Bitwig VS Ableton

[pdxindy]

with Bitwig can you stop getting updates for like a year then pay and get the recent updates after that? Like Waves WUP? (which I think is fair)

Yes renew whenever you want. You get the latest version.

To me that is awesome because you can keep using what you have right?

exactly...

If that wasn't the case, I would be making a stink about it (or just not using Bitwig) but it is in the users hands. Whenever there are enough new features that the user believes justifies the upgrade cost, then they can upgrade. Until then, keep using the version you got.

[EnGee]

I think that! It's not pay to rent. I think it's similar to previous Cakewalk plans.

I was watching some videos about the sampler. It's a very nice synth as well! But not sure about how many grains you can manipulate simultaneously. The phase synth looks nice as well let's see if I can win the bid or not before delving deeper into it

[ATS]

Engee I am thinking about bidding

[pottering]

I have a Beatstep with endless encoders and it works just fine in Live.

When you MIDI Assign any parameter, you can select the type of the message to fit the control.

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/midi- ... ontrollers

In my case, the plugin must handle the MIDI events, assigning MIDI to a parameter is not an option. Try to send the encoders to a MIDI Monitor inside a track and you will see the problem.

Oh yeah, just tested, I see the problem. To me just macroing is enough, but I see how it is limiting with a Livid Code or other controller with that many knobs.

[voidhead23]

i've actually been looking at Bitwig for a while, because it sort of gets billed as a great solution for those who want a mix of the good stuff about linear DAWs (like Logic) with the fun stuff from Live. That would be ideal for the music i make. But every time i demo it i come to the following conclusions:

1.) It's really designed for the MIDI and Eurorack crowds, people who really use stuff like MPE, CV and modulation all over the place. So, electronic and experimental. Dealing with audio and songwriting are secondary (time signature automation came late, the Sampler didn't really do much until recently, tons of modulators but weak audio FX...). i rarely hear from Bitwig fans who are using it to record live instruments and more traditional, evolving song structures. Now, granted, Live ain't great at this either, but since it started as an audio clip launcher, there is more of a nod to getting creative with audio, not just MIDI.

2.) More like one part two...audio is an afterthought. Trying to do velocity layering in the Drum Machine, for example...

3.) It's still as CPU intensive as Live, so that's a major gripe i have with my current program that this new one doesn't solve.

4.) i hate the UI. Not a deal breaker, as i wasn't a fan of Live's when i first tried it. But it seems crowded, like i'm making music in someone's storage closet.

Can anyone who owns Bitwig address those first two points? Am i totally off-base in your opinion? i would really love a Live/Logic-Reaper hybrid, but i can't really get into the songwriting nuts and bolts with a demo i can't save in, and would love to have my observations refuted so that Bitwig might enter back into my sights.

[EnGee]

Engee I am thinking about bidding

I know!

There are 3 licenses to bid on however

[antic604]

i've actually been looking at Bitwig for a while, because it sort of gets billed as a great solution for those who want a mix of the good stuff about linear DAWs (like Logic) with the fun stuff from Live. That would be ideal for the music i make. But every time i demo it i come to the following conclusions:

1.) It's really designed for the MIDI and Eurorack crowds, people who really use stuff like MPE, CV and modulation all over the place. So, electronic and experimental. Dealing with audio and songwriting are secondary (time signature automation came late, the Sampler didn't really do much until recently, tons of modulators but weak audio FX...). i rarely hear from Bitwig fans who are using it to record live instruments and more traditional, evolving song structures. Now, granted, Live ain't great at this either, but since it started as an audio clip launcher, there is more of a nod to getting creative with audio, not just MIDI.

2.) More like one part two...audio is an afterthought. Trying to do velocity layering in the Drum Machine, for example...

3.) It's still as CPU intensive as Live, so that's a major gripe i have with my current program that this new one doesn't solve.

4.) i hate the UI. Not a deal breaker, as i wasn't a fan of Live's when i first tried it. But it seems crowded, like i'm making music in someone's storage closet.

