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

[incubus]

I did a simple CPU test (load up tracks with heavy Reaktor 6 instances until dropout crackles appear), and as expected, there's absolutely no difference between Bitwig, Live or Reaper in terms of real life performance. None. All three fluctuate in the same % range in Windows task manager, and all three start to crackle at the exact same point (increasing note polyphony in the last track).

Should be mentioned that it was necessary to adjust the settings in Reaper from defaults to get the same performance as from the others, without "Allow live multiprocessing" enabled it crapped out way before the other two.

Y'er kicking me to the other side really really quick. NOBODY gets that. Not on any system, not with any tweaking.

If that was true, nobody would ever complain about it.

Good luck.

[jbw]

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.

Based on all this, I'm going to also suggest Renoise. Yes it's different, and yes it even has limitations, but once you get the gist of it it's a powerful DAW. You can avoid the arcane tracker for the most part, and still do automation. It's also really easy to re-sample stuff, and even create sample based instruments from your VSTs, as Renoise more or less centers around it's sampler.

You still may not warm up to it, but don't overlook it!

Edit: Just saw you already made your choice. Oh well, Renoise is still there if you reconsider.

[.jon]

Y'er kicking me to the other side really really quick. NOBODY gets that. Not on any system, not with any tweaking.

If that was true, nobody would ever complain about it.

Good luck.

Besides complaints possibly being about older versions, there could well be many DAW-caused CPU sinks that my test didn't cover, like Bitwigs modulation for example. Doing thorough performance testing covering all variants of various hosts isn't something I enjoy wasting the rest of my life on, this one only involved plugins, MIDI items to run them and channel faders. Feel free to run your own tests, for me this was conclusive.

[pdxindy]

Give an example of a desired real world use case for linking between tracks. There are already ways to accomplish it in Bitwig today depending on what you want to do using the Note Mod and Audio Mod devices. The Dev's could make some tasks more straightforward, but you can already do just about anything using existing modules.

Just to control various parameters on other tracks with the same LFO for example. Obviously pretty easy to achieve the same end result in various ways in most DAWs, but I thought that BWS modulation could use any parameter on any track as target, instead of just inside a container. Just a comfort measure really, several LFOs with the same settings do the exact same thing with only neglible extra effort.

You could do something like drive the volume of a looping static audio clip with an LFO on one track, then use an Audio Mod device on another track as an envelop follower which can control any parameter on that track. Repeat that for as many tracks as one wanted... but that kinda seems like more trouble than it is worth.

I have no idea whether the Bitwig devs will change that in a v2.0 or not. I would not count on it. I'm happy enough with modulation as is so it is not a concern for me, but I would certainly not buy Bitwig assuming some basic change like that is gonna happen.

In Live, you can send between tracks... but Live requires M4L to even have an LFO

[xbitz]

one more bit Renoise , worth to check the channel of Hitori Tori it's brilliant ...



btw, worth to read it, quite interesting ...
In what things Renoise is better than other DAWs http://forum.renoise.com/index.php/topi ... ther-daws/

[xbitz]

Give an example of a desired real world use case for linking between tracks. There are already ways to accomplish it in Bitwig today depending on what you want to do using the Note Mod and Audio Mod devices. The Dev's could make some tasks more straightforward, but you can already do just about anything using existing modules.

Just to control various parameters on other tracks with the same LFO for example. Obviously pretty easy to achieve the same end result in various ways in most DAWs, but I thought that BWS modulation could use any parameter on any track as target, instead of just inside a container. Just a comfort measure really, several LFOs with the same settings do the exact same thing with only neglible extra effort.

You could do something like drive the volume of a looping static audio clip with an LFO on one track, then use an Audio Mod device on another track as an envelop follower which can control any parameter on that track. Repeat that for as many tracks as one wanted... but that kinda seems like more trouble than it is worth.

I have no idea whether the Bitwig devs will change that in a v2.0 or not. I would not count on it. I'm happy enough with modulation as is so it is not a concern for me, but I would certainly not buy Bitwig assuming some basic change like that is gonna happen.

In Live, you can send between tracks... but Live requires M4L to even have an LFO

just read it, man u definitely have to check Renoise, u need cross modulations and micro automations ...


(as u can see LFOs can controll any devices on any tracks)

fast and comfortable, can have traditionally and patttern (micro) automaton together

Syncing LFOs

The "Reset" button can be triggered with the effect command: x8yy, where x stands for the position of the LFO device in the effect chain (if it's the first device: 1, if the second: 2 etc.) and yy is the offset value. For example:
• 00 restarts the LFO from the beginning.
• 40 restarts the LFO from a quarter of the way through of the cycle.
• 80 restarts the LFO from halfway through the cycle.
• C0 restarts the LFO from three quarters of the way through the cycle.

http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Meta_ ... se_only.29

LFOs are chainable too ofc. not like in AL,BWS,Reaper

[pdxindy]

fast and comfortable, can have traditionally and patttern (micro) automaton together

Renoise is quite capable... but having tried it, it is way too analytical for me to feel creative in... great if it works for you

[jbw]

Renoise also has the best custom theme editor I've seen, by far.

