Why you left Bitwig?

[pdxindy]

I'm just honestly slightly disappointed with with V4, I'm much less of a random element person when sequencing than I am a taming my happy accidents musician, so most of V4 leaves me out of the loop. I haven't given up completely but so far the biggest new "feature" is M1 support, which is more about "yay they got it done early!" rather than be surprised by it.

The Operator stuff I can use sometimes, but it is not a major feature for me and I could live fine without it. I do appreciate using the Operators to create looping clips with overlapping notes which was clumsy to do previously.

The V4 stuff I am quite pleased with:

The M1 support.
I also love the perceptual waveform display... small feature with big impact!
Comping is very useful for me. Use it often cause I mainly play parts in.
The new audio export options are regularly useful.


If I were switching from Live, I would appreciate the ability to import Live projects, but I haven't used Live in years and have long since transferred any keeper Live projects over manually.

I think the language localization is a significant feature for broadening the user base... but doesn't affect me.

[machinesworking]

I also love the perceptual waveform display... small feature with big impact!
Comping is very useful for me. Use it often cause I mainly play parts in.
The new audio export options are regularly useful.

Comping is great, it's just hard to get excited about it when it's kinda playing catch up. I appreciate that they're treating it as a creative tool compared to the way most DAWs do, but for me MIDI comping would have been a much more appreciated addition. So it's hard for me to get exited for the unique features of Bitwig's audio comping when just a short time previous to that, Live introduced something that most people had wanted a DAW to do, MIDI coming.

Comparably, Lives eventual implementation of MPE is just awkward and kind of lame compared to any of the other DAWs I've used MPE with, that have MPE support. When you're last in line you're supposed to blow minds with how you stole all the coolest features from everyone who came before you.

If I were switching from Live, I would appreciate the ability to import Live projects, but I haven't used Live in years and have long since transferred any keeper Live projects over manually.

This is one of those features that would have been cool, but the natural chauvinism of developers gets in the way. No one really needs a way to switch to Bitwig, but if they had allowed Bitwig to save in Live format, then collaboration with Live users becomes easy for instance.

[moss]

If I were switching from Live, I would appreciate the ability to import Live projects, but I haven't used Live in years and have long since transferred any keeper Live projects over manually.

This is one of those features that would have been cool, but the natural chauvinism of developers gets in the way. No one really needs a way to switch to Bitwig, but if they had allowed Bitwig to save in Live format, then collaboration with Live users becomes easy for instance.

It is worth mentioning that this is not only a Live to Bitwig thing. E.g. several iPad Apps as well as the Akai MPC and Force can export Ableton projects. This is the real benefit of this feature for me!

[gondii]

I'm really digging Bitwig coming from Live. There are loads of small quality of life /workflow improvements/differences that I really enjoy and in general it just appears a bit more "streamlined" and easier to work with. While for example a lot of the modulation is possible and very deep in Live, I find myself using it way, way more in Bitwig than I ever did with M4L devices, just because how it's integrated. Or the way that you can just chain midi fx without any routing. It's just a lot of fun. Better mixer, too.

By far the biggest impact for me is that it is just soooo much more stable and just generally faster than Live. No more (constant) crashes, slow booting - everything just... works. In Live I also always had trouble with my midi controller disconnecting or my sound driver acting up (especially with Sonarworks systemwide interfering) and all of that seems to be gone. Second biggest difference is I just love the hybrid workflow between the clip and arrangement view and the ability to bounce tracks onto hybrid midi/audio tracks. The way they have integrated both views into one workflow is just really well thought out and much better than in Live.

Few things I don't really get or dislike are:

• after I launch a clip and stop recording, it always quantizes up. For example if it's set to 1 bar and I hit the stop recording button even 1/10th of a second too late, I will have an extra bar of nothing that needs to be edited out and this just kind of kills the performative workflow. I like that you have many options like setting a bar length and being able to say what exactly should happen after, but Live is just a lot smarter detecting the intended clip loops.

• why is it not possible to easily export midi clips without turning them into the bwclip-format? I mean, I get it for clips with devices, but if I'm only saving the midi data, why can I not simply save a clip as a standard .midi? Or drag and drop it from the DAW straight into the explorer? Why do I have to globally export the files? It's kind of similar to the (imo) annoying way Live deals with standard wave format. It's just tedious having to do extra steps if you don't want to use their .alc or .bwclip format.

