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

[pdxindy]

Turns out Bitwig extended the upgrade sale price to V2 users even though their 12 months is not yet expired. $129 instead of $169!

[Kinh]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

[antic604]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

[Kinh]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

I think you'll find bitwig has a lot more catching up to do given ableton surpasses it in the feature department overall

[Kinh]

[pdxindy]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

I think you'll find bitwig has a lot more catching up to do given ableton surpasses it in the feature department overall

I would say they are about even overall... but Bitwig has the core features that are more important to me... and currently, Bitwig is developing faster

[SLiC]

Ditto- I think Bitwig has many more features than Live since V1, certainly the ones that are important to me; the proof for me is that I have both and have not booted up Live Suite for a year, I can live without some of the features that Live has that Bitwig doesn't, but not visa-versa.

[antic604]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

I think you'll find bitwig has a lot more catching up to do given ableton surpasses it in the feature department overall

No, Live has more content - instruments, effects, samples & loops - but definitely not more features.

[stamp]

Live has less features but everything is working as expected... not so in Bitwig (yet)... I still think Bitwig will really shine in a couple of years.

[xx JPRacer xx]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

I think you'll find bitwig has a lot more catching up to do given ableton surpasses it in the feature department overall

No, Live has more content - instruments, effects, samples & loops - but definitely not more features.

Exactly that.

[Kinh]

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,

HA HA HA! I didn't know this was the comedy segment of the show.
Ableton playing catch up to a DAW that was modeled on Ableton.

In terms of features Live definitely has a lot to catch up on to Bitwig and I agree it's funny considering the former is on the market 5x as long...

I think you'll find bitwig has a lot more catching up to do given ableton surpasses it in the feature department overall

No, Live has more content - instruments, effects, samples & loops - but definitely not more features.

I think people make the mistake of overlooking what M4l can do. It's often been perceived as a separate thing for obvious reasons. But with the integration Ableton is now superior at a modular level imo, the faster workflow in arrangement and audio editing is the other reason.
Given m4l was unstable in 9 and thus unexplored I would probably have agreed with you. But making this a part of Live pretty much changes everything. The possibilities are endless now.
a lot of what bitwig offers that Live doesn't are really of no great benefit like vst3 for example. Think about it, if they were then Ableton (and others) would've spent the time incorporating them. Ableton know what their users want and they just simply have no use for those things.

So yeah, when I say 'features' I mean things that actually matter.

[pdxindy]

I think people make the mistake of overlooking what M4l can do. It's often been perceived as a separate thing. But with the integration Ableton is now superior at a modular level imo, the faster workflow in arrangement and audio editing is the other reason.
Given m4l was unstable in 9 and thus unexplored I would probably have agreed with you. But making this a part of Live pretty much changes everything. The possibilities are endless now.
a lot of what bitwig offers that Live doesn't are really of no great benefit like vst3 for example. Think about it, if they were then Ableton (and others) would've spent the time incorporating them. Ableton know what their users want and they just simply have no use for those things.

So yeah, when I say 'features' I mean things that actually matter.

M4L is still a separate program in Live 10... it's a bit more automated, but still separate. They may well have made it more stable, but given the years of instability, I would certainly want to test it well, before declaring it stable just because of some market-speak. Likewise, I want to hear more feedback on if and how much the excessive cpu has been reduced.

But even if M4L is truly stable and finally uses significantly less CPU, it cannot account for various annoying limitations in the core Live application.

For example, take a midi clip with a bunch of notes. How would you add some random variation to velocity in Live? If you want it in the clip that means moving the velocity note by note... ugh! In Bitwig it is easy to tweak velocity including adding randomization, spreading out the range and moving all up or down via the histogram... no need to even open the clip editor.

Individual devices in Live do not have macro knobs. If you want to add some macros, you have to wrap the device in a rack. If you have a rack inside a rack, the macros of the parent rack, cannot control parameters of devices in the sub-rack. You gotta map the parameters to macros in the sub rack, then map the sub rack to the parent rack macros. Then if you want to see what is mapped to what, you have to select the individual rack and then click the map button. You cannot just see all those mappings at once (forget about also seeing all modulations).

