Bitwig VS Ableton

[xbitz]

- delete pls -

[zerocrossing]

I wish both of them had a better way to deal with poly chaining.

What do you mean by poly chaining?

I mean, when I want an 8 voice version of Legend, I now have to jump though a bunch of hoops to make that work. I wish there was a more elegant solution, like a polychain device which let you drag multiple instances of a plugin, or external instrument device, onto it and then in a single channel let you set up how they would operate as a single MIDI device.

[pdxindy]

I wish both of them had a better way to deal with poly chaining.

What do you mean by poly chaining?

I mean, when I want an 8 voice version of Legend, I now have to jump though a bunch of hoops to make that work. I wish there was a more elegant solution, like a polychain device which let you drag multiple instances of a plugin, or external instrument device, onto it and then in a single channel let you set up how they would operate as a single MIDI device.

Ahh... yeah... that would be sweet!

How do you even do that with Legend now?

[xbitz]

^^^ modulation can be shared between the layers, what is missing (no offense trying to understand )?

[Fraggle]

I used Ableton since version 4 to version 11.
I make atmospheric soundscapes and a lot of generative music alongside experimental sound design.
For years Max4live devices helped me do the midi side of this.

However, Ableton have, to this day, still not fixed the M4L problem :- about a third of the times you open a M4L device in a project , live closes.
Similarly about a third of the time you open a project that used M4L devices - live closes.
I got into the habit of saving projects before opening M4L devices.
This applies more to paid M4L devices than M4L devices bundled with live.

Despite sending hundreds of bug reports for these crashes over a period longer than 10 years , this problem persists.

I have been testing bitwig and it has closed on me only once in about 50 hours - it offers , all ,and a lot more of the midi flexibility I need , and vastly better creative possibilities.

It feels like the software Ableton should have been - it makes live seem very clunky and old fashioned.

[Tj Shredder]

I use Bitwig as my main DAW, as its much more inspiring than Live. I am also a Max/MSP user and M4L is way more a universal programming tool than the Grid in Bitwig, but the Grid is faster.
On the other hand, as I got a Live license recently, its not crashing that badly on me as you describe. But I might not use it as deeply either, its just a tool to test Max patches in the Live environment for me…

[xbitz]

traditionally DAW like features in Bitwig like the MIDI channels, mixer, visibility agent, and the part editor(from Cubase) etc. make it a bit easier to use (BWS implemented the best practices of other DAWs nicely) altough the Live Enhancement Suite helped lot to AL https://enhancementsuite.me/

Fadeport is also better supported in it, routing is also easier, and has a better browser but instruments/fxs and Push handling is better in AL piano roll also ... so dunno

ps. parallel instrument/fx chains (xy devices) also can be mixed together a bit more intuitively in BWS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG-N5S9Sb8Q
and BWS can be used only in caves (dark mode only)

[SLiC]

However, Ableton have, to this day, still not fixed the M4L problem :- about a third of the times you open a M4L device in a project , live closes.

I use Live pretty much every day and have a lot of MAX stuff and this has never happened to me (Windows 10, latest version Live) I haven't seen anyone on the Live forums reporting this either (beta or normal forums) so there may be something else wrong.

[j wazza]

I wish both of them had a better way to deal with poly chaining.

What do you mean by poly chaining?

I mean, when I want an 8 voice version of Legend, I now have to jump though a bunch of hoops to make that work. I wish there was a more elegant solution, like a polychain device which let you drag multiple instances of a plugin, or external instrument device, onto it and then in a single channel let you set up how they would operate as a single MIDI device.

yeah id want that too, you can use pizmidipolyphony to send the notes to different vsts but its a bit of a pain having to set up macros for every control on the synth when you want them each to be the same, but i get better results by making each voice different anyway

im not sure this will ever be a thing to do it automatically, or at least not soon as i doubt its their priority

it would be good if you could though, it could also open up more possibilities for using bitwigs per voice modulators with vsts, such as voice stacking, keyfollow, random etc. atm you can only use aftertouch/pressure for per voice modulation of vsts

