Bitwig Studio 1.3.10 RC-5

[nickallen]

So yeah I make up collection folders and about 90% delete when i reopen bitwig. This is really messed because I make about 15 folders with about 30 plus in each one for my reference and they disappear.

But before I post the pics of the other issue i found, can someone provide a link to a document or post about the the true purpose of Collection folder and smart collection folders. I just want to be sure I am fully understanding what they are ( which I am sure I do but just want to be sure). My impression is the collection folder are like custom folders you can put shortcuts to VSTS in. These folders should stay once you make them every time you open a new project etc.


Anyway here is one issue I am still seeing ..... Whenever I create a collection folder all the yellow stars disappear on my favorites. Funny thing is when I close Bitwig and reopen it the stars all show up again. hmmmm : 0

I can't reproduce this problem either. Although not the cause of the problem you are probably not using the collections in the way they were intended. It looks like you starred all of your VSTs as favourites! The idea of Favourites is to have quick access to your most commonly used and favourite devices/plugins. If you favourite everything it stops being a quick way to insert devices. If you want a collection containing all of your VSTs then select VST file type and then make a smart collection and call it something like "VSTs". Having said that that is not much easier than just clicking on VST device type.

Anyway I don't think this can possibly be a regression in the RC releases. I have no idea why you are seeing this and no one else has reported it and I can't reproduce either. Would love to get to the bottom of it though just out of ideas how to find out more.

[nickallen]

aah, before you release the 1.3.10 check your crash reports! I just was able to crash the program and sent in a report from the application. So there still seem to be something

Thanks for sending but I can't seem to find the crash report. Was it an engine crash or full application crash (window disappearing)? Also what's your Bitwig user name that will help me find it.

[u-u-u]

sent you a pm

[ThomasHelzle]

Anyway here is one issue I am still seeing ..... Whenever I create a collection folder all the yellow stars disappear on my favorites. Funny thing is when I close Bitwig and reopen it the stars all show up again. hmmmm : 0

In your first image, the "Favourites" are the "Target Collection", in the second image, "Amp" is the target collection. You can see it by the two stars behind the collection name and you can set which collection is the target when you click with the right mouse key on a collection "Set this as target collection".
Only the assets in your current target collection will show the stars, "Favourites" is no different in that regard from collections you create yourself (which is the confusing part). All assets you mark by clicking on their star are added to the current target collection. So depending on which one is active, you see stars on certain assets or not.
You can also drag and drop plugins (or other assets on other tabs) into a collection which IMO is the easier way to work instead of switching between target collections, which is neither obvious nor especially intuitive or fast. I find the concept way too complicated myself and would probably only show stars for the Favourites and get rid of the target collection concept altogether.
As it is, I simply ignore this I always have "Favourites" as the Target Collection and assign my most used/best assets to it to have a quick visual reference via the stars in a longer list. The other collections I use as selectors by clicking on them to only see the assets contained in them.
Also note that each tab has it's own favourites/collections, so the collections on the samples tab are separate from those on the plugin tab (which makes sense - you may have a "u-he" collection for plugins but not for samples).

Smart collections are more like saved searches and work differently. You basically either type in search words (like "bass") when creating one and the collection will then work like typing in bass in the search field. You can also create a smart collection by selecting different selectors in the browser in a addition to a search word, like a Creator and a Device Type and if you then create a new smart collection with those selected, it will be automatically come pre-filled with the correct search terms for those and in the future can serve as a fast way to see those same results again, but updated with new content if there is any (that is the "smart" part). You can't drag and drop things into smart collections of course.

Hope this helps.

So the question remains: do the collections "vanish" for you from the leftmost column or do only the stars vanish because another collection is the target collection?

Cheers,

Tom

[llze]

Also note that each tab has it's own favourites/collections, so the collections on the samples tab are separate from those on the plugin tab (which makes sense - you may have a "u-he" collection for plugins but not for samples).

ah thx, i was in the wrong tab and thats why i was missing my collections!

Smart collections are more like saved searches and work differently. You basically either type in search words (like "bass") when creating one and the collection will then work like typing in bass in the search field. You can also create a smart collection by selecting different selectors in the browser, like a Creator and a Device Type and if you then create a new smart collection with those selected, it will be automatically come pre-filled with the correct search terms for those and in the future can serve as a fast way to see those same results again. You can't drag and drop things into smart collections of course.

nice thx!

[nickallen]

In your first image, the "Favourites" are the "Target Collection", in the second image, "Amp" is the target collection. You can see it by the two stars behind the collection name and you can set which collection is the target when you click with the right mouse key on a collection "Set this as target collection".

Oh well spotted Tom! That slipped my eye. You are absolutely right. It is not a bug. The star is used to add stuff to the target collection.

