Am I the only one who couldn't care less about touchscreen?

[shonoob]

I think you guys are crazy.
Just the other day I was looking at the UI wondering to myself how they were planning on cramming all of the little buttons and indicators into a touchscreen UI. It only made sense after I switched out of 'Single Display (Large)' mode and into 'Tablet' mode for the first time after reading this thread.

To me, it doesn't feel at all like a touchscreen interface while in regular viewing mode. I don't have any complaints about it personally. As time has gone by and changes were made (like the browser) i've adapted to them just fine.

I think you guys have might be better off spending your time actually making music and having fun with it than worrying about this little feature or that little feature that MIGHT make your tracks awesome or something.. It's just a bunch of gimmicks innit?

The core of Bitwig is there, and it's great fun. I've been more productive and creative with this software than I ever was with Ableton, which was great too but still a different thing..

People just want it all sometimes huh.. It's not enough to just have the BEST PLUGINS with the BEST DAW with the BEST FEATURES and EVERY LITTLE TOOL IMAGINABLE... all to make more boring EDM shit that sounds like everything else out there on beatport or soundcloud.

Just have fun with it guys.. Bitwig is fun, right? We're supposed to have fun with it, right? I understand it's also fun to fantasize about what else we could get the devs to add to the program. I just think you're being a little dramatic about it.

But it's not just a 'little feature.' By all means, if Bitwig has enough resources to pool into their touch surface, whilst simultaneously still providing even half-decent DAW updates then I am all for it. I mean it has been about 3 months since any significant update, and now at NAMM, where I was hoping they would have some surprise redemption, they are product placing random shit... So as of late Bitwig has been extremely underwhelming, and it is now easy to understand why they aren't even able to integrate BASIC & Necessary updates into their DAW (I mean it is a DAW right? Not a roli or touchpad that we paid for) / fix ridiculous audio bugs etc... even after being out for 2 years. It seems like they are jacking off over this touch screen, and just throwing out half-assed updates so as not to stir dissension, whilst they actually spend all their time appeasing their new sugar daddy Microsoft.

[pdxindy]

When the day finally arrives that we have tablets powerful enough to be the heart of our studio then I know everyone who slags off the touch screen experience will be eating their words.

I have decent amount of experience with touchscreens. I have yet to like them. The fingertip is not precise and the lack of tactile feedback is a big impediment.

There is a visceral pleasure in touching things. Touchscreens lose that. I enjoy playing keyboard, the feel of the keys, their mass and movement when I press them, the springy resistance of the aftertouch. I enjoy playing guitar, the feel of real strings, frets, etc. You could have a virtual guitar fretboard on a long narrow touchscreen and it would never replace the real thing. I enjoy the real physical world.

Touchscreens fundamentally suck in this regard. So I am confident I will not be eating my words.

[ras.s]

*devil's advocate* Who needs comping anyway? Aren't you guys musicians enough to get it right when you play it in? >;-)


And we can imagine the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth if they'd start working on the touch features later on, when there's even more stuff they should be working on. It's just good that they get it done now and not later.

If it gets done... now they'll be fixing bugs and wasting even more time on the touch surface before any actual 'DAW' work. I feel like I've been ripped off with Bitwig at the current interim.

Well you ought to know you should always buy software for what it is and not for what you want it to be or for what you think it will become.

I mean, you've already bought into a software that is supported on three operating systems and I can't know but I would imagine that's much bigger of a development overhead overall than supporting something like clicking on two places at one time.

But feeling ripped off? Psh. You're simply not in the position to dictate what happens and when.

I mean it has been about 3 months since any significant update, and now at NAMM, where I was hoping they would have some surprise redemption, they are product placing random shit...

Just the other day they released a new version with the post recording action. I'm quite happy with that along with the bug fixes and other improvements. It doesn't take much imagination that it provides a workaround for comping while they get it really working in their intended workflow. It's the kind of basic stuff you're demanding, right?

I'm afraid you're never going to be satisfied until you get exactly what you want. Wanty wanty can't get it, getty getty no want it ..

[shonoob]

When the day finally arrives that we have tablets powerful enough to be the heart of our studio then I know everyone who slags off the touch screen experience will be eating their words.

I have decent amount of experience with touchscreens. I have yet to like them. The fingertip is not precise and the lack of tactile feedback is a big impediment.

There is a visceral pleasure in touching things. Touchscreens lose that. I enjoy playing keyboard, the feel of the keys, their mass and movement when I press them, the springy resistance of the aftertouch. I enjoy playing guitar, the feel of real strings, frets, etc. You could have a virtual guitar fretboard on a long narrow touchscreen and it would never replace the real thing. I enjoy the real physical world.

Touchscreens fundamentally suck in this regard. So I am confident I will not be eating my words.

Exactly. I also feel a touch screen will never be capable of the precision of a mouse / keyboard, and especially real physically tangible instruments/midi. It is a downgrade for professional music production. Sure a touchscreen can be fun, and used for live play etc, but as someone who wants to produce it is an extremely pointless accessory.

