Bitwig 4 - what's gonna be in it?

[pc999]

Maybe after Mac M1, we will also be able to run on Raspberry Pi 4 and arm linux, that would open up to some wild DIY builds. And who knows, a BWS standalone...


I must say I have been using very little of BWS since I got Akai Force last year, I would love to see a BWS standalone

[pdxindy]

Well, it has so poor connectivity, and no harddrive...????? Also most audio interfaces and external gear most likely won't work anymore ... Once again. Sure, the cpu is pretty impressive, but it comes with a ton of drawbacks. I will wait at least another year here. I think the software devs still should wait, too.

You have no idea what the connectivity is of an as yet unannounced model.

The rumors are that the upcoming 16" Apple Silicon MBP will again have Mag-safe power connection, SD card reader and the 4 thunderbolt/usb-c connectors it currently has. That is plenty of connectivity!

RME already has drivers for the M1 so my audio interface already will work with Apple Silicon

Antelope Audio Interfaces are M1 compatible since about a month. Other companies are also or soon will be.

U-he and Fabfilter are both M1 native now... Valhalla soon will be. I just need Bitwig to go native and I will be up and running with my most indispensable plugins.

[pdxindy]

I think the software devs still should wait, too.

Blue Cat Audio just announced Apple M1 support and they showed some benchmarks for their plugins. The M1 13" MBP could run double the number of plugin instances at lower latency than the previous Intel MBP. The Intel MBP fans came on quickly and the M1 stayed silent.

Fortunately various software devs are not listening to you and are moving forward with supporting Apple Silicon.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Ok, but I have plenty of fireware audio interfaces...

[pdxindy]

Ok, but I have plenty of fireware audio interfaces...

No doubt there will be some individuals who have older gear that will never become compatible. Some people will be out of luck in that regard.

But you made it sound like a general case where nobodies audio interface will work and everyones connectivity will be poor and so on. This is just not true.

[killmaster]

have there been any announcements or news from Bitwig about a version 4?

[machinesworking]

Ok, but I have plenty of fireware audio interfaces...

No doubt there will be some individuals who have older gear that will never become compatible. Some people will be out of luck in that regard.

But you made it sound like a general case where nobodies audio interface will work and everyones connectivity will be poor and so on. This is just not true.

RME already have an M1 driver out for their firewire interfaces. It's in the thunderbolt USBC spec, so it's really up to the developers to support it with drivers or not.

[machinesworking]

have there been any announcements or news from Bitwig about a version 4?

Nope, but we all know it's coming. When is a different story. Probably late because of the Apple Silicon compatibility it will likely have, and I'm going to guess MIDI out from the Grid. Comping does seem likely as well.

Late means sometime this summer. That's my guess.

[pdxindy]

have there been any announcements or news from Bitwig about a version 4?

Nope, but we all know it's coming. When is a different story. Probably late because of the Apple Silicon compatibility it will likely have, and I'm going to guess MIDI out from the Grid. Comping does seem likely as well.

Late means sometime this summer. That's my guess.

Could be 3.4 before v4

[Hanz Meyzer]

Ok, but I have plenty of fireware audio interfaces...

No doubt there will be some individuals who have older gear that will never become compatible. Some people will be out of luck in that regard.

But you made it sound like a general case where nobodies audio interface will work and everyones connectivity will be poor and so on. This is just not true.

But these are good devices that still work great. Newer devices might even be worse. It's a total waste of money, and a pollution of the environment. Just because Apple changed the connector, I now have to invest a thousand of euros again? Also this kind of shit already happened with numerous macos updates, and I am sick of it. USB audio sucks.

[wvshpr]

You can still use FireWire devices with a Thunderbolt adapter. As said before FireWire is also supported on the new chips given the device manufacturer writes a driver. I'm guessing FireWire hard drives will just work.

The platform change is because Intel can't deliver the speed Apple needs at low wattages. So they do it themselves. They made this transition relatively smooth so far. So smooth that you can basically execute x86 code on it and run it faster in some cases.

So… no Apple bashing needed. Let's move on.

[machinesworking]

Ok, but I have plenty of fireware audio interfaces...

No doubt there will be some individuals who have older gear that will never become compatible. Some people will be out of luck in that regard.

But you made it sound like a general case where nobodies audio interface will work and everyones connectivity will be poor and so on. This is just not true.

But these are good devices that still work great. Newer devices might even be worse. It's a total waste of money, and a pollution of the environment. Just because Apple changed the connector, I now have to invest a thousand of euros again? Also this kind of shit already happened with numerous macos updates, and I am sick of it. USB audio sucks.

Nope, it's the audio card developers that are to blame here. Like I said RME already have a working M1 driver. They didn't even know the tags were in the Thunderbolt spec when we asked them about it on their forum, and about a month later they delivered. Some companies are just more responsible when it comes to writing drivers. I don't know who makes your cards but consider RME next time, my Fireface 800 is 15 years old, zero issues and already has drivers for M1 macs.

It's always easy to blame Apple, but every single indication from everyone is they are going in the right direction here. Microsoft have already announced their intention to design an Arm chip for their OS as well, and they have already run into the same issues. They already use a Qualcom Arm chip in a Surface, but nobody has written drivers or software for it. Mostly because it's actually slower than an i7, but designing their own that could change. What probably won't change is the need to rewrite all the software for Arm chips.

So yeah, growing pains, your issues are why I haven't run out and bought an M1 Mac yet, besides wanting the 15-16" MacBook pro when it comes out. but stick with super responsible driver updaters like RME and all is good.

[don_looney]

Nope, it's the audio card developers that are to blame here. Like I said RME already have a working M1 driver. They didn't even know the tags were in the Thunderbolt spec when we asked them about it on their forum, and about a month later they delivered. Some companies are just more responsible when it comes to writing drivers. I don't know who makes your cards but consider RME next time, my Fireface 800 is 15 years old, zero issues and already has drivers for M1 macs.

It's always easy to blame Apple, but every single indication from everyone is they are going in the right direction here. Microsoft have already announced their intention to design an Arm chip for their OS as well, and they have already run into the same issues. They already use a Qualcom Arm chip in a Surface, but nobody has written drivers or software for it. Mostly because it's actually slower than an i7, but designing their own that could change. What probably won't change is the need to rewrite all the software for Arm chips.

So yeah, growing pains, your issues are why I haven't run out and bought an M1 Mac yet, besides wanting the 15-16" MacBook pro when it comes out. but stick with super responsible driver updaters like RME and all is good.

RME is just awesome with drivers. When Win10 came out the delivered drivers for hardware which was 10 years old and older. Never ever had I problems with RME. I use a Babyface Pro and I will continue to use RME in the future.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Nope, it's the audio card developers that are to blame here. ...

Sorry, but this is not fully true. The devices I am talking about are all still working under the recent Windows 10. But not under macos anymore. While for intel macs there are some workarounds / hacks to make it work again, this is not possible at all anymore for a new cpu type. I assume that drivers also can't run in Rosetta and have to be native.

It is an absolute nonsense to throw away a working device, just because there is no driver for macos anymore.

The vendors surely are tired of fixing their drivers with each macos version, since this costs quite a lot money which wasn't calculated in. Also this is pretty unpredictable for the vendors, since Apple does not share their future strategy, neither provides free help for fixing those problems.

[SLiC]

I think if an OS update causes hardware to stop working then its a pretty crap update, who ever releases it!