The All In One Source Bitwig Information & Speculation Thread

[egbert]

You can have take lanes without comping. Comping implies you can have sections of different takes play as a final "comp". Simple take lanes allows all takes to be visible but may not allow more than one to play in a single pass. (Which may involve the need for more than one take to be streaming simultaneously for fast and sample accurate switching between takes and for crossfades, for examples).

[egbert]

As far as feature complete-ness: the marketing division would be totally opposed to a product including too much in a new version - what about subsequent upgrade revenues? Drip feed the bastards!

[Ogopogo]

Without elastic you can't stretch audio... I can't even think bitwig can't do it.

Thomas has said that there is warping. So if that is what is meant by elastic audio then yes, it has it.

You can warp Audio in BWS similar to what I know about Live with warp markers

You can have take lanes without comping. Comping implies you can have sections of different takes play as a final "comp". Simple take lanes allows all takes to be visible but may not allow more than one to play in a single pass. (Which may involve the need for more than one take to be streaming simultaneously for fast and sample accurate switching between takes and for crossfades, for examples).

Ok, but take lanes are a way of implementing comping, so they are part of the same thing. So it doesn't make much sense to count it twice in a list of "standard" features as Theo did.

[dsan@mail.com]

Rewire support is not important to me and my work.

Midi editing is. So I could use event list.

While some features may not be important to one user, to another it may be.

I think Bitwig will create a DAW that will appeal to most users whatever they put in it and that they will try to put as much useful features as possible.

On a side note, I appreciate TheoM's post and consider it a genuine attempt to create dialog and possibly get some answers.

Happy Musiking!
dsan

[Ogopogo]

On a side note, I appreciate TheoM's post and consider it a genuine attempt to create dialog and possibly get some answers.

I should say that I can believe it was written with good intentions too. And I obviously don't mean to reignite a flame war.

[egbert]

You can have take lanes without comping. Comping implies you can have sections of different takes play as a final "comp". Simple take lanes allows all takes to be visible but may not allow more than one to play in a single pass. (Which may involve the need for more than one take to be streaming simultaneously for fast and sample accurate switching between takes and for crossfades, for examples).

Ok, but take lanes are a way of implementing comping, so they are part of the same thing. So it doesn't make much sense to count it twice in a list of "standard" features as Theo did.

Take lanes are necessary but not sufficient for comping. PDC and plugin support have a similar relationship. Happy to count them as 2 features? ;P

[Ogopogo]

Take lanes are necessary but not sufficient for comping.

I can't make sense of that.

Edit. Oh, I thought you switched something around but now I see what you meant. But anyway I don't see how that proves your point. Take lanes are for comping. They are a part of comping.

PDC and plugin support have a similar relationship. Happy to count them as 2 features? ;P

I wouldn't count them as two features, no. Good PDC is part of proper plug implementation. You wouldn't say "it doesn't have plugs or pdc."

[egbert]

There is something of the ahistorical about your approach. Synth programs (memories) are an excellent feature for synthesisers. However, early synths lacked them - ie there were synths with many adjustable parameters but no way to recall a given "patch". So programmability and recallable programs were two innovations and obviously programability came well before the ability to recall programs. They are now tied together in most current implementations but are actually separate ideas that arrived years apart. The first (programability) was necessary but not sufficient for the recallable programs arrangement we currently enjoy. This is not a subject for debate.

[gamecat666]

Has anyone made a guess, of what they honestly think it will cost, has it even been approached by the bitwig guys yet or is everyone still totally in the dark on that? Watching the videos again, it really would be a great thing to have if it were 99 bucks and could rewire slave.

as much as i'd love it to be $99, my money is on 'just ever so slightly slightly less than Live'. (unfortunately, as I think its overpriced IMO)

[Ogopogo]

Well that's an analogy and I don't really see why the history should matter. There is not really a point to take lanes without comping these days.


But this is really alot of words to waste over something so small.