Can anyone who owns Bitwig address those first two points? Am i totally off-base in your opinion? i would really love a Live/Logic-Reaper hybrid, but i can't really get into the songwriting nuts and bolts with a demo i can't save in, and would love to have my observations refuted so that Bitwig might enter back into my sights.

As a huge fan of Bitwig, but also a "producer" or electronic, experimental and heavily modulted music I think you're right about all 3 points. If you're looking to record bands Bitwig probably isn't the one to do that.

However I'd like to understand what it specifically needs to get better? Two things I can think of are audio comping and some sort of in-track melodyne-like tool, but what else? You're also talking about its audio FX being weak - in what regard?

When it comes to performance, you need to realise that it's the price of Bitwig's structure - you can modulate anything, often per-voice and up to audio rate, using 20+ modulators from simple LFOs to much more complex ones, including random generators; you can completely disrupt current playback by playing clips from clip launcher along the main timeline and mix the two however you want, by completely changing the structure & order of your song. For a DAW to allow this it needs to maintain much lower buffers than a DAW that just replays static information, hence the traditional linear DAWs like Logic, Reaper, Cubase, S1 employ pre-buffering techniques and are only "live" for armed tracks, with the rest being pre-calculated. As a result, they can run more plugins but are not as responsive.

Regarding the last point, if you really "hate" the GUI then don't force Bitwig on yourself. I can't imgine working with a tool that I hate how it looks, because in the end that'd curb my inspiration and it's just not worth it. Just to make it clear - I disagree with your sentiment there, but then again we're talking about very subjective matter of taste, so...

[voidhead23]

However I'd like to understand what it specifically needs to get better? Two things I can think of are audio comping and some sort of in-track melodyne-like tool, but what else? You're also talking about its audio FX being weak - in what regard?

i can't say what would make it 'better', because it's obviously great for you and a lot of other people. It's not designed for me (i think), which leads to something you said that i'm going to point out, not because it aggravated me, but because this paradigm kind of aggravates me.

i feel like every developer makes tools specifically for 'recording bands', soundtrack work, or the EDM/experimental/electronic crowd. There isn't a lot of focus on 'hybrid' situations, which makes sense because it's not a big market, i think. But there's still a lot of music being made that falls between 'recording bands' and electronic. i don't record bands. If you looked at my songwriting, it would look a lot like that, though. But when i get to sound design, it is very much an electronic/experimental (even EDM) workflow. Logic is maybe the closest to a hybrid tool for this sort of thing, but the clip launchers in Bitwig and Live, and the sketchpad in Studio One, are really great songwriting tools that Logic lacks. It's still coming from Pro Tools country in that regard. And the effects in Logic are coming more from a mixing standpoint than weird craziness.

But i get a little frustrated when the conclusion goes from 'oh, not into electronic/experimental...must be recording bands. Use Reaper, then.' Which was what initially had me so excited about Bitwig...it was a hybrid hybrid.

Anyway, i downloaded the Bitwig demo again to look at its effects...again, a lot of this is ignorant speech and first impressions because being unable to save means i can't really dig into the heart of the program. In Live, you get some weird and creative audio effects like the Frequency Shifter, Corprus, Resonators, three different delays that don't overlap much, a bit crusher...Bitwig has variants of these but their features are more stripped down and basic, without as much creative craziness. i think the purpose is, again, to take these simple tools and modulate the hell out of them to create more complex sounds. But i come from a guitar pedal background, where you plug something in, turn some knobs, and explore that way. Live's effects are great that way. If you're a modular person, i can see how that wouldn't be a problem at all in Bitwig and horribly limiting in every other DAW.

With the audio feature thing, i'm mainly coming from the fact that time signature automation came so late and the Sampler was so underdeveloped until 2.4. There's a lot of arrangement-level editing of audio features i really like in Reaper and Logic i would like every DAW to have and i'm also missing a good chopper like Live's Simpler, as well as Live's audio stretching to butcher and destroy audio samples, but a lot of that is nitpicking. But it does indicate to me that the developers of Bitwig have something very different in mind for this DAW than what i have in mind with my music.