[2ZrgE]

I bet Bitwiggers aren' really interested in those people who 'grew up' with 'serious' DAWs like Cubase, messing around with comping, polyhonic aftertouch, midi channel pressure and whatever mysterious stuff there is (I produce for six years now and do not even really know what those terms mean exactly, because I only use an inferior tool/toy like Live).

But I'm afraid 'making music' on touchscreens will lead to further 'degradation' of music production - no one will operate a DAW monster like Cubase on a touch screen, but a lot of hipsters will show off their touch screen thingies with their Starbucks lunch break 'beat making'.

Nevertheless I will continue to support Bitwig, for me those guys are much more friendly, transparent and open about their thing than other developers.

[ThomasHelzle]

I don't see this as black and white, on/off.
There are many things I would not do on a touch screen, but while mixing, I'd often like to grab two or more sliders at the same time with two hands/fingers.
For clip launching it's already proven to work well on my 8" android tablet.
Roughly moving around clips in the arrangement or cliplauncher could also be quite intuitive.
And of course the instruments...
As I said, I do not have a touch screen yet, but on a ~23" or higher tilted screen I imagine it to be quite handy as an alternative.
As Dom reminded us, touch works everywhere, not only in the tablet layout.
So nothing stands between us and using it how and where we see fit.

Cheers,

Tom

[Cyoon]

well, there is also Cubase IC: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cubase- ... 40262?mt=8

And all those features present in Cubase that are only used in special cases make the whole app bloated and not intuitive. That is also a reason why i switched. Also these comping stuff came into cubase at version 6 maybe?

There will also never be a daw that does it all, because there is competition, one daw does integrate new stuff that is totally awesome, then another will do that wich is also cool and so on. The one and only daw would always need to keep up with every single feature of all daws to be the one and only and to make everybody happy, while even integrating new innovative stuff on top

Seriously..that is just not realistic

[pdxindy]

I don't see this as black and white, on/off.
There are many things I would not do on a touch screen, but while mixing, I'd often like to grab two or more sliders at the same time with two hands/fingers.
For clip launching it's already proven to work well on my 8" android tablet.
Roughly moving around clips in the arrangement or cliplauncher could also be quite intuitive.
And of course the instruments...
As I said, I do not have a touch screen yet, but on a ~23" or higher tilted screen I imagine it to be quite handy as an alternative.
As Dom reminded us, touch works everywhere, not only in the tablet layout.
So nothing stands between us and using it how and where we see fit.

Cheers,

Tom

I don't mind that it is there and it can have some utility... but I would far far far rather have real sliders and my Push launching grid

There is no tactile pleasure in the touch screen. You may as well try to convince me that some bland food cubes that have all the necessary nutrition do not lose something compared to a delicious meal.

[lehtiniemi]

I welcome everything that introduces composition workflow and makes me create more music - especially in ways that I wouldn't try otherwise. Introduction of touch features in Bitwig made me preorder Surface Book. At home I use Mac as my workstation and haven't had a Windows machine in 8 years. For me it's just another way of working and I'm super excited!

+1 for introducing a profile for both large screen and touch screen, though. Would be sweet to have these both at the same time. The touch instruments are really cool to have visible but you also need a big screen to work normally.

Someone mentioned that anything away from mouse is a plus - as a comment to this I can also warmly recommend a Wacom tablet (like Intuis Art) to replace mouse. I work like this and it's super exact and fast. In addition, you can have a left hand trackpad for gestures (like Apple Magic Trackpad for example). Keyboard in the middle.

[shonoob]

I bet Bitwiggers aren' really interested in those people who 'grew up' with 'serious' DAWs like Cubase, messing around with comping, polyhonic aftertouch, midi channel pressure and whatever mysterious stuff there is (I produce for six years now and do not even really know what those terms mean exactly, because I only use an inferior tool/toy like Live).

But I'm afraid 'making music' on touchscreens will lead to further 'degradation' of music production - no one will operate a DAW monster like Cubase on a touch screen, but a lot of hipsters will show off their touch screen thingies with their Starbucks lunch break 'beat making'.

Nevertheless I will continue to support Bitwig, for me those guys are much more friendly, transparent and open about their thing than other developers.

That is 100% my concern. Your comment about the hipsters in Starbucks is also spot on, the thought of it makes me cringe lol.

[maitake]

I think you guys are crazy.
Just the other day I was looking at the UI wondering to myself how they were planning on cramming all of the little buttons and indicators into a touchscreen UI. It only made sense after I switched out of 'Single Display (Large)' mode and into 'Tablet' mode for the first time after reading this thread.

To me, it doesn't feel at all like a touchscreen interface while in regular viewing mode. I don't have any complaints about it personally. As time has gone by and changes were made (like the browser) i've adapted to them just fine.