[The Mantra]

I'm genuinely curious, is the lack of rewire support a show stopper for anyone? As far as I can tell the so called "standard" things missing are, xfades, comping,take lanes, event list, notation, snap to zero, midi plugins, inter channel routing with vst, elastic pitch, hybrid performance buffer, rewire, multi out plugins, au support on mac, vst3 support on either, a dedicated drum editor. Have I missed anything or is that it?

red is what I think is probably standard.
blue is common but not standard. Things that other big name daws dont have or are not common for general casual music production or at least is not included in live 9.
green is unconfirmed or stated to be in an upcoming beta build.


I use Synfire so lack or rewire is inconvenient but not a show stopper.
As for "standard" daw features, I guess thats subjective. I suspect that everyone here would recolor your post differently than I have. At the very least, I don't think its fair to blame Bitwig for things that even live 9 doesn't do.

The other side of this is that I'm pretty sure daws like Cubase and Logic do most of the things you posted. The funny thing is that the daws that do "everything" tend to feel bloated and outdated, suffer in terms of workflow or grow buggy. between that and immature daws, it comes down to picking how you want to be inconvenienced.

[Ogopogo]

Actually upon reflection you make a good point egbert.

[tooneba]

red is what I think is probably standard.
blue is common but not standard. Things that other big name daws dont have or are not common for general casual music production or at least is not included in live 9.
green is unconfirmed or stated to be in an upcoming beta build.


I use Synfire so lack or rewire is inconvenient but not a show stopper.
As for "standard" daw features, I guess thats subjective. I suspect that everyone here would recolor your post differently than I have. At the very least, I don't think its fair to blame Bitwig for things that even live 9 doesn't do.

The other side of this is that I'm pretty sure daws like Cubase and Logic do most of the things you posted. The funny thing is that the daws that do "everything" tend to feel bloated and outdated, suffer in terms of workflow or grow buggy. between that and immature daws, it comes down to picking how you want to be inconvenienced.

It's like you are saying Live is bug free and bloat free...

[ThomasHelzle]

I feel there is something major missing in this discussion:

Live is a DAW for live use. Logic, Cubase etc. are mainly targeted at studio use.

Now BWS is much closer to Live than to those other DAWs and clearly optimized for live use.

In the studio you will use comping and lanes, on stage it's unlikely.
There you may prefer a looper which in the studio is of less use.

Notation on stage? Hm, maybe as a replacement for displaying sheet music but otherwise not really.

In the studio it doesn't matter much if you drop in an effect plugin while you playback and get audio dropouts or clicks etc., on stage that would be bad and preventing it requires a completely different kind of optimization and priorities.

In some DAWs you can't even save your project while playback is running without audible clicks - in Live and BWS you can.

In the studio it makes sense to not render/run devices that are disabled to save CPU. On stage it's important that you can enable a device seamlessly. So an effect has to run even when disabled, otherwise you would get unpredictable results for instance from a delay (either it would play back old data from a preserved buffer or would only start when you enable it so nothing may be heard for a while).

On stage you need a very clear layout, preferably one-screen-optimized, usable even on a laptop. In the studio you may have multiple monitors and may not mind going through endless menus and options or overlapping windows and the like.

I could go on, but I hope you get the drift.

So if you thought that Bitwig Studio would be the one DAW to bind them all - ahem - replace them all, sure, you can be disappointed if you want, but that is hardly Bitwigs fault, since from day one they showed a feature list that made this rather clear IMO. Heck, most discussions initially were about Live suing them for similarity or how their feature list looked like a most wanted for Live.

You can also be disappointed that your Lamborghini doesn't have a shovel where that is pretty standard for excavators.
Both are cars with wheels in a way so hey, it's pretty standard, isn't it

Cheers!

Tom

[LawrenceF]

I feel there is something major missing in this discussion:

There is, the realization that not all daws are actually supposed to be the same.

We get so caught up in our toys that we have this recurring "can do" war about them and anything that can't do what we need is a failure. Pick a tool that does what you need and use it.

The other stuff is just tech discussion. I knew Bitwig wasn't for me the first day they announced it.

Their goal actually isn't to make everyone who uses daws a Bitwig user. It's to find enough of a user base to keep revenue flowing so they can keep developing it and keep the company afloat. Many of us won't be in that group.