The All In One Source Bitwig Information & Speculation Thread

[firepile]

Will Bitwig Studio be available as a download, and boxed version, whenever it is released ?

According to their Facebook page, yes.

[UncleAge]

Right now it's pretty bad: You neither can transport midi from one track to another like in Live, nor can you use midi-VSTs at all, since every plugin in a chain is getting the original midi.

Thanks for the heads-up Tom. This is issue #1 for me and if its not there I'm not onboard. I would have found out while demoing BWS anyway but its still nice to know ahead of time. Even if its not in three for version #1 I hope it becomes available in version #2.

You know, Reaper is the only host I have that allows me to route midi in many-to-one and one-to-many relationships (track(s)/track(s)). And even then I don't think it will allow me to pick a destination (just one) out of the chain of instruments on the track. (I could be wrong about this)

So are there any hosts that allow this type of routing? Does Tracktion allow for this in it's racks? I can't remember, I sold it quite some time ago...

[Muziksculp]

Will Bitwig Studio be available as a download, and boxed version, whenever it is released ?

According to their Facebook page, yes.

Cool !

Thanks for the feedback.

Hopefully the wait will end soon

[ThomasHelzle]

Some more Linux Lore:

I finally got my Firebox working in my fresh install of Ubuntu Studio using Jack, but only with Ardour so far.

In Bitwig there is a problem with it interpreting (my guess) the Firebox midi port as audio - I get one too many inputs and outputs each in the audio-setup and the midi port doesn't show up.

I hope this will be an easy fix.
For the moment I'll fall back onto the on-board audio, but it's good to know that it's working in principle

Cheers,

Tom

[crazyfiltertweaker]

1.Do Bitwig support parallel processing?
2.Have Bitiwg a crossfader to blend between one or more signals?
How does the crossfader work? Can I save a crossfader assignment with the host project and can I multi-assigne it?
3.Can I route Send Channels to Busses?
4.Can I rename automation tracks?

THANKS for answering, it would be very helpful!

[pc999]

Some more Linux Lore:

I finally got my Firebox working in my fresh install of Ubuntu Studio using Jack, but only with Ardour so far.

Nice to know you have the Firebox almost working, I never used a firewire (even on Windows) but the USB is ones never gave me trouble, but IMO it is probably worth it, not only is faster it does have a better workflow, for doing stuff,the multiple workspaces alone are a beautiful speed up.


BTW can you a "spread" a dual monitor/screen by the different workspaces, i.e., emulate duple/triple monitor/screen setting but instead of using actual monitors using workspaces

I only have 1 monitor but the idea of just use "ctrl + alt + arrow" to emulate a multi monitor setup is making me , and for laptops extras :wheee::wheee:.

If it is not possible can you request it on the beta forum please !

1.
2.Have Bitiwg a crossfader to blend between one or more signals?
How does the crossfader work? Can I save a crossfader assignment with the host project and can I multi-assigne it?

Actually that is something I like to know too.

Does Bitwig have a DJ like cross fader

[ThomasHelzle]

Some more Linux Lore:

I finally got my Firebox working in my fresh install of Ubuntu Studio using Jack, but only with Ardour so far.

Nice to know you have the Firebox almost working, I never used a firewire (even on Windows) but the USB is ones never gave me trouble.

BTW can you a "spread" a dual monitor/screen by the different workspaces, i.e., emulate duple/triple monitor/screen setting but instead of using actual monitors using workspaces

I only have 1 monitor but the idea of just use "ctrl + alt + arrow" to emulate a multi monitor setup is making me , and for laptops extras :wheee::wheee:.

1.
2.Have Bitiwg a crossfader to blend between one or more signals?
How does the crossfader work? Can I save a crossfader assignment with the host project and can I multi-assigne it?

Actually that is something I like to know too.
Does Bitwig have a DJ like cross fader

As for the Firebox: The whole Jack system seems pretty erratic. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, in one application it works in another not... More trouble than it's worth IMO.

I haven't tried workspaces for this (I never use them) but can't you just as easily switch between the views inside of BW? Not sure I follow why this would be better?

I don't think there is an A-B crossfader in BW. But I never used this in Live so I may be the wrong person to ask.

Cheers,

Tom

[pc999]

Thanks.

About the workspaces using Reaper I find it really easy to use to use workspace and that it can speed up a lot the workflow specially the MIDI Editor and better shortcuts (although not being native you need to set it up). I dont know how it works with BWS but would be great if one could do the same.

Anyway this is what can do with workspaces and Reaper in Linux.



(Edit: how do I make the video visible, directly ?)
(Edit2: ops there is no sound, I may try latter to see for the correct format and get sound, but you should get the idea)

The cross fader is of minor importance, AFAIK there is a x-y 4-way mixer device so we can set it up anyway.


Thanks again.

[pdxindy]

My understanding is that in Bitwig, unlike Live, you would be able to put 3rd party midi tools before an instrument, and not have to have them be on a separate track.

Well, I was reluctant to talk about this so far, but somehow I think it is really important myself and I'm trying to make that as clear as possible in my posts to beta support.

Right now it's pretty bad: You neither can transport midi from one track to another like in Live, nor can you use midi-VSTs at all, since every plugin in a chain is getting the original midi.

For me this is a major problem and I fear it will be one for many other people too. While the latest internal midi tools and modulators can do a lot of what I otherwise often do with plugins, not being able to use things like Reaktor Sequencers etc. with VST-Plugins is bad.
Cheers,

Tom

Oh my... that is bad. No way to use Geist to drive synths, no way to use 3rd party arps like Cream, Cthulhu, no step sequencers, no Numerology as a plug-in or any 3rd party midi tools at all.