I think you guys have might be better off spending your time actually making music and having fun with it than worrying about this little feature or that little feature that MIGHT make your tracks awesome or something.. It's just a bunch of gimmicks innit?

The core of Bitwig is there, and it's great fun. I've been more productive and creative with this software than I ever was with Ableton, which was great too but still a different thing..

People just want it all sometimes huh.. It's not enough to just have the BEST PLUGINS with the BEST DAW with the BEST FEATURES and EVERY LITTLE TOOL IMAGINABLE... all to make more boring EDM shit that sounds like everything else out there on beatport or soundcloud.

Just have fun with it guys.. Bitwig is fun, right? We're supposed to have fun with it, right? I understand it's also fun to fantasize about what else we could get the devs to add to the program. I just think you're being a little dramatic about it.

But it's not just a 'little feature.' By all means, if Bitwig has enough resources to pool into their touch surface, whilst simultaneously still providing even half-decent DAW updates then I am all for it. I mean it has been about 3 months since any significant update, and now at NAMM, where I was hoping they would have some surprise redemption, they are product placing random shit... So as of late Bitwig has been extremely underwhelming, and it is now easy to understand why they aren't even able to integrate BASIC & Necessary updates into their DAW (I mean it is a DAW right? Not a roli or touchpad that we paid for) / fix ridiculous audio bugs etc... even after being out for 2 years. It seems like they are jacking off over this touch screen, and just throwing out half-assed updates so as not to stir dissension, whilst they actually spend all their time appeasing their new sugar daddy Microsoft.

What features can't you do without? What is basic and necessary?

[kev2525]

When the day finally arrives that we have tablets powerful enough to be the heart of our studio then I know everyone who slags off the touch screen experience will be eating their words.

I have decent amount of experience with touchscreens. I have yet to like them. The fingertip is not precise and the lack of tactile feedback is a big impediment.

There is a visceral pleasure in touching things. Touchscreens lose that. I enjoy playing keyboard, the feel of the keys, their mass and movement when I press them, the springy resistance of the aftertouch. I enjoy playing guitar, the feel of real strings, frets, etc. You could have a virtual guitar fretboard on a long narrow touchscreen and it would never replace the real thing. I enjoy the real physical world.

Touchscreens fundamentally suck in this regard. So I am confident I will not be eating my words.

Exactly. I also feel a touch screen will never be capable of the precision of a mouse / keyboard, and especially real physically tangible instruments/midi. It is a downgrade for professional music production. Sure a touchscreen can be fun, and used for live play etc, but as someone who wants to produce it is an extremely pointless accessory.

If you read my whole post rather than that one sentence extracted above you'll note that that I envisage touch as being something available on a tablet to use when you're travelling. I also expect that tablets will eventually become powerful enough that they can function as the heart of your studio with all your regular sound cards, controllers, plug ins, storage and inputs and then when you leave you can simply take it with. I don't think even the most avid touch screen enthusiast would argue that 14" of screen real estate can compete with a massive dual screen array. However, having the touch to travel and plug into your studio to be the brain just makes so much sense. I really don't get the negativity about touch DAW's. To me they make so much sense. People have been travelling with laptops and producing for years and now we're adding touch to the equation and somehow this is a negative thing? I just don't get that mentality at all.

[UncleMarty]

I remember a long time ago when mobile phones were bricks with big buttons. Eventually, touch screen phones started coming out and people scoffed at them and how they were harder to operate and were a waste of time.

Certain things about touch screen work way better than mouse and keyboard, and vica versa. I personally welcome the option of both and love the idea of not having to carry around a laptop to throw down some tracks. I think eventually, mouse+keyboard+touchscreen will all integrate into how we use computers at home/in the studio.

This thread is a great case of no matter what you do, you can't please everyone at once but I think Bitwig have done as good a job as possible so far.

[pdxindy]

If you read my whole post rather than that one sentence extracted above you'll note that that I envisage touch as being something available on a tablet to use when you're travelling. I also expect that tablets will eventually become powerful enough that they can function as the heart of your studio with all your regular sound cards, controllers, plug ins, storage and inputs and then when you leave you can simply take it with. I don't think even the most avid touch screen enthusiast would argue that 14" of screen real estate can compete with a massive dual screen array. However, having the touch to travel and plug into your studio to be the brain just makes so much sense. I really don't get the negativity about touch DAW's. To me they make so much sense. People have been travelling with laptops and producing for years and now we're adding touch to the equation and somehow this is a negative thing? I just don't get that mentality at all.

It's fine that we have different interests...

I can travel just fine with my laptop right now. Then I can come home and hook up all my controllers etc just as you talk about. That capability has no relation to whether there is a touch screen.

Whether traveling or at home, I do not find the touchscreen an enjoyable experience. I prefer the keyboard and mouse. It is more precise and faster.

[Cyoon]

It is difficult to find sweet spots of two parameters with a mouse, wether volume levels or other parameters. Therefore its quite useful to be able to multitouch the mixer imo.