Daw's & Their Instrument / FX Browsers - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

[pdxindy]

Bitwig is easily my favorite browser (the pop-up) and I also keep the side browser hidden.

And yeah, I do the same sometimes, switching to the presets. One thing I do wish is that one could navigate by key commands to the presets and other tabs... it's annoying to have to use the mouse to click the presets tab after adding the device.

Sounds like a very reasonable request for a "cycle browser tabs" shortcut command to me

Cheers,

Tom

I sent a feature request email to Bitwig support. They said there is already a key command to do so... Control + Cursor left or Cursor right. I assume by cursor they mean the arrow keys. If so, it does not work for me.

[ThomasHelzle]

I sent a feature request email to Bitwig support. They said there is already a key command to do so... Control + Cursor left or Cursor right. I assume by cursor they mean the arrow keys. If so, it does not work for me.

I just tried: It works if you are not in the search bar. So first go down with the arrow and then you can navigate the tabs with CTRL + Cursor.
Not 100% ideal though...

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

I sent a feature request email to Bitwig support. They said there is already a key command to do so... Control + Cursor left or Cursor right. I assume by cursor they mean the arrow keys. If so, it does not work for me.

I just tried: It works if you are not in the search bar. So first go down with the arrow and then you can navigate the tabs with CTRL + Cursor.
Not 100% ideal though...

Cheers,

Tom

Yeah... thanks for checking... doesn't work here on a Mac

[trusampler]

Resonic Pro the answer wow!!

[ThomasHelzle]

Resonic Pro the answer wow!!

+42! I actually do most of my audio browsing outside the DAW in Resonic Pro...

[inkwarp]

+1 for resonic.
excellent tool, and a great being able to play parts of samples in preview.

[pekbro]

I get along with Tracktion Waveform's browser pretty well. Personally, I'm quite a bit more excited about
about the upcoming Waveform, than the upcoming Bitwig for some reason.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I like Studio One's instrument browser the best. Never liked Cubase's much, and it didn't get any better when they implemented custom lists. Reaper's is nothing special either, don't understand the rave about it. Like anything in Reaper, it looks and handles like Windows 98 (sorry).

Ditto on all points.

[THE INTRANCER]

It's not going to be any surprise to anyone I don't think... in how I view Reaper's browser from the aforementioned title, but for someone who migrated from another daw, I will say that when I arrived with Studio One 2.6 before version 3.0, the lack of thumbnails in the browser was a pretty dire departure from what I was use to before and the light gray GUI didn't help matters. Fortunately these two things were addressed in a big way in 3.0 and particularity 3.1....3.5 .

So how do I see Studio One in regard to it's browser currently.... well it's incredibly powerful in it's flexibility and configurability in which to find stuff, create sub folder menu's, use tags, search by category, favouritise, hide unused plugins, besides use keyword search, link to free online content you can install directly in an instant, and flexibility with auditioning sample content.

If there was anything in which it could be improved, I'd highlight an option to unlock and dock it to a different part of the GUI, have the ability to dynamically scale vertically and horizontally the size of plugin thumbnails whilst being able to display them not only vertically but in landscape modes. Being able to manage and categorise plugins by colour would be a nice inclusion also. Live sample scrubbing with the mouse cursor would be pretty cool to add, so one could audition samples in reverse besides the retriggering option it already has on the waveform. A few of these thing would require some changes to the core of the GUI framework, but in some ways that would open the door of other aspects of configuring how things are displayed, more than they already are.

For reference, I originally migrated from Reason, which has had quite a big evolution of it's own over the years in the browser department, in some ways, not for the better I've found.

Bitwig, with it's quick popup browser, I think is ok, but you're still looking at lists rather than the immediate and instant recognisability that pictorial images provide.

There's obviously other daws...I've used as far back to the Amiga's Bar & Pipes & Techno Sound Turbo 2, Aural Illusion of Samplers which were pretty much exclusively different until the fusion of them in Octamed, which, unsurprisingly was text based.

In the present though...I'll explore some other daws out there I think, just to guage how competing daws like the latest Cubase version, are making progress..in this area.

[pdxindy]

Bitwig, with it's quick popup browser, I think is ok, but you're still looking at lists rather than the immediate and instant recognisability that pictorial images provide.

I suppose if you are forced to look at long lists, then graphical icons might be useful. But I'd rather not have to look at long lists (text or icon) at all.

With the Bitwig pop-up browser, I don't need to look at the screen to add the device I want. Super fast and fluid. For me, nothing beats that.

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, this topic once again shows how different people are.