[pdxindy]

yeah id want that too, you can use pizmidipolyphony to send the notes to different vsts but its a bit of a pain having to set up macros for every control on the synth when you want them each to be the same, but i get better results by making each voice different anyway

im not sure this will ever be a thing to do it automatically, or at least not soon as i doubt its their priority

it would be good if you could though, it could also open up more possibilities for using bitwigs per voice modulators with vsts, such as voice stacking, keyfollow, random etc. atm you can only use aftertouch/pressure for per voice modulation of vsts

You can use an Instrument Selector in Bitwig to round robin a synth like Legend and make it polyphonic. Also, if you create one layer, and add a bunch of macros to various parameters of that instance, then duplicate the layers, each macro knob will adjust all duplicated layers without having to set them up individually.

The new CLAP plugin format will allow polyphonic modulation. So since Bitwig is supporting CLAP and u-he is too, eventually all the u-he synths will work with Bitwig's per voice modulation system. It will be a couple years before that is all in place though.

[zerocrossing]

I wish both of them had a better way to deal with poly chaining.

What do you mean by poly chaining?

I mean, when I want an 8 voice version of Legend, I now have to jump though a bunch of hoops to make that work. I wish there was a more elegant solution, like a polychain device which let you drag multiple instances of a plugin, or external instrument device, onto it and then in a single channel let you set up how they would operate as a single MIDI device.

yeah id want that too, you can use pizmidipolyphony to send the notes to different vsts but its a bit of a pain having to set up macros for every control on the synth when you want them each to be the same, but i get better results by making each voice different anyway

im not sure this will ever be a thing to do it automatically, or at least not soon as i doubt its their priority

it would be good if you could though, it could also open up more possibilities for using bitwigs per voice modulators with vsts, such as voice stacking, keyfollow, random etc. atm you can only use aftertouch/pressure for per voice modulation of vsts

Funny, since the original post Synapse has added 8 voice polyphony, so my need is moot.

[zerocrossing]

I’m still in Bitwig, despite Live’s inclusion of polyphonic aftertouch and MPE support. I still miss Live’s Looper, as it’s the only thing I’ve found that lets you create a loop and have the length of that loop define the BPM. I think I may like Live a bit more, but I’d also miss Bitwig’s modulation system, so I’m sticking with it. Too much effort to keep switching.

[j wazza]

yeah id want that too, you can use pizmidipolyphony to send the notes to different vsts but its a bit of a pain having to set up macros for every control on the synth when you want them each to be the same, but i get better results by making each voice different anyway

You can use an Instrument Selector in Bitwig to round robin a synth like Legend and make it polyphonic. Also, if you create one layer, and add a bunch of macros to various parameters of that instance, then duplicate the layers, each macro knob will adjust all duplicated layers without having to set them up individually.

thanks, thats useful to know! ill try it out that way, it may also work with the midi splitter and just duplicating the layers in the same way that you said

[xbitz]

but modulation can be applied to all the layers (context menu, copy modulation to all the layers)as can be seen viewtopic.php?p=7220652#p7220652 no needs the duplication workaround

[WasteLand]

aha i tought a new Bitwig vs Ableton thread! well, it is an old thread....

best of both worlds, and comfortably numb, because well i choose which one to use, when i need particular stuff..

by the way both rock solid, that wasn't always the case with Live 10 and Bitwig 3.2? last one i don't remember that well, which version i started. now on Live 11 (11.1.1) and Bitwig Studio 4.0.8 (will wait for more compelling additions).
M4L devices; no probs. even third party...

only problem with Bitwig; automation override... when no controller is even attached... (tried it, it seems a problem that occurs sometimes..).

i am a DAW hopper (not buying and selling, but keeping them...) so no prob, when i need something that must be done in Bitwig, Bitwig! or use both....