Why you left Bitwig?

[tooneba]

Bitwig is not a subscription. With a subscription, you must keep paying (usually monthly) or you lose the use of the software. With Bitwig, even if I do not pay anything further, I can keep using my current version of Bitwig for as long as I want.

You keep magazine after the end of subscription. It’s subscription because you don’t get newly produced materials.

Its known as subscription.

In today's software and cloud services land you normally don't keep the 'magazine'. So no, it's not a subscription.

The idea Not being adobe model is not subscription is wrong. You can’t skew the definition by putting some gimmicky buzzword. It’s opt in out model and pay as you go.

That's literally what you're doing. You're just using a strawman. You can't be using something physical as your argument when talking about software because the conditions aren't the same. If you subscribe to ESPN, you don't get to keep the extra articles and content you have access to when you were a subscriber. If you subscribe to Netflix, you don't get to keep the movies and tv shows you watched.I can go on.

You are just picking specific model in many varieties of subscription model and you are defining bw is not subscription by telling its not in that specific model. This is the reason you are wrong. ‘It is not adobe model’ - Right. ‘It is not subscription’ - wrong.

[Echoes in the Attic]

It's pretty fircking simple. If you stop paying, can you still use the software? If yes, not a subscription. You can use Bitwig for eternity and never pay any more, as long as you keep using the same operating system if there are changes that break compatibility. But that goes for any software that is not getting free updates anymore.

Jeez, how is this even an argument.

[tooneba]

I don't get the mentality behind the restless social engineering attempting to skew the concept commonly accepted by the society.

The company literally adapted the subscription but noisy small segment of their customers restlessly advocating its conspiracy theory and telling they aren't believing the definition. Company decided what they think is the best and proud of what they are doing. Most of their users are proud of supporting what the company is doing. I can understand some radical customers can't be proud of what the company doing but what they are doing is trying to change how people around them think and see instead of influencing the company by their buying behavior.

[Hanz Meyzer]

I find it weird that bitwigs popularity seems to be so low in comparison to other daws, if you believe Google trends.

Yes, it might be due the extreme high pricing. Bitwig has a ton of features, but might still lack of some common basics, which are a stronger selling point than niche features. So I guess, a lot of people, aiming for a general purpose daw, currently do not see the benefits in comparison to other, more traditional and often less expensive daws.

This just is a theory. Only the bitwig team will know and then of course not sharing any kind of insight into their business.

[xbitz]

as I see on https://www.admiralbumblebee.com/DAW-Chart.html, and what a surprise, Bitwig wins the modulation has bit limited automation capability, but if u check the audio/MIDI entries well .... there is a place for improvement but as I see Bitwig doesn't want to compete but looking for areas where it can be the king of the hill/only player (MPE, modulation, Grid, microscales) instead

btw. just curious is there any DAW that started/supports the features of https://www.midi.org/articles-old/detai ... y-exchange ?

[pdxindy]

It's pretty fircking simple. If you stop paying, can you still use the software? If yes, not a subscription. You can use Bitwig for eternity and never pay any more, as long as you keep using the same operating system if there are changes that break compatibility. But that goes for any software that is not getting free updates anymore.

Jeez, how is this even an argument.

I also assumed that the definition you point out above was the common understanding. Seems different people have different concept of what subscription means... creates confusion.

According to my concept, Bitwig is not subscription because the choice to pay is in my hands. If I want to wait 4 years before I decide to upgrade again and keep using the version I have, I can. As long as it stays that way, I am fine with whatever it is called.

[xbitz]

The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subscript ... ness_model

I'm using 3.0.3 at this moment too without any limitations so ...

[Ah_Dziz]

Bitwig has noticeably worse performance than all my other DAWs ( with any sand boxing or auto suspend settings). I use it for fun some, but I never bothered to keep updating or spent much time doing other than simple loop building or sound design to use in other setups. That being said, I could see using it live to pretty good effect.

[anoise]

I find it weird that bitwigs popularity seems to be so low in comparison to other daws, if you believe Google trends.

Yes, it might be due the extreme high pricing. Bitwig has a ton of features, but might still lack of some common basics, which are a stronger selling point than niche features.