I found the device images in S1 really nice initially as an idea (and I'm mighty visual ) - but since I have many plugins, it also grows the list a lot, and "scrolling" as a concept just doesn't cut it anymore at one point. After that, all the bells and whistles somehow feel superfluous and more like visual clutter to me.
The only thing I use to guide my eye is the fav-stars to make it easy to see which of my search results are the ones I usually prefer when there are several with a similar name.

I am able to work with the Reaper browser if I have to but as was said before, Windows 95 was great at it's time, but I don't want to go back there...

Tracktion/Waveform I tried to love but failed every time. Something about that whole company and their products and even their website irritates the hell out of me, I wouldn't even be able to pin down what it is, since in theory it should be awesome.
Same with Mulab and (sadly) Usine which in theory should be right up my alley, but aren't.

I guess there are some rather subtle things at work that make something work for one person but not for another. The relatively inconsequential changes to the Bitwig side-browser after the pop-up-browser was introduced for instance made it a no-go for me.

A fascinating topic for a university paper and probably an area that could be worthwhile to be more in focus for developers. Basically I'd guess that making the browser of a DAW very customisable in an easy and intuitive way is worth the time spent...

Cheers,

Tom

[terminus_one]

Nice post, ThomasHelzle

The relatively inconsequential changes to the Bitwig side-browser after the pop-up-browser was introduced for instance made it a no-go for me.

Would you be able to elaborate more on this?

[ThomasHelzle]

Nice post, ThomasHelzle

The relatively inconsequential changes to the Bitwig side-browser after the pop-up-browser was introduced for instance made it a no-go for me.

Would you be able to elaborate more on this?

Well, I was very used to the kind of "drag and drop" browser that Bitwig originally came with and was quite comfortable with it, having been a long time user of Ableton Live until version 8.
I don't work with loops and samples much so my main use for it was dragging in effects and instruments and it showed them ordered like they were on my harddrive (which is how I wanted it).
When the popup-browser came up, at first it was unfamiliar and I didn't get what it allowed me to do right away, so I tried to continue using the side-browser, but they had implemented a lot of the selection stuff etc that works so well in the pop-up-browser (which is laid out horizontally in columns) but for me felt awkward in the vertical side-browser since everything was on top of everything else instead of side-by-side (which works more like the preset-browser in some VST instruments).
The other thing was, that the side-browser has for instance it's search field per tab (and there are way too many of those tabs) while the pop-up-browser has it's search "above" the tabs.
And one very tiny thing: the browser tab I would have wanted as the default (which before the change was the device list) was now the second tab, so I had to switch there all the time, since these defaults can't be saved (yet?).
Nothing dramatic, but it made me close the side browser for good.
If the pop-up-browser wouldn't be so fantastic, I think I would have raised more of a stink about it

But being able to select, insert and pre-listen the stuff I want right at the position in the chain where it is supposed to go is just great. Suddenly the browser isn't something detached like a library you have to walk to first to get your books, it feels more like having all the books right there when you sit at the fire in the evening and feel like reading.

That this selection works for new devices as well as for existing ones (and being non-destructive by creating a new instance with the new selection as long as the browser is open) makes it so transparent to use, it's really on a different level from all other browsers I've ever seen.
At the beginning it's so different from what we were used to for a long time, it's may not become clear right away, but after some weeks, using an old-style browser feels just clumsy.

I think stuff like this is why I love BWS - they challenge the established way of working and dare to make things actually better. It doesn't work in every instance right away and in the case of Midi I would actually prefer to have the established basics covered first, but at the same time, each time they DO implement something, it usually is simply much better thought out than most other solutions.

Good stuff

Cheers,

Tom

[terminus_one]

Cheers for the detailed response, Tom!

I agree wholeheartedly with you…
- the popup browser is fantastic and so effective once you get used to it – all about staying "in the flow",
- the side browser is more convoluted and awkwardly evolved – not quite as focused and effective as it could be (though I still find myself using it for samples, loops, etc. which is where it complements the popup browser nicely),
- and how BWS challenges the established ways – this is what makes me feel a deep respect for the Bitwig team and how they operate (of course they're not perfect and have/will make faux pas' along the way whilst taking their risks).

This has been a good thread – interesting to hear the different opinions and flows.

[aMUSEd]

I never understood why Bitwig has a popup and side browser - the side browser overlaps with the popup so really I would prefer it if they integrated the two and also made it possible to dock the popup browser in the side rather than it take up so much space

I agree that the Bitwig browser is one of the most useful but it's still too limited without the ability to actually save plugin presets - it makes it more a preset loader than preset manager and that may be fine for people who mainly just use presets but it's useless for those of us who create content for others to use.