• I still wish I could just simply "freeze" tracks in addition to the other options

• for sure midi comping is a must

• I do miss some of my M4L devices

[pdxindy]

Few things I don't really get or dislike are:

• after I launch a clip and stop recording, it always quantizes up. For example if it's set to 1 bar and I hit the stop recording button even 1/10th of a second too late, I will have an extra bar of nothing that needs to be edited out and this just kind of kills the performative workflow. I like that you have many options like setting a bar length and being able to say what exactly should happen after, but Live is just a lot smarter detecting the intended clip loops.

+1

[Passing Bye]

[machinesworking]

If I were switching from Live, I would appreciate the ability to import Live projects, but I haven't used Live in years and have long since transferred any keeper Live projects over manually.

This is one of those features that would have been cool, but the natural chauvinism of developers gets in the way. No one really needs a way to switch to Bitwig, but if they had allowed Bitwig to save in Live format, then collaboration with Live users becomes easy for instance.

It is worth mentioning that this is not only a Live to Bitwig thing. E.g. several iPad Apps as well as the Akai MPC and Force can export Ableton projects. This is the real benefit of this feature for me!

For sure, but wouldn't it be great if Bitwig could save in Akai's formats? I'm not an advocate of the whole DAW less thing but the idea of being able to export Bitwig songs to Force! To be fair, Bitwig is not alone here, most DAWs don't think about exporting in other DAWs formats. A universal format would be great, but how hard is it to export what you can import? Akai does this with Live, in some super convoluted way if Bitwig could export in the Live format, Akai hardware could read it, and there would be peace in the land!

[apoclypse]

Few things I don't really get or dislike are:

• after I launch a clip and stop recording, it always quantizes up. For example if it's set to 1 bar and I hit the stop recording button even 1/10th of a second too late, I will have an extra bar of nothing that needs to be edited out and this just kind of kills the performative workflow. I like that you have many options like setting a bar length and being able to say what exactly should happen after, but Live is just a lot smarter detecting the intended clip loops.

+1

Yeah that one has been a complaint from many people for a while. Not sure why they don't address it.

On the plus side you can at least set a preset length to record to which is what I usually do.

[apoclypse]

If I were switching from Live, I would appreciate the ability to import Live projects, but I haven't used Live in years and have long since transferred any keeper Live projects over manually.

This is one of those features that would have been cool, but the natural chauvinism of developers gets in the way. No one really needs a way to switch to Bitwig, but if they had allowed Bitwig to save in Live format, then collaboration with Live users becomes easy for instance.

It is worth mentioning that this is not only a Live to Bitwig thing. E.g. several iPad Apps as well as the Akai MPC and Force can export Ableton projects. This is the real benefit of this feature for me!

For sure, but wouldn't it be great if Bitwig could save in Akai's formats? I'm not an advocate of the whole DAW less thing but the idea of being able to export Bitwig songs to Force! To be fair, Bitwig is not alone here, most DAWs don't think about exporting in other DAWs formats. A universal format would be great, but how hard is it to export what you can import? Akai does this with Live, in some super convoluted way if Bitwig could export in the Live format, Akai hardware could read it, and there would be peace in the land!

Isn't that something one of the Bitwig developers already created? They already made a universal or open project format if I remember correctly. It just has to be adopted by the industry which I don't really see happening as most seem to have adopted Live's project format instead.

Ah here it is
https://github.com/bitwig/dawproject

Apparently there is experimental support for the format on Bitwig 4.0 or at least coming at some point. I personally don't want a whole bunch of DAW and hardware makers just supporting some proprietary format that only one party controls. In an ideal world dawproject would take off but I don't see it happening.

[machinesworking]

I personally don't want a whole bunch of DAW and hardware makers just supporting some proprietary format that only one party controls. In an ideal world dawproject would take off but I don't see it happening.

It's a universal problem with audio software standards isn't it? VST and AU are controlled by Steinberg and Apple not some consortium of DAW developers, same with ASIO and Core Audio. Not to mention AAX, or audio file standards or lack of... or naming it piano roll, graphic, or MIDI editor etc. depending on which DAW you're in..

We see how that plays out, Logics MIDI is kinda weird, so AUi's MIDI out operates odd in Logic, and doesn't in other DAWs. Then you get the 10+ year adoption of VST3, maybe partially due to less than stellar plug in hosting documentation for developers.. all of which points out the issues with standards that are the product of one company.