+1
I also think, that it's less popular, because there is no "free" version (if you know what I mean) floating around, unlike some of the most popular DAWs (FL, Ableton, ...)

Why you left Bitwig?
I haven't. Bitwig 3.1 is the best and stable version yet (for me). Some previous versions were quite buggy though.

[Trancit]

1) Bitwig has no subscription in a typical software sense but at the very end it´s the same money melking machine as 99% of the users want to stay up to date!!
Bitwig as a whole package is at least double priced compared to the most other major products

If it is worth the money for you... go for it.

2)

I find it weird that bitwigs popularity seems to be so low in comparison to other daws, if you believe Google trends.

Yes, it might be due the extreme high pricing. Bitwig has a ton of features, but might still lack of some common basics, which are a stronger selling point than niche features. So I guess, a lot of people, aiming for a general purpose daw, currently do not see the benefits in comparison to other, more traditional and often less expensive daws.
...

I think this is one of the key points...
Bitwigs development is quite "nerdy"

Bitwig offers tons of extreme stuff but quite little help for real production work... (which might be different to very experimental or atmospherical stuff)

Modulation is fine but compared to automation it makes perhaps 1% of a song... everything else has to be done via automation as most changes has to be done over time in a range that cannot be covered by modulation...

The same is true about their native devices... they are capable of very extreme stuff but they (for me) fail mostly when it comes to bread and butter...
Again it´s more or less the same relation as before... how much extrem stuff do you need and how much bread and butter...

For me Bitwig´s keypoints are very attractive at first glance but after producing a while inside I start to notice more and more that it´s key points make it into my songs only at a very little percentage while I mostly use stuff which other DAWs cover to a much higher extense or even much simpler than Bitwig...
Than you start to notice even more that most of the key points in Bitwig are covered by many 3rd party VSTs like kiloHearts stuff or Serum, Avenger, Unfiltered audio and many others which cover very well too this extense modulation and routing pass with parallel processing, multiband, mid/side etc.. pp...

Than you start to ask yourself why you should be part of this money melking machine and at the same time restricting yourself to a more limited DAW (as Bitwig hasn´t many strength as a DAW itself... it´s strength lies more in sound design imho) if you could do even better with one of the big guys offering all the stuff you miss in Bitwig and achieving the same sound design possibilities with the same amount of modulation and routing possibilities like in Bitwig but simply done with VSTs which you can use everywhere...

At this point in time I put my license for sell in the forum and shortly after that I say "Bye Bye Bitwig"...

My amount of free license transfer is already exceeded many times so for every license transfer I have to pay another 25,-€ ...

[Tj Shredder]

... as 99% of the users want to stay up to date!!
Bitwig as a whole package is at least double priced compared to the most other major products
Modulation is fine but compared to automation it makes perhaps 1% of a song... everything else has to be done via automation as most changes has to be done over time in a range that cannot be covered by modulation...

You never encountered the power of modulation as you are so used to automation (another area where Bitwig shines as well btw...)
99% and 1% or how do you recognize fake facts... Any sources for that claims? The 1% is easy to falsify for anybody who loves modulation, the 99% as well, I don’t know a single person using Bitwig who insists on being always at the cutting edge. There is already more to explore than you could do in a lifetime... In the Bitwig forum we have a lot of users who are still on 1.x...
You mentioned 3rd party vsts to cover some areas. Don’t forget the price you have to pay for those. I don’t need kilohearts phase plant, because the Grid is way ahead and I get results way faster. In fact, the Grid alone diminishes my need for other synths significantly...

The confusion about the definition of the term subscription is coming from those marketing guys at Adobe and Microsoft who called renting software a subscription. And all the world accepted it. Just because it does not sound as bad as renting... In the end it is what it is no matter how you call it. The first who went that route was Waves btw... My version 9 plugins still work and there is not the slightest need to get them covered by a plan at all! (yet...)

[Trancit]

You never encountered the power of modulation as you are so used to automation (another area where Bitwig shines as well btw...)
99% and 1% or how do you recognize fake facts... Any sources for that claims?

The numbers reflect more or less my own experiences respectively if you watch tutorials on track creation for multiple genres...
The most part of making a track sound interesting with building and releasing tension, transitions and kind of stuff is done via automation and cannot be done with modulation respectively would be to complicated and would be an overkill for modulation...

