TMA: Live vs Bitwig (late 2016 edition) vs wild card?

[.jon]

I'm giving up on the sinking ship of Cocks, Reaper, and looking at either Live or Bitwig, or maybe there's a third option I haven't considered.

VSTi-based electronic music (ambient and techno). My foremost priority is workflow, I want the experience to be fluid, fast and free of bugs. Inspiration > everything. I don't need all the bells and whistles in the world for MIDI editing, I record most of the stuff instead of mousing them in and use sequencers, but piano roll still has to be rock solid, reliable and slick. Automation is very important. I have a well developed set of plugins, so native plugins are not a big concern unless they provide added value either via sound quality, ease of use or host integration.

How is Bitwig coming along? Is it 100% production ready, or are you still waiting for "that one thing"? I don't want to get trapped by another DAW with "potential" to be really great some day, I want that great today and focus on music. Live seems to be tried and tested, I've used it a bit and quite like it so far.

Now I'll be testing these proper, but there seems to be always some things that won't come up even in extensive testing, so your experiences and opinions would be most helpful. Maybe there's some showstopper and I can avoid testing one in the first place

[pdxindy]

I suggest Live of the two.

Bitwig is coming along and I would say it needs another 6+ months. It had a lot of bugs, but after a bunch of feature additions, the Devs have been focused on bug fixing and they have been doing a good job in that area. I'm pretty happy with it as it is now and like the fundamental structure more than Live, but Live is the more tried and tested at this point. I have both and use Bitwig more. My needs are fairly simple.

[.jon]

Thanks! What draws you to use Bitwig more even considering the maturity (or slight lack of it)? Is there something in particular that you'd like to see fixed or improved in Bitwig?

[Echoes in the Attic]

Former Live user here. I'm pretty happy with Bitwig after switching. There are some things I just couldn't give up going back to Live, like the hybrid tracks, the multi-out instruments (which lets you have multiple output chains in a single device so you don't need separate tracks for separate processing), the MPE functionality, the windows touch layout, the embedded fx, the proper PDC, send track clips, the device parameter configuration... I could go on. The only thing I miss from Live is some of the in-built instruments and effects, but not all that much actually. I've seen Bitwig sell used for Dirt cheap, so it would be a no brainer for me.

[.jon]

Cheers, that's a few things to add to my comparisons list- sounds like this isn't going to be an easy choice.

[xx JPRacer xx]

I'm giving up on the sinking ship of Cocks, Reaper

WTF are you talking about?

[.jon]

I'm giving up on the sinking ship of Cocks, Reaper

WTF are you talking about?

Only two developers left and they seem to have completely lost focus, it just isn't going anywhere. But if you're happy with it, please be but do it elsewhere, this isn't a reaper thread.

[xbitz]

as a wild card I would check Renoise



too, it has some limitation but its system is pretty well integrated

[.jon]

I know guys who use Renoise and they got only good things to say about it, it looks very powerful but I'm afraid the paradigm shift from sequencer to tracker would just add too much time and effort to this transition. It's painful enough as it is :/

[pdxindy]

Thanks! What draws you to use Bitwig more even considering the maturity (or slight lack of it)? Is there something in particular that you'd like to see fixed or improved in Bitwig?

Some things I like in Bitwig that are not there in Live:

Better integration of Clip Launcher (Session) and Arrange
MPE (non existent in Live)
Layered editing of clips (Live can only edit one at a time)
The Bitwig modulation system is great - especially nested devices
Groups inside groups
Editing audio clips - You can have multiple bits of audio in a clip, move them around, edit etc
Hybrid tracks and Bounce in Place
Full Screen editor and mixer views


The main things I would like to see added to Bitwig over time:

Time Signature automation
Clip fades
Groove Tools
Improve Instrument layer device to add key and velocity splits with fades (Like Live Racks)
Layered editing is usable, but a bit buggy and needs workflow/small feature improvements/polish
Midi channel input selector
Some ability to chain together scenes

The MPE support alone means no way I would switch back to Live (unless Ableton added it then I would at least think about it)

[mcnelson]

Some things I like in Bitwig that are not there in Live:

Better integration of Clip Launcher (Session) and Arrange
MPE (non existent in Live)
Layered editing of clips (Live can only edit one at a time)
The Bitwig modulation system is great - especially nested devices
Groups inside groups
Editing audio clips - You can have multiple bits of audio in a clip, move them around, edit etc
Hybrid tracks and Bounce in Place
Full Screen editor and mixer views

Live 9 is nearly 4 years old. Since Bitwig was released, suspect Ableton have had to up their game a bit. Live 10 no doubt incoming at some point soon, and I expect some of those killer features from Bitwig might have been adopted by the other Berlin boys as well.