[ThomasHelzle]

In your first image, the "Favourites" are the "Target Collection", in the second image, "Amp" is the target collection. You can see it by the two stars behind the collection name and you can set which collection is the target when you click with the right mouse key on a collection "Set this as target collection".

Oh well spotted Tom! That slipped my eye. You are absolutely right. It is not a bug. The star is used to add stuff to the target collection.

Hehehe - your're very welcome.

...and I think you just proved the problem with the target collection concept quite nicely...

Stars are used for "Favourites" in every system known to man/woman, so having the stars "change meaning" is unexpected and confusing. If other collections should have visual feedback too, I think something else than the star would have to be used, like a coloured circle, band or background with collections having a colour each. That would at least make the distinction clearer.
Maybe a more obvious highlighting of the current target collection other than the two stars could also help?

Cheers,

Tom

[m83nyc]

Tom Thank you : } Man you always seem to slip in and have be come the oracle of Bitwig ! Thank you and well explained.

So to Answer your question to pretty much answer my question here is my take at this point.

After what you have told me it seems we both agree that how it is setup now it is a bit corky and most of us seem to find it hard to understand. After the info you gave me I think having stars and favorites is not a factor for me at this point. My main concern is to be able to make many custom folders/collections that I can put several plugs into. I need this because it helps me arrange my work flow with plug ins. So If I need some Sat/Amp I go to that collection if I need something for stereo or panning I go to that collection and so on. To do this in my VST folder itself would cause hell in ways.

So I made many folders/collections last night, I must of had 18 of them with about 15-20 plugs in each. I used the Favorites collection to find the plugs I wanted to drag/add to each folder. Everything seemed to add to each collection I made and I was happy with the structure. Next time I opened bitwig most of these collection folders were gone. This is my biggest issue right now as I want to be able to add these collections and not have all the work I do disappear. Am I doing this right dose anyone have issues with this ?

[ThomasHelzle]

Tom Thank you : } Man you always seem to slip in and have be come the oracle of Bitwig ! Thank you and well explained.

So to Answer your question to pretty much answer my question here is my take at this point.

After what you have told me it seems we both agree that how it is setup now it is a bit corky and most of us seem to find it hard to understand. After the info you gave me I think having stars and favorites is not a factor for me at this point. My main concern is to be able to make many custom folders/collections that I can put several plugs into. I need this because it helps me arrange my work flow with plug ins. So If I need some Sat/Amp I go to that collection if I need something for stereo or panning I go to that collection and so on. To do this in my VST folder itself would cause hell in ways.

So I made many folders/collections last night, I must of had 18 of them with about 15-20 plugs in each. I used the Favorites collection to find the plugs I wanted to drag/add to each folder. Everything seemed to add to each collection I made and I was happy with the structure. Next time I opened bitwig most of these collection folders were gone. This is my biggest issue right now as I want to be able to add these collections and not have all the work I do disappear. Am I doing this right dose anyone have issues with this ?

There is definitely something wrong if the folders are disappearing, that is not supposed to happen (and never happened to me AFAICR). So I would assume something very specific is wrong with your machine/setup/installation since it doesn't seem to be a widespread problem.
The collections seem to be saved in C:\Users\YourNam\AppData\Local\Bitwig Studio\library\ as .collection and .scollection files. Maybe check what's in there and if you can write to this folder.
But maybe Nick can offer more advise what could be wrong since he knows the internals.

Since you said you use the favourites collection to create the other collections (why?): could you try not using any collection or search/filter, create a new collection and drag and drop a bunch of vsts from the device list onto it. Then exit Bitwig and restart it to see if the folder is still there?
Maybe there is some weird bug that only shows up in certain circumstances when the content of one collection is used to create another?.
Or could the problem be creating a whole lot of collections at once?

Cheers,

Tom

[m83nyc]

Great points !

So I decided to just ditch my favorites and uncheck all of them. As my main goal is just to have collection folders.


I opened a new project and started from scratch and made about 10 folders with about 5 vsts in each. Same thing 80% of them were gone after i closed and reopened bitwig.

I will try and mess with the folders settings Thomas mentioned. I am on OSX so I will have to find that directory.

[m83nyc]

Still not working here is a thread I made as I found the cause to the issue.

viewtopic.php?f=259&t=465254

[mholloway]

I think the Collections system is actually very simple (and VERY useful), but it -seems- complicated because there are multiple ways to do the same thing. As pointed out a few posts above, you can just drag-n-drop assets into a created collection, which is IMO by far the easiest way to make use of them. I get why there is also the star system and the "set as target collection" thing -- it works, and makes sense organizationally, but when the reality of drag-n-drop exists, it frankly just winds up seeming like a convoluted, multi-step process that is more complex than is necessary.

But as for the actual collection folders getting deleted, that's clearly some kind of bug!