Upgrade to Live 9 (10) Suite for £191 OR get Bitwig for £265 (on sale)?

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At the risk of starting another DAW War..............

I have played with the Bitwig demo and think it could be very powerful and flexible if I invest the time to learn how to navigate it properly. On the other hand I do like the clean and simple Live layout which I got the hang of very quickly. The Live 10 update doesn't seem to offer much (I don't need the content) other than workflow improvements. Bitwig might offer a new way of working ..but there are those yearly update fees.

Can anyone offer some succinct and specific reasons why I should spend my money on Bitwig rather than stick to what I know?

Thanks

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Go Bitwig! If you mostly use 3rd party VST instrument & effects, then it's a no brainer. Bitwig's native instruments - while adequate - aren't particularly exciting and there's much less variety that in Live. On the flip side, the effects are great! In terms of workflow, consistency and flexibility it's much better than Live, simply because it's a new software and doesn't carry a bagage of patches, workarounds and temporary solutions that stayed for good... Live 10 only catches up to Bitwig, but still lacks in several areas, like support for VST3 and MPE, multi-clip layering that works for audio & follows playback, plugin sandboxing and bit-bridging, dedicated touch profile, direct support for modular systems (CV/gate devices). Modulators are incredibly powerful & very intuitive once you "get" them and encourage to just experiment, tweak and mangle your sounds, effects and plugins. Hybrid tracks offer quick solution for off-line processing. The GUI may seem like a mess initially, but it's because it doesn't force a workflow and is very flexible - if you have screen realestate, you can stay in one view, since it can combine clip launcher, arranger and - interchangeably - device chain / MIDI & audio editor / fully featured mixer. It also supports up to 3 monitors. There's very active community here and on FB, that can help if you get stuck, also few good resources on YouTube (namely Brian Bollman and Vaan's Place).

Check those reviews: 1st one is for 1.x version, but it's short and actually sold me on Bitwig. The 2nd is much longer & more thorough, but very well shows the fluency, flexibility and coherency of Bitwig. The last shows dedicated touch profile:

https://youtu.be/p0cEybK76Gk

https://youtu.be/oGmnfntSgd8

https://youtu.be/wsYIpXce30o
Music tech enthusiast
DAW, VST & hardware hoarder
My "music": https://soundcloud.com/antic604

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I had Live 9 suite and went Bitwig. No regrets and live 10 isn’t very inspiring to me.

Bitwig offer a full demo so give it a spin, it’s realy easy to use and has a much better standard liniar DAW functionality and clips and liniar on the same page rather than toggle...
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live 12. PUSH 3 SA, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Nord Drum3P, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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if no need Max for Live then Bitwig if no need tons of modulators and use mainly VSTs then FL Studio
"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

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The decision is very personal, one thing that makes trying bitwig hard is the demo limitations: no saving, it is just impossible to make a full project to get to really test it.

I think Bitwig has some advantages, mainly the modulation system and hybrid tracks.

Live has better warping algorithms for audio, better instruments and effects, and a huge community that produces tutorials and content. It also has Push which is great for composing.

Live last two development cycles were around 4 years so you get more updates for your money with live, cheaper on the long run if you want to stay current.
dedication to flying

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Just try both.
Last edited by midi_transmission on Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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I think it depends on what kind of music you make, what your creative goals are and how your mind works. It would be easier to give you objective advice if I knew more about the above.

I own Live 9 suite and Bitwig. I'm sticking with Bitwig and not upgrading to live 10. I disagree with rod_zero and think the Bitwig devices sound better than the live devices. I'm sticking with Bitwig because the workflow is smoother and more creatively encouraging than live.

There are no bad choices here. This decision is like choosing between two hot girls.

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if you are switching daw then buy (i will recommend you not to switch but if you are determined)
Reaper + playtime for reaper (both in total of 100$)

yes it will be hard to learn a new daw but it will be worth it
reasons to switch from ableton
1.way better cpu perfomance (ableton relies on the realtime porocessing power of your cpu whereas reaper always renders ahead the audio thus utilizes all the cores + the realtime perfomance)** if you are using UAD plugs then sorry no luck for you UAD relies on realtime processing
2.64 bit mix engine (if you care about that)
3.in built slave mode (its like vienna ensemble) use the cpu power of other pc or mac you may have
4.skinnable and modular as f**k boi (yes reaper has a ableton like skin)
5.cheap as f**k (60$ for 2 consecutive versions)
6.if you love scripting or love to make your own scripts then .... yes it supports jesonic
7.automation has become awesome(from version 6.21)
8.(my fav)if you have a audio fx that accept midi (eg.MXXX) any track can any any info no sepereat midi track send
9.if you love routing of audo signals through different fx for parallel and series signal processing then reaper is a heaven for you

on the other hand ableton as M4L which replaces the scripting part and makes it easy at the expanse of CPU resource

choose wisely
Win 10 x64 with specs enough to run DAW without bouncing any track
KZ IEM,32-bit 384Khz dac running at 32bit 48Khz
mainly use REAPER, MTotalbundle, Unfiltered Audio TRIAD and LION, NI classic collection,......... ETC

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Reaper ... man have u ever worked with Bitwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEioSscCr4w

they are not in the same league, like an apple vs orange
"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

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SHall1000 wrote:The Live 10 update doesn't seem to offer much (I don't need the content) other than workflow improvements.
Well, guess what, Bitwig adds almost nothing to Live, other than workflow "improvements".

99% redundant.

And personally I think it is just a different workflow, not "improved".


Also, "if you care about that" then you better know that Live has a 64bit "mix engine" since 2007, and its resampling is better than Reaper or Bitwig or any other DAW actually (http://src.infinitewave.ca/) since Live 9, don't know why people think otherwise.

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if you're talking about upgrading to Live 9 Suite, and getting 10 Suite 'free' when it is released, then anyone who would advise you not to make that upgrade is leading you astray. Especially keeping in mind two things: Live 9 is mature software now, and the life-cycle of a major Live update appears to be 4-5 years, so you can expect unforecast extra features to be added to 10 in that time - as was the case with 9.

we don't even really need to consider the cons of Bitwig vs Live, the right way to spend your money now is the 2-for-1 Live upgrade.

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xbitz wrote:Reaper ... man have u ever worked with Bitwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEioSscCr4w

they are not in the same league, like an apple vs orange
yes they are not in the same leauge
yes i have worked with bitwig and it was not suitable for my job
yes it is like comparing apples to orange

every daw has its pro and cons
ableton live ,bitwig and fl studio(kinda) are used for live performance so they are best in that section no complain

reaper and cubase on the other hand are for pure production and are made to extract the living hell out of a cpu thus it can handle a project of 500 tracks(500 tracks in reaper on my laptop to be specific)

and as far as i can read from the thread head post the guy seems to be into production so i told him those thing

there is nothing superior or OP about bitwig

i just recommended the best i can think and with what i had experience
Win 10 x64 with specs enough to run DAW without bouncing any track
KZ IEM,32-bit 384Khz dac running at 32bit 48Khz
mainly use REAPER, MTotalbundle, Unfiltered Audio TRIAD and LION, NI classic collection,......... ETC

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Live is close to being the perfect piece of software of any category. I don't miss any of the previous DAWs I have used (Reaper, Pro Tools, Studio One). Well, maybe Studio One a little bit :)

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I'd go with Sonar ;)
my music: http://www.alexcooperusa.com
"It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am." Muhammad Ali

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Live is probably a safer bet, at least in regard to longevity. Bitwig's future is still far from certain, like it or not.

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