Modulation is purely for sound design and most instruments and many FX are already covered more as sufficient for that task

But how many heavily modulated sounds do you need in a complete track... there are a few "special" sounds but the majority is kept more simple as the track would get chaotic if everything always changes

Take trap, drum and bass... you´ve got 2 or 3 heavily modulated bass sounds but the rest is mostly plain simple...
Take trance, psy trance with some heavily modulated fx sounds but the rest envolves via automation as well as being heavily layered with different sounds than being modulated...

Not to speak about synthwave, house, synthie pop... etc... do they´ve got anything modulated in there???
etc...
etc...

There might be experimental or ambience stuff which needs more but the majority of tracks you hear doesn´t use that much modulation but all, even acoustic genres, use tons over tons of automation in regards of volume automation, transitions filter rises/falls ...etc...pp...

In the Bitwig forum we have a lot of users who are still on 1.x...

And you think this reflects the majority of users???

You mentioned 3rd party vsts to cover some areas. Don’t forget the price you have to pay for those.

Of course, but this price you pay easily with a few years of using Bitwig... and don´t forget:

I don’t need kilohearts phase plant, because the Grid is way ahead and I get results way faster. In fact, the Grid alone diminishes my need for other synths significantly...

The Grid is quite cool for doing complex stuff quite elegant but you´ve got no idea what e.g. kilohearts stuff is capable of or Unfiltered audio or Melda...
The Grid can keep the pace for the first 10% and then offers like Bitwig in total a bit of the nerdy stuff which is perhaps quite usefull for a small amount of music types but that´s it... which might be enough for you but I don´t think it´s enough for many others...
Soundwise and featurewise the Grid cannot compete with these complete packages in any way...

The confusion about the definition of the term subscription is coming from those marketing guys at Adobe and Microsoft who called renting software a subscription. And all the world accepted it. Just because it does not sound as bad as renting... In the end it is what it is no matter how you call it. The first who went that route was Waves btw... My version 9 plugins still work and there is not the slightest need to get them covered by a plan at all! (yet...)

Nevertheless is Bitwig the most expensive DAW on the market when used like the others (means keep updating over a longer period of time)...
And it simply does not reflect this with what it offers in any way...

This is like buying a car with 45 horse powers for the price of a Ferrari with the chance to get every here and then addons for a few horse powers more till you finally got in 15 years the same power...

Anyway... if you are happy with it... fine... I was not and this is what this thread is about and this seem to be the same for many other selling or having sold their license as most of them having or having had a remaining upgrade period of at least 10 or 11 month... meaning they realized quite early after the initial hype that most of the stuff Bitwig offers isn´t that helpful in real world scenarios as it seem to be at first glance...

[dellboy]

The confusion about the definition of the term subscription

There is no confusion.

Those who deny its a subscription plan are not confused.

Those who say it is a subscription plan are not confused.

The former have purchased it.

The latter have not.

If Bitwig are happy with that situation, fine. If they want to attract the latters money then they need to change their business model.

For the forseeable future I guess they will play hardball and stick.

No confusion.

[pdxindy]

Bitwig offers tons of extreme stuff but quite little help for real production work... (which might be different to very experimental or atmospherical stuff)

I enjoy Bitwig cause it is fast and straightforward to use. It is efficient to get ideas down without getting in the way.

I find it effective for a lot of what to me seems basic stuff.
I like the browser and saving of presets, device chains, groups etc. along with a good tagging system is useful and practical.
I haven't had a full crash in at least 2 years cause of the plugin sandboxing.
Hybrid tracks and the way midi gets passed through on device chains means I can do stuff on one track that would take multiple tracks in some other DAW's.
I like the inspector and the histograms.
I like being able to open multiple projects
The interactive help system
MPE support and micro-pitch editing
Remote Controls
Every device has macros and user defined default state including any nested devices.

It's good there are a variety of tools available to users. Lots of people have different needs and workflows. For me, Bitwig is satisfying for a variety of basic tasks. Obviously for you it isn't.

[richhickey]

I got interested in Bitwig on the idea of it becoming a modular, scriptable DAW. Instead it has become a modular synth in (or as) a DAW. I'm not interested in modular synthesis, so Bitwig is not for me.