Bitwig 3.1 Composer-Focused Update: Top-3 Wishes Poll

[x.iso]

I feel like the biggest thing stopping me from using bitwig more is the difficulties in recording and comping audio for vocals or instrumental takes.

Comping process requires some preparations, sure. But recording takes is easy enough if you need fixed length of your takes (loop recording). Just select under Play menu 'Post recording action' - 'Record into next free slot' and set the length of the take. Then when you press record on the clip in Launcher, it will record them one after another until you press stop. Second part is that you'll have to make a group of tracks for each take to then stack them and edit all at once.

[mrfrenkie]

1/8 size for adaptive grid...

[Hez]

Another vote for comping from me. I know there are workarounds at the moment but really slick Studio One style comping would be a great new vector for audio manipulation within Bitwig, not just restricted to selecting the best bits from vocal takes.

For example:

- Creating foley/percussion loops. Drag several different foley recordings into a 4 bar clip, expand the list of 'takes', and click+drag on the takes to quickly assemble a loop out of several different constituent recordings

- Rendering several takes of a generative patch, and quickly selecting the best bits from each take

- Rendering the same synth line with several different patches, then easily chopping together the recordings for some nice interesting leads (super sick for the harder psytrance subgenres and other quick-cut styles of electronic music)

[antic604]

Now that Bitwig 3.0 aka the "Grid Update" is in Beta, Support told several of us they'll start catering again to composers, adding "regular" DAW features.

You should actually make it a POLL like I did some time ago:

https://www.poll-maker.com/results1906611x31565b0C-51

[joeballs]

I think that the Bitwig devs should play around with other daws for some inspiration when it comes to "composer oriented" changes:

- Play around with FL Studio's piano roll (and all the editing features in the menu).
- Play around with Studio One 4.5 and FL Studio's midi editing capabilities.
- Play around with Studio One 4.5's groove quantize.
- Play around with Logic Pro X's comping feature.
- Play around with Ableton Live's wave editing (time stretching/warping/freezing, etc).

Bonus: Observe Studio One 4.5's cpu optimization/multicore scaling, and GUI performance.

If their ideas come from the best things about other daws, it will really push them forward fast. I'd definitely be a happy camper.

[sirocco]

How about a sampler mode for more tradiotnal, safe time stretching? Something more bread and butter. Just want to play a tempo synced loop back over several notes without any artifacting, etc without having to do it via audio clips.

[sirocco]

Would like an improved shuffle/groove, in which you can see the changes in real-time/contextually.

[Kung VU]

I will limit this to 3 points:

1. Improved Piano roll with scales, better use of modifier keys and easier velocity editing (currently the velocity handles tend to overlap especially in something like a drum rack and make it tedious to be edited on the fly).
Add midi chase too so we can edit pad sounds without starting from the beginning over and over again and improve pre-listening of chords without this arrow up+down work around please

2. Include the awesome new strechts modes in the awesome new sampler. Why didnt they do it in the first place?! And include normalizing in the sampler or at least somewhere in Bitwig?

3. I would be nice if we could save tracks or grouped tracks in the same way like clips. If this would be possible I would not need any templates actually. I tried using templates but every project requires a different set-up. More sense to me would make to build a certain type of track with all in- and output routings and required devices. Like a track with a device chain for vocal recording and Mic1 input record armed & ready to go, or an harware instrument track, or the often mentioned comping set-up using automated clip functions… Just drag your track in the current project and you are ready to go.

[arrakeen]

3. I would be nice if we could save tracks or grouped tracks in the same way like clips. If this would be possible I would not need any templates actually. I tried using templates but every project requires a different set-up. More sense to me would make to build a certain type of track with all in- and output routings and required devices. Like a track with a device chain for vocal recording and Mic1 input record armed & ready to go, or an harware instrument track, or the often mentioned comping set-up using automated clip functions… Just drag your track in the current project and you are ready to go.

I'm sure you can do this already, I wanted a way to store my Softube HeartBeat setup with individual MIDI tracks being routed back to Heartbeat and Heartbeat multi-outs all colour coded and named.

I have a master group, I called 'HB Container' and two subgroups, one named 'HB Device' containing the Heartbeat VST and audio multi-out routing (shown in the mixer) and the other called 'HB Midi' where I have all the individual drum MIDI channels routed back to the Heartbeat VST.

The key to making it work (can be dragged as a group into browser clip locations) is that every track must contain a clip, even if just a dummy clip. For example, the Heartbeat device does not need one as I'm routing MIDI from individual tracks, but if it has no clip, it's not included when I drag the grouped 'header' clip into my clips library.

There's even a different icon for grouped clips.

Hope this makes sense!

[Blakel50]

Interesting I'll have to keep that in mind next time I'm working on vocals. Really it is just a workflow and time management thing for me. When I'm editing raw audio I need to be able to really get in there and find zero crossings, manage multiple takes, stay organized, etc... I get Bitwig isn't that type of daw though and I love it for being inspiring to use and easy to work with.

I feel like the biggest thing stopping me from using bitwig more is the difficulties in recording and comping audio for vocals or instrumental takes.

Comping process requires some preparations, sure. But recording takes is easy enough if you need fixed length of your takes (loop recording). Just select under Play menu 'Post recording action' - 'Record into next free slot' and set the length of the take. Then when you press record on the clip in Launcher, it will record them one after another until you press stop. Second part is that you'll have to make a group of tracks for each take to then stack them and edit all at once.

[jonljacobi]

If I'm completely honest, it's really some of the little things I'd like to see. Being able to page up and down all lists, being able to tab out of a text field, having the jump to previous marker function actually move back through the timeline, more accurate transient detection, scrub with the bar/beat counter when playing, etc. Stop managing the forest and prune some of the trees as it were.

Then add comping, groove templates, and extract and map tempo stuff a la Melodyne 4 and Logic. Actually, I'm not sure that's composer-related so much as production related. Oh, well.

[masterjoe]

Automation Clips my friends... Look at this:

Automation Items

Automation Items - Part II

WOW, just WOW!
Reaper is my new reference for Automation Clips.
Want this stuff in Bitwig as well

[bolba]

Automation Clips my friends... Look at this:

Automation Items

Automation Items - Part II

WOW, just WOW!
Reaper is my new reference for Automation Clips.
Want this stuff in Bitwig as well

What is purpose of these if modulation can do same and even more? And it's in the heart of Bitwig??

Maybe some quick way to capture/convert modulation to automation curve will be nice, though.

[x.iso]

Automation Clips my friends... Look at this:

[url=<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">http://reaper.fm/videos.php#_eLjFKgv4bg</span>]Automation Items[/url]

[url=<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">http://reaper.fm/videos.php#cPYxqNXx2Ig</span>]Automation Items - Part II[/url]

WOW, just WOW!
Reaper is my new reference for Automation Clips.
Want this stuff in Bitwig as well

Yeah, it should be done as part of other features - linked clips and comping (multiple clips rows on same track)

What is purpose of these if modulation can do same and even more? And it's in the heart of Bitwig??

modulators are more dynamic and there's no MSEG one so far. Making complex automations repeating in some sections of arrangement is useful and more visually comprehensive than turning on and off the modulator by automation. you have to keep in mind that automations have more to do with arrangement, while modulators are consistent and related to sound design. they are driven by automation in arrangement if needed, so there's that hierarchy.

[pc999]

More Hardware integration is my main request


A MPC Force like standalone/controller would be a killer