[pdxindy]

Few things I don't really get or dislike are:

• after I launch a clip and stop recording, it always quantizes up. For example if it's set to 1 bar and I hit the stop recording button even 1/10th of a second too late, I will have an extra bar of nothing that needs to be edited out and this just kind of kills the performative workflow. I like that you have many options like setting a bar length and being able to say what exactly should happen after, but Live is just a lot smarter detecting the intended clip loops.

+1

Yeah that one has been a complaint from many people for a while. Not sure why they don't address it.

On the plus side you can at least set a preset length to record to which is what I usually do.

Yeah... be handy to have key command for setting the length

[apoclypse]

I personally don't want a whole bunch of DAW and hardware makers just supporting some proprietary format that only one party controls. In an ideal world dawproject would take off but I don't see it happening.

It's a universal problem with audio software standards isn't it? VST and AU are controlled by Steinberg and Apple not some consortium of DAW developers, same with ASIO and Core Audio. Not to mention AAX, or audio file standards or lack of... or naming it piano roll, graphic, or MIDI editor etc. depending on which DAW you're in..

We see how that plays out, Logics MIDI is kinda weird, so AUi's MIDI out operates odd in Logic, and doesn't in other DAWs. Then you get the 10+ year adoption of VST3, maybe partially due to less than stellar plug in hosting documentation for developers.. all of which points out the issues with standards that are the product of one company.

VST is dual licensed and the SDK is open source. So in that respect Steinberg did the "right thing" and opened the format. Besides what I'm talking about is not the same thing. Steinberg and Apple build VST and AU specifically for other developers to use and extend.

Ableton's ALS format is not that. Ableton makes an export library available. Not knowing the details it seems like Akai and Bitwig reversed engineered that to allow opening those ALS files. That can change at anytime on Ableton's end, if they update or change their format. On the Force for example, Ableton 11 project files crashes the device when trying to open them. Version 10 files work fine. Basically Akai is going to have to play cat and mouse with Ableton to keep the feature functional. I'd imagine Bitwig will run into the same issues.

[machinesworking]

VST is dual licensed and the SDK is open source. So in that respect Steinberg did the "right thing" and opened the format. Besides what I'm talking about is not the same thing. Steinberg and Apple build VST and AU specifically for other developers to use and extend.

Yes it has great documentation for plug in developing, not so great documentation for plug in hosting. VST2 was a huge problem for Emagic, it's why they were willing to drop VST and adopt AU on OS X, this was previous to Apple purchasing Emagic and Logic respectively. Those problems came back with VST3, so it took forever for other DAWs besides Cubase, as well as plug in developers, to adopt it.

Ableton's ALS format is not that. Ableton makes an export library available. Not knowing the details it seems like Akai and Bitwig reversed engineered that to allow opening those ALS files. That can change at anytime on Ableton's end, if they update or change their format. On the Force for example, Ableton 11 project files crashes the device when trying to open them. Version 10 files work fine. Basically Akai is going to have to play cat and mouse with Ableton to keep the feature functional. I'd imagine Bitwig will run into the same issues.

Yeah, that's true, but we're talking about some basic things here, if you look at the page on it, it's cool but we're talking about getting close, not a full match import. No AU import at all for instance. With that in mind it doesn't look like something that has the rigidness to be broken.

https://www.bitwig.com/support/technica ... ts-als-40/

This is a side track though, I'm agreeing with you, universal formats not tied to a specific company would be best, and the industry has multiple examples of how unsupported that idea is.

[skarabee]

I have BW 3.8 among other DAWs. Planned to use it with midi and external gear, mainly the clip section, to work alongside with videoloops. Also with hope to see collaborative aspects be implemented. Workflow seemed cool at the beginning, but having to reivent the wheel for some simple functions was'nt fun. Lack of comping (V4 partially does, but not for midi). Performance hiccups (clip lenght when recording among others). Some well-knows and robust plugins constantly crashing (but not in Cubase, Reaper, Mulab...)
At least I managed to finish a project for the first time in 2 years: a soundtrack for an anime video, for wich I use midi CCS and audio to control movements...Audio export: fine
midi export: no choice for track or clip export, OK, another time consuming trick/workaround : copy in new project/export...
BUT!! the epic fail is: no midi CCs are exported! only notes. C'mon guys at Bitwig, seriously?
So nice to have a Grid to make some bleep bleep, and virtual colored wires all the way, but you just forgot the fundations when building you house...
Absolute showstopper for me

[pdxindy]

I have BW 3.8 among other DAWs.

There is no Bitwig version 3.8 - Did you mean 3.3?