experience, Bitwig's development pace seems to be roughly on a par with Cubase, and behind Reaper. Although, my perception of rate-of-change is partly influenced by which one I'm using most at any particular time...

I am not trying to convince anyone, but pushing updates out every 3-4 month give users time to learn (and appreciate) them rather than dropping a major update every couple of years (or paid .5 updates in the case of Cubase).

That depends, some people like new shiny toys and like to play with new features every now and then. Some just want to make music and new features while nice are't the priority. I'm in the latter. I usually don't upgrade to newer versions unless the newer version has something that will actually help me make music faster/better. With Bitwig I feel like I have to update to the latest version because more often than not there are significant fixes released with each new version. Meanwhile there are very few things that I need in S1 so I tend to not update to the latest and greatest right away.

[dellboy]

He didn't even really say it was unintuitive he said he found Live and Cubase more intuitive. If his reasoning is because it was not easy for him to find a certain feature where he expected it to be (based on his experience, but that goes without saying like you said) then that's good enough as any imo.

If it came across as seeming that I was saying that Cubase and Live are more intuitive than Bitwig,then I apologise, because that is not what I meant.

I only have Live Lite 10, and have used it for years, so obviously its bound to be intuitive to me. I have had Cubase LE 9.5 for a number of months and have used it quite a bit, so that also has become intuitive to me. (now Cubase Pro).

The real test for "intuitive" (whatever that means), is for someone who has never seen any of the DAWs prior to that time, and is able to accomplish a basic task reasonably quickly. In that scenario I do not think that any one of them would have an advantage.

If on the other hand Bitwig users are saying that after a few months of use its faster and more "intuitive" than the other DAWs which they have used in the past, then so be it.

But have you ever seen a professional engineer whizzing through Pro Tools at the speed of light ?

After a certain time all DAWS become fast and intuitive to those who know them inside out.