This is all absurdly easier in Bitwig. Any device can have macros, and those macros can control anything nested... so you can have a rack inside a rack and the top level macros (as many as you want) can control any devices even inside the sub rack. And to see all the macros assignments just select the top level device and all the macros and modulations will show in the inspector... and you can add and delete assignments and range right there.

Get used to working with this stuff (macros, modulation, device control) in Bitwig and it's 10x better for workflow. Then start using the Remote Controls in Bitwig... so sweet! Plus when working with Bitwig instruments, modulators can be per voice (try doing that in M4L)

And then you have Hybrid Tracks. Useful to have both midi and audio on the same track. That allows Bounce in Place which is great. You have a midi track with a bunch of clips. With Bounce in Place you can convert a single clip to audio right on the track.

Then there is ability to see both Clip Launcher and Arrange at the same time... ability to edit audio within a clip, better clip follow actions, multiple projects open at once, custom key commands, being able to nest devices like putting a reverb inside the feedback path of the delay (try doing that in Live) and much more.

And of course, for me, the big one... MPE support. Even if you are not using an MPE controller, it is still useful. You can open a midi clip in the editor and draw modulation per note. So you have a note, and you want the filter cutoff to open a bit during that note it is part of the note... move that note and the modulation moves with it. Have fun doing that in Live. Plus you can also edit notes and controller info at the same time. You don't have to switch back and forth.

There is also now a multi-touch virtual MPE keyboard built-in so even people without an MPE controller can make some use of that functionality.

So yeah, I agree that VST3 is not all that useful at this point in time... but there is a whole lot that is!

[Spencer Maddox]

Live has less features but everything is working as expected... not so in Bitwig (yet)... I still think Bitwig will really shine in a couple of years.

Really?
I’ve found Bitwig to be more stable on my system.
I love how when a plugin crashes or the sound card crashes the daw dosent crash.

I guess All systems are different however.

[Spencer Maddox]

Ableton know what their users want

We want them to fix the pitchbend glitch and they didint so clearly they don’t.
Plus They gave us a wavetable synth that litearly nobody asked for...and it can’t even import wavetables

Although I’m not going to complain to much, I actually liked the update for the most part, just desired a bit...more, after looking what we got and what we waited for. They didint do enough to catch Bitwig imo in important areas.

M4L is still a separate program in Live 10... it's a bit more automated, but still separate. They may well have made it more stable, but given the years of instability, I would certainly want to test it well, before declaring it stable just because of some market-speak. Likewise, I want to hear more feedback on if and how much the excessive cpu has been reduced.

It’s much better for me personally.
I was very pleased at the upgrade in max, will really help with some of the M4L synths I’ve purchased.
Plus ableton owns Cycling74 now, so it should get even better.

But your statement is completely true.
They are the the reasons I moved to Bitwig to compose and only use ableton for push2 creation and live performance now. Bitwig just simply blows away Ableton in some very important areas in the composition aspect...
Max for Live is theoretically more powerful then Bitwig modulators i suppose but it’s...just not as user friendly and easy as Bitwig is I guess. Not at this moment at least.
Just having that little side bar and clicking whatever I want to modulate and the amount. It’s just so fast

[pdxindy]

Max for Live is theoretically more powerful then Bitwig modulators i suppose but it’s...just not as user friendly and easy as Bitwig is I guess. Not at this moment at least.
Just having that little side bar and clicking whatever I want to modulate and the amount. It’s just so fast

Sure... in theory M4L can do anything... however, I had zero interest to spend my time learning that arcane science... my experience with the user library was less than pleasing

and it cannot overcome fundamental issues at the core app level. It is possible that it will eventually be fully integrated to the core application, but that is nowhere close. Bitwig will have for sure exposed its modular system to users long before that.