The All In One Source Bitwig Information & Speculation Thread

[hibidy]

I certainly never want to be critical, but I have not used enough plugins on a single track in conjunction with other tracks that have a high effect count to notice this difference. Maybe I, despite being somewhat young, am really oldschool with my approach. I rarely do things in a software environment that I couldn't do in a hardware environment other than midi note editing, and some audio edits. Effects are just like I would have in a hardware studio.

So I might have 20 tracks of audio and 10 soft synths, with about 8-10 effects TOTAL for the whole project. If I can't get the desired sound with the soft synth and an EQ I am an idiot and need to learn my tools a bit better.

Credentials aside these lengthy chain of effects that create huge latency are lost on me.

"........they pull you back in"

Understand that it's not necessarily knowing your tools. For example, it's not uncommon for guitarists like me to have chains of plugs. One amp, one cab, some companies have a power amp, sometimes those chains have a more desired effect than all in one. I'm not saying that bitwig "persay" is supposed to cater to that need, but in reality it happens quite commonly.

One should never assume that because they do something one way, everyone gets from point a to b the same way.

I missed this thread, and I admit defeat*

*I wondered how long I could last

[JonSolo]

Yea bro, ha.

And I agree with SOME chain of effects. But we are not talking Amplitude with a bunch of stuff...most of the talk is obscure things like "8 instances of Ozone"...really? I mean, if you need that much, you are not in touch with how to get the sound you need. There are easier, shorter, less latency ways of doing it...I am sure of it.

Oh well. Bitwig folks are rocking the updates quicker than I can take a leak. Hope all works out well for your issues. I just need Synthmaster and the Air products to work...and nothing else is an issue.

Jon

[hibidy]

I hear you. Some people DO have redundant chains, but I don't really think that is what Theo is getting at. It's just a hunch, but I don't think he's using 8 instances of ozone (though you CAN with advanced use the separate modules, so in theory that might be something someone does)

[xerxes[no]]

TheoM,

I have been using Live to make music for years, and I am now using Bitwig to make music. It works 100% fine. Could you please explain to me in lamant terms why I should not think that I am able to make music using these programs? Frankly getting a little tired of people talking about this PDC problem as a huge issue when I not once have encountered this myself. What it is that you do, that apparantly I do not do? Am I doing something wrong?

[vastarray]

TheoM,
Frankly getting a little tired of people talking about this PDC problem as a huge issue when I not once have encountered this myself. What it is that you do, that apparantly I do not do?

What they do is use ancient computers, pile on absurd quantities of effects with no real musical intention, and generally try their best to break a program so they can complain about it. They're the same guys that say every plugin "uses too much CPU". They're the same guys who want 64 bit WAV files, because technically it's better than 32 bit. They're the same guys who demand every plugin & DAW provide every obscure function that nobody, including themselves, would ever even use once. The best thing is to suggest they get a better computer and RTFM, and then perma-block them.

[simpli.cissimus]

I'm not confusing anything whatsoever as it's all related. I know precisely what I am talking about. It doesn't turn pdc OFF for the very track you're playing in (as that would cause issues with the sound of the project timing), it literally disables plugins that have latency from the recording path, so there is no latency present. The way latency is implemented in all those hosts is entirely different in that latent plugins only affect the path they are on at any time, whether recording is armed or not. In Bitwig it's obvious the entire project is shifted. Studio one initially did it the way you are doing it, and I pointed it out to Wolfgang and he thanked me and said he re thought the entire process and released the program with pdc that worked like cubase.
You're playhead doesn't stay in sync with the project at any point on any track the moment any latent effect is inserted anywhere. Another major problem. You would think getting a chance to do this from scratch it would have been designed with live's problems in mind and avoiding them - but seeing as the precise same limitations as live are present, besides now automation being in time with pdc (which is what you call "working pdc"), i can see who probably programmed live this way to begin with and how the issues all started.

Like i said in my very clear post.. low latency mode in logic/cubase etc does not need to be activated in order to have low latency monitoring in these hosts in 99% of situations, as the plugins with latency present on one track have nothing to do with another to *begin with*. It's only when they are in the direct signal path of an armed track does low latency mode need to be activated.

Since no audio editing can be done as the playhead is completely out of time once any latent effect is inserted, that is not working pdc. Good luck and bye to you too. LOL.

I totally agree with you...