[JonSolo]

I still view Bitwig as an investment for down the road. There is so much it can do and so much that will yet become available.

But Live is mature and in solid control in the driver's seat. If you combine it with Push 2, you have an incredible marriage that gets you to your ideas quickly. I do so much with Cubase and even Reason, but given your style of music...which I also do in addition to orchestration, rock, etc. etc. etc. Live is my goto for that situation and it never disappoints.

Jon

[.jon]

I'm really enjoying Live, it's incredible how much the DAW can affect the flow. It's like it's all about the music now, instead of fiddling and futzing around with the program itself. There's a massive wealth of tutorials on Youtube, and it's pretty telling how most of them are about the content, how to produce music and not so much how to use Live.

I also found out something interesting- I've been using Live Lite for demoing, and since I'll have to wait for tax refunds to get Standard, I've spent some time to see how far this free version can go... and it actually goes as far as I can imagine needing! But but, 8 tracks only, wot are you hi m8, 2016??? Well, there's a catch, busses don't count, and you can have layers inside tracks So below is the template I've built, and for the moment I can't imagine how these "limitations" would be real limitations for producing the music I want to.




Drum bus:
- kick made from three layers of Simpler
- drum rack

Bass (Reaktor)

Synth bus:
- Reaktor
- Pad layers (3 different low CPU VSTi)

Simpler (for sub bass or whatever)

Audio 1
Audio 2

...I might spend the refunds on a new controller and whiskey instead

[.jon]

Damn, Simpler is basically everything I ever wanted from a sampler. I've been exploring my sample library and this has opened up a new world for me- I've been collecting interesting samples for years, but never really used them due to lack of an intuitive, quality sampler tha integrates this nicely with the host.

Never been this happy making music, which is awesome, but at the same time it stings a bit to have wasted so much time with a DAW that didn't work for me. Well, not 100% wasted, I did finish a handful of tracks I'm pretty happy with, but having to work around the bugs and limitations of Reaper did affect my workflow and methods.

Not anymore, I have seen the light

[musiclover55547]

I'm really enjoying Live, it's incredible how much the DAW can affect the flow. It's like it's all about the music now, instead of fiddling and futzing around with the program itself. There's a massive wealth of tutorials on Youtube, and it's pretty telling how most of them are about the content, how to produce music and not so much how to use Live.

I also found out something interesting- I've been using Live Lite for demoing, and since I'll have to wait for tax refunds to get Standard, I've spent some time to see how far this free version can go... and it actually goes as far as I can imagine needing! But but, 8 tracks only, wot are you hi m8, 2016??? Well, there's a catch, busses don't count, and you can have layers inside tracks So below is the template I've built, and for the moment I can't imagine how these "limitations" would be real limitations for producing the music I want to.




Drum bus:
- kick made from three layers of Simpler
- drum rack

Bass (Reaktor)

Synth bus:
- Reaktor
- Pad layers (3 different low CPU VSTi)

Simpler (for sub bass or whatever)

Audio 1
Audio 2

...I might spend the refunds on a new controller and whiskey instead

You hit a very large nail on the head: the sheer amount of training video available, free or commercial. I belong to ask.video and the Ableton section is huge, Bitwig having three videos.

Furthermore, as far as Live Packs, there are a zillion -- for projects to instruments. The amount commercially available for BWS is next to nothing by comparison, and it's not all that new anymore.

I use LPX and Live and could spend days just learning different aspects of each platform, and there are even some that discuss using the two in tandem with one another.

Bitwig does not even rewire, and I have never heard of anyone using Jack in the real world. People on gearslutz do not even know what Jack is, let alone Renoise for that matter.

[musiclover55547]

I will add, however, that I am in utter awe that Live does not have a proper "bounce in place" mechanism, though I do no there are somewhat sluggish workarounds for this shortcoming. They have the amazing new Simpler yet no BIP. That's crazy.

[musiclover55547]

Here's actually a something that can be somewhat big depending on your use case.

macOS comes with a built in Suite of AU Effects & Instruments -- separate from Logic Pro or Garage Band -- and can be loaded in a number of third party host that support AUDIO UNITS.

In its infinite wisdom, BWS has dug its heels in regarding extending such supported to hosts on Macs, and AUs are built into the fabric of MacOS.

One can only conclude that BWS finds Windows more important. I can load my EXS Instruments from LPX into Ableton this way, as shown, and there's Multband Compression, a pretty decent Reverb, Pitch Adjustment, Complex Delays, EQs, etc.

AU-3 is coming soon, and will blow VST-3 away.

by default 9.jpg

[samsam]

In its infinite wisdom, BWS has dug its heels in regarding extending such supported to hosts on Macs, and AUs are built into the fabric of MacOS.

Live has got a lot better IMO since the Bitwig devs left.