I understand why you would be reluctant to talk about it, but I think you do Bitwig a favor to do so. I guess many people will find that a huge downer. I would not even consider Bitwig without that capability. I doubt I am alone in that too. Bitwig needs to hear about it.

[gjvti]

....

I understand why you would be reluctant to talk about it, but I think you do Bitwig a favor to do so. I guess many people will find that a huge downer. I would not even consider Bitwig without that capability. I doubt I am alone in that too. Bitwig needs to hear about it.

No, you are not alone!
I'm not with bitwig too until they properly support midi.

... but we don't know whether midi part is left out in beta/version 1 to speed up Bitwig introduction or developers simply do not have interest in that as obviously most people really work with audio and not realtime midi.

Anyway it took me about 3 days or something to build basic max4live midi data reassignment device with no knowledge of coding... so, if bitwig developers had plans to add midi when elaborating bitwig studio frame, than this shouldn't take too much to do that. On the other hand fixing bugs may take much, much more time than coding something new.

[ThomasHelzle]

Oh my... that is bad. No way to use Geist to drive synths, no way to use 3rd party arps like Cream, Cthulhu, no step sequencers, no Numerology as a plug-in or any 3rd party midi tools at all.

I understand why you would be reluctant to talk about it, but I think you do Bitwig a favor to do so. I guess many people will find that a huge downer. I would not even consider Bitwig without that capability. I doubt I am alone in that too. Bitwig needs to hear about it.

I totally agree.
I mostly do generative sound using some of what you enumerate (PC based though) plus ToneCarvers brilliant Nova3, Audio Damages Axon, I also love to use the great Jamstix with midi-out-only, letting it play totally different sounds than drums after mangling the results further and since I bought Reaktor some time ago, I dive into that a lot too, patching my own midi mangler ATM.

All those only work in BW if you either use their internal audio only or use some kind of VST-Chainer to build your setup, which isn't ideal although especially bidule gives a lot of options without much overhead.

But like gjvti wrote, it is my hope that midi tools and midi-routing is not too hard to implement, so even if it's limited in version 1.0, maybe it can be added rapidly afterwards, since I would expect a LOT of people needing it nowadays.

I like everything else enough to keep my hopes up

Cheers,

Tom

[Satch1]

You know, Reaper is the only host I have that allows me to route midi in many-to-one and one-to-many relationships (track(s)/track(s)). And even then I don't think it will allow me to pick a destination (just one) out of the chain of instruments on the track. (I could be wrong about this)

So are there any hosts that allow this type of routing? Does Tracktion allow for this in it's racks? I can't remember, I sold it quite some time ago...

Good news UncleAge, Reaper has 16 MIDI busses, so you can ultilise these to send MIDI to any single instrument or effect on the same track.

Right click the ins and outs button at the top right of the plugin window, and you'll find menus for MIDI inputs and outputs.

[ThomasHelzle]

Today I worked some more on controller Scripts.

By default Bitwig only uses midi channel 1 for most of the existing controllers, but I use 4 CopperLan virtual midi devices to distribute midi from - for instance - some generative Processing Scripts I've written, and they send different sequences on each midi channel...

So I created a new device by copying the existing generic keyboard script and called it "Vmidi1.control.js" in a folder called CopperLan. Immediately this is visible and usable in BW after I changed just the device name and UUID in the script, showing up in the devices-dropdown in a menu called CopperLan as a submenu entry "VMidi 1" - cool.

What is also very helpful: there is a Control Script Console that shows all Errors and you can send text output to it for feedback, including midi and sysex, so you know what's going on.

Also extremely nice: At first I was unsure if I would need to restart BW each time I change something, but don't fear, as soon as you save the script, BW senses that and reloads it with feedback in the Console - that's how it should be done.
You then can instantly try out your newest script functions.

Inside the Script I created a note-input-device for each channel. What's great: you can give the device hexadecimal masks of midi-controllers you want to be transferred - so if your old keyboard sends out certain things you don't want to capture or bother BW with - just mask it out.

In the script you can also do with the data whatever you like before it reaches BW - this should lead to some interesting things I'm sure

What's also a big timesaver: if you set a certain command and give it the names your device shows up under, it can instantly be auto-detected by the press of a button.
For more reluctant devices you can even send short strings of sysex to get feedback from the device.


I also wanted to try if I can re-purpose Poly-Aftertouch into something else, since I found a command in the API to translate it into for instance "Timbre", one of the per-Note expression options in BW.
Since I found out that my Akai MPD18 is supposed to be able to send Poly-AT I thought this should be fun to try, but for the life of me I was unable to get the MPD18 editor from Akai to send the settings I made in it to the device, it always sent Channel AT.
I don't know if it's a Problem with the ages old editor, Windows 8 or something else.
If I should get it to work, I'll let you know how it goes.


I only scratched the surface with these, but from reading the docs I got the impression, that if you are halfways java-script-savy, you can create really complex scripts and interact with BW in an extremely deep fashion from your controller. Navigating the interface, selecting stuff, creating stuff... you name it.

I also got the impression that Midi will be worked on further, so I continue to be very optimistic.


Cheers,

Tom

[Ogopogo]

Bitwigs gonna make it all better. shhhhhh. shhhh.

[crazyfiltertweaker]

The cross fader is of minor importance, AFAIK there is a x-y 4-way mixer device so we can set it up anyway.


Thanks again.

if this is so, a cross fader is not needed.

one more issue:
can I layer on one track different third party vstis? This would be nice for my because that would reduce the amount of my tracks dramatically!