Audio and Playhead out of sync is only happen in two DAW's.
Live and Bitwig. So it must come to mind that the guys who made this
left Live and repeated this in Bitwig.

I stopped using Live for this and other reasons.
Been using Studio One since three years now and I'm happy from day one.
I miss the sampler and the way how to use more vst instruments on one track,
so I had big hopes in Bitwig bringing me that back.

In theory and on paper, BWS is a dream of a DAW.
I thought Bitwig will be stable as a rock from day one,
since they had so much time to make it work.

Man, was I wrong...

Now they throw fixes out to keep up with what had to be right from day one.
Makes some dudes happy, but I see through the curtain.

So many synth and effects fail to show up that it isn't serious anymore.
But when I had a BSOD, after closing BWS, just because I switched off my
Soundcard manually too, it gave me the rest !

I don't accept a software messing up my system.
My system is rock solid, even for Ableton Live.
I use music software for over 14 years now,
and I know how to set up a working, stable system.

So I'll wait another 2-3 years till BWS 2.0 and see if it matured.
Audio and playhead must be in sync by then, to make me buying it.

I'm happy for all who keep it buying and that it works for them.
This way BWS stays in the game till 2.0 !

Good Luck to the Bitwig guys,
I still have some hope you pull it.

[4damind]

I'm not sure if the PDC stuff is the most important thing. I seems a lot of users don't have problems and with my testings (for the stuff I typical use) it was good.
There are so many other (important) problems like not working plug-ins which are IMO show stoppers to use Bitwig.
They must build at first a stable and 100% (VST) compatible plug-in host. Followed by the small improvements/features like groups, pre-roll for clips, multi-out support...
A different PDC and maybe double buffering like in Logic and Cubase are some of this things which could make Bitwig a very great DAW.. But to be honest, this time Bitwig is far away from "great" it's at a early Beta stage and needs a lot of work (and PDC is IMO not the biggest problem they have)

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[xerxes[no]]

As far as features goes, there are plenty things I wish was in Bitwig. Which is why I am hoping the devs do not spend all their time solving this PDC issues which (to me and many others) is a non-issue. Basically, this is all about a conflict of interest. Nothing more.

Big hugs

[humanbeingbeing]

I need to chime in on this discussion about the importance of PDC and related issues. I've been pretty vocal on the subject, obviously to me it's important so I guess this post will be perceived to have a certain bias, but I'd like to say that I think the PDC issue is maybe more important than certain people think it is... there is this perceived notion that if you haven't encountered or noticed the underlying problem in your projects then it isn't a problem for you.... there are legitimate scenarios where it doesn't present a problem, but actually it comes up more than many people think... we're trying to create a next gen DAW and as many have said, these issues present themselves in various situations.. there are so many different ways people use these DAWs... but IMHO people shouldn't even begin to suggest that PDC a lesser issue, and people have reiterated they want core features fixed, PDC is one of those features...

Now what's interesting is that there are new discussions developing about 2 things, and as with all things PDC, it's all being lumped together... there are new issues, visual playback sync and the trade of between compensation and performance.... there is a debate about how much compensation is OK. I want to say as well, putting 5 Ozones on a channel may seem over the top, but obviously the idea is to test the PDC feature to the limit... IMO, perhaps if it were possible maybe Bitwig could make compensation configurable, that may help with the trade off, let people choose... but anyway, TBH, the compensation offered right now is actually working for me in practice, it's meeting my needs, I don't seem to have this playback head issue, but I need to look again because perception can alter what you actually think is happening... just like with Ableton and it's automation compensation, somehow I didn't notice for years and wondered why my tracks were sounding worse than they did before... this is almost like in reverse, they had a correct playback head, but the actual automation is "off"---- IMO, musically, as timing is involved, it's much better that the automation is correct than the visual playback head being right, it is music after all, and we're supposed to use our ears... and I want to be able to work with my Bitwig projects forever with no worry about flipping over my automation to latency, another thing, rather than revert and start again with Ableton, to fix this PDC overshoot issue is a bit easier, to my understanding, all you gottta do is delete the offending plugins or bounce which is easy in Bitwig.... of course there may be other bugs... so anyway yeah, I don't think these problems between Ableton and Bitwig are mutually exclusive, but I hope Bitwig will fix its bugs, I don't believe in this cynical idea that they've somehow made the same mistakes that Ableton made, it doesn't look that way to me at all, there are very different things going on....

[xerxes[no]]

I need to chime in on this discussion about the importance of PDC and related issues.