[rod_zero]

Time flies, haven't noticed Live 9 is a few months from being 4 years old.

But it has have a big number of updates, one big as 9.5, and introduced and refined features.

PDC was fixed to a some extent
New filters in eq8, autofilter sampler, simpler and operator
New Simpler
Dual monitor support
RMS meters
Push 2

I wonder that if such changes came in .point updates then Live 10 could bring big stuff.

Personally I think Bitwig has three features that could be adopted by live: Layering editing, hybrid tracks and the native devices modulation system (in live you have to use M4L which can be a CPU hog and sometimes doesn't recall settings upon reloading a session).

I wouldn't drop Live since I have so much time, projects, hw and packs invested on it, and I like the GUI far more (I really think BW screwed it up with the 3d shades)

[.jon]

Thanks! What draws you to use Bitwig more even considering the maturity (or slight lack of it)? Is there something in particular that you'd like to see fixed or improved in Bitwig?

Some things I like in Bitwig that are not there in Live:

Better integration of Clip Launcher (Session) and Arrange
MPE (non existent in Live)
Layered editing of clips (Live can only edit one at a time)
The Bitwig modulation system is great - especially nested devices
Groups inside groups
Editing audio clips - You can have multiple bits of audio in a clip, move them around, edit etc
Hybrid tracks and Bounce in Place
Full Screen editor and mixer views


The main things I would like to see added to Bitwig over time:

Time Signature automation
Clip fades
Groove Tools
Improve Instrument layer device to add key and velocity splits with fades (Like Live Racks)
Layered editing is usable, but a bit buggy and needs workflow/small feature improvements/polish
Midi channel input selector
Some ability to chain together scenes

The MPE support alone means no way I would switch back to Live (unless Ableton added it then I would at least think about it)

Really appreciate you taking the time to type this, very useful info!

Layered editing is kinda big. I've been demoing Bitwig now for a bit, feels really slick and smooth so far, no real learning curve either, feels like a lot of thinking has gone into the workflow. I try to finish something over the weekend, then compare with Live. I hope I get deep enough to see under and inside the extremely impressive UI.

[jens]

I'm giving up on the sinking ship of Cocks, Reaper

WTF are you talking about?

Only two developers left and they seem to have completely lost focus, it just isn't going anywhere. But if you're happy with it, please be but do it elsewhere, this isn't a reaper thread.

Still: what are you talking about?

Originally it was only Justin, who is still the main developer. Then - back in the day - Christophe joined and contributed some bits. Then - years later - Schwa joined and took MIDI and such to a whole new level - as far as I know Christophe was never - not nearly - a full-time developer for Cockos but Schwa is, I think. His influence on some stuff is huge.

SWS? I never even realized that he had ever oficially been part of the Cockos-team, until your post made me check what the f**k you were talking about.



edit:

B.t.w.: "if you're happy with it, please be but do it elsewhere, this isn't a reaper thread" WTF???

You were the first to mention Reaper, but we shall not reply?

[pdxindy]

Really appreciate you taking the time to type this, very useful info!

Layered editing is kinda big. I've been demoing Bitwig now for a bit, feels really slick and smooth so far, no real learning curve either, feels like a lot of thinking has gone into the workflow. I try to finish something over the weekend, then compare with Live. I hope I get deep enough to see under and inside the extremely impressive UI.

welcome

Bitwig is rather well designed. I find it very comfortable to work in. There are still some rough edges, but it is so fundamentally capable that there is no way I'm gonna use anything else unless Bitwig just died.

The way it handles groups, group sends, the fantastic modulation system, capable routing, etc... great stuff!

The layered editing is a good foundation, but it definitely needs some work to refine workflow. The potential is there.

The way you can edit audio clips too is sweet.