Again, i would love to be disagreed with on this, or how i could change my approach and get something great out of Bitwig, because, just from a company and developer standpoint, Bitwig and Reaper are really the top dogs out there. Obviously, i'm still closely tracking its development.

Btw, thank you for the detailed breakdown of why Bitwig and Live's processing is so different! i've never had it explained so clearly. i should probably make the tough call about whether it's efficiency or workflow that makes the cut.

[antic604]

Again, i would love to be disagreed with on this, or how i could change my approach and get something great out of Bitwig, because, just from a company and developer standpoint, Bitwig and Reaper are really the top dogs out there. Obviously, i'm still closely tracking its development.

Well, in the end you should use the tools that work for you and help you get creative (instead of frustrated) and most of your observations are very correct! I myself tried FL, Reaper or Cubase several times each, but I simply can't use them for variety of reasons, even though I know they're hugely powerful. They're just not for me. Just like it might not be for everyone to build their own elaborate synths or FX using layers, modulators and nesting, like Bitwig sort of expects you to...

Also, with Bitwig in particular, please take into account that it was released just 4 years ago, so - with a small dev team - it will obviously still lack some "basic" features, that the devs chose to not be the most important to showcase what's their vision for this DAW is. I'm convinced more advanced audio or midi editing functions are just a matter of time, but 1st they need to take care of the big stuff, like lack of GPU-accelerated GUI.

Unfortunately that's the fact of life, that different tools excel in different areas and you'll either struggle trying to shoehorn one into doing everything, or settle for using 2-3 of them to cover everything.

[andypryce]

If you have not yet, take a look at Studio One 4. I would highly suggest that for both Midi composition and audio record mix. There are some amazing features that somehow Presonus does not bother too much to highlight.

And for Bitwig I think V3 will be an amazing update closing the gap.

[PieBerger]

Regarding the update plan, if yours has expired, do you still get minor updates for bugs etc or do you need the plan to be covered for those too?

I can definitely get behind annual payments for serious enhancements, like the new Sampler improvements, but 140e just to maintain stability, is step too far for me. Could somebody clear this up for me, thanks!

[poonna]

Regarding the update plan, if yours has expired, do you still get minor updates for bugs etc or do you need the plan to be covered for those too?

I can definitely get behind annual payments for serious enhancements, like the new Sampler improvements, but 140e just to maintain stability, is step too far for me. Could somebody clear this up for me, thanks!

You'll still minor updates for that version after your year expires. What I mean is, if you've got 2.4 as the last version within your year period, you'll get all the 2.4.x versions after that. If you need 2.5, you will need to renew though.

[PieBerger]

Regarding the update plan, if yours has expired, do you still get minor updates for bugs etc or do you need the plan to be covered for those too?

I can definitely get behind annual payments for serious enhancements, like the new Sampler improvements, but 140e just to maintain stability, is step too far for me. Could somebody clear this up for me, thanks!

You'll still minor updates for that version after your year expires. What I mean is, if you've got 2.4 as the last version within your year period, you'll get all the 2.4.x versions after that. If you need 2.5, you will need to renew though.

Thank you for the clarification! Bitwig don't come across as the greedy, by the balls type and I'm happy that's been confirmed for me now.

[antic604]

Bitwig don't come across as the greedy, by the balls type and I'm happy that's been confirmed for me now.

Hi Pie, happy to see you here and interested in Bitwig!
If you have any questions you can always reach me here or on FB Messenger

[jclosed]

Personally I think Bitwig appeals more to me than Ableton. I have used Ableton for a few years now, but it never really "clicked" with me. I have demoed Bitwig for a while now, and I feel far more comfortable with it. I already own the 8-Track version (very, very limited), and I'm on the "fence" but still hold off for jumping in.

For me the yearly cost seems to be a bit too high. I already own Cubase, and Bitwig would be a nice addition to my setup. However - If I compare the yearly upgrade cost of Cubase (until now one year €50, the other year €100) to the cost of the Bitwig updates, then Bitwig's "maintenance costs" come out as not so favorable. To be honest - It's holding me back. If the costs where comparable to Cubase, I would consider it, but for now... Hmmm...