Well put, sir. I dont feel much smarter as to how people compose music and get timing issues with PDC, but there are enough people documenting this that I sincerely believe there is an issue. Lets have track grouping, multi-out VSTs and some other bugs ironed out - then they can spend the rest of their time working on PDC for the people

[humanbeingbeing]

I need to chime in on this discussion about the importance of PDC and related issues.

Well put, sir. I dont feel much smarter as to how people compose music and get timing issues with PDC, but there are enough people documenting this that I sincerely believe there is an issue. Lets have track grouping, multi-out VSTs and some other bugs ironed out - then they can spend the rest of their time working on PDC for the people

I think track grouping and multi out VSTs are inevitable, promised on their twitter feed before version 2 as a free update to 1... so you've just got to wait... and they'll probably come pretty soon, then I'm hoping for a steady stream of fixes wherever possible... I actually think what is left of the PDC issues are probably minor actually.... it is a buggy program right now, but then again a lot of 1.0 programs are, and if they made it stable within a few weeks/months everyone would forgive them, so I think *most of* us will get what they want.

[xerxes[no]]

I need to chime in on this discussion about the importance of PDC and related issues.

Well put, sir. I dont feel much smarter as to how people compose music and get timing issues with PDC, but there are enough people documenting this that I sincerely believe there is an issue. Lets have track grouping, multi-out VSTs and some other bugs ironed out - then they can spend the rest of their time working on PDC for the people

I think track grouping and multi out VSTs are inevitable, promised on their twitter feed before version 2 as a free update to 1... so you've just got to wait... and they'll probably come pretty soon, then I'm hoping for a steady stream of fixes wherever possible... I actually think what is left of the PDC issues are probably minor actually.... it is a buggy program right now, but then again a lot of 1.0 programs are, and if they made it stable within a few weeks/months everyone would forgive them, so I think *most of* us will get what they want.

Ah, great news! Did not know they promised these things as a free update. Need to find them om Twitter. Cheers!

[Lesha]

Well, after testing it for the couple of days it's still missing a lot of features I personally use, and has some annoyances that are ruining my workflow:

1. No undo for VSTs
2. Browser pane split in two makes no sense for VSTs, only for inbuilt effects and their presets
3. Can't get BWS and another app using audio to play together - web browser, audio player, etc. "Engine failed to connect" error is displayed until I kill all other apps/services using audio (including Adobe Flash player background services).
4. When VSTs are deactivated, the CPU consumption still stays the same, so it's like muting them
5. No MIDI routing
6. Constantly crashing

I will revisit it at a later stage when it gets more mature and bug free, and with some basic functionalities added. I haven't spend a lot of time with PDC, but I can see it may be a problem for people who bought it and built projects with it. The demo is limited and the projects can't be saved so I can't test it in real life situation with plugins I usually use, I hope it works better than Ableton in that regard.
I am also not too keen on JAVA in a DAW, I am not sure if that is the best solution for a GUI, but I understand it had to be done because of porting to Linux and OSX.

All in all, I wish the Bitwig team all the best in their endeavour, a lot of bugs to be fixed, many useful features to be added and to build a rock solid DAW with the best possible workflow.
I am very happy to see them responding quickly and fixing bugs in a timely manner, I hope it will stay that way in the future.

Cheers guys, I'll be watching you.

[Echoes in the Attic]

1. No undo for VSTs

What do you mean? Like undo tweaking parameters in a VST?

2. Browser pane split in two makes no sense for VSTs, only for inbuilt effects and their presets

It makes perfect sense. And works quite well. You can store presets per VST in bitwig format that show up in the bottom pane. Also useful for bookmarks with folders and sub folders. And it's amazing for audio content, as it displays all files in a directory, including all files in sub directories. Never seen this before and massively useful.

3. Can't get BWS and another app using audio to play together - web browser, audio player, etc. "Engine failed to connect" error is displayed until I kill all other apps/services using audio (including Adobe Flash player background services).

Can't say I've had this issue.

4. When VSTs are deactivated, the CPU consumption still stays the same, so it's like muting them

Yeah I do hope they fix this one soon as well.

5. No MIDI routing

For me this has been made unnecessary due to the ability of single tracks have midi going to all devices. However it would be useful for drum plug-ins once multi-outputs is added.

6. Constantly crashing

Can't say I've had a crash since I think 1.02, sorry to hear that.