Bitwig Studio 3 gets 10 out of 10 from MusicTech Review

[perpetual3]

Deleted - correction 4 duplicate posts.

So sorry.

Mods, please delete these posts. My apologies. I swear I only submitted once.

[SLiC]

So true. The Bitwig staff has way too much class to stoop to that level. They need to keep their energy and focus on improving the product while listening to their customers' feedback constructively.

The guys that actually copied another DAW interface are classy

Those guys were Ableton designers who left and set up Bitwig, for all you know they designed Lives Interface, same happened with Studio One, it was a bunch of Stenberg Cubase coders who did that...

As for the cost of ownership, I wouldn't like to be the sort of person who picked my instruments based on the cost, but having been with Live for almost 10 years I personally think BWS is better value...I own both, so am somewhat impartial (I just currently think BWS is much better than LIve in most departments that matter to me)

[gentleclockdivider]

The bitwig crew (ex ableton employees ) were not working for ableton since the beginning
AFAIK the gui was designed by the original ableton crew version 1.0

[SLiC]

From what I remember before V4 (when they introduced midi!) the origonal Live GUI was bloody awful, it really was a spreadsheet, Either way, in my opinion the Bitwig crew have vastly improved the original Live GUI and workflow (Bitwig actually reminds me more of Project5 by Cakewalk!) perhaps more importantly the Grid and unified modulation system moves it in to a new space....the clip launching feature is way down on the list of reasons why I use BWS...in
live it was pretty much the only reason I would open live over Cubase.

[Passing Bye]

Those guys were Ableton designers who left and set up Bitwig, for all you know they designed Lives Interface, same happened with Studio One, it was a bunch of Stenberg Cubase coders who did that...

Exactly, that's like story of tons of people who gave their heart and soul to someone else's company and one day realized it's just not worth it anymore, so they made it on their own and quite successfully too, improving on everything and finally fulfilling their full potential.

As result of that we have some amazing gear today, like Fluid, Kali, Eve, Hedd and etc, all those brands just improved on whatever they left and established themselves quickly on the market, same as with Bitwig and Studio One, their ex's can learn thing or two from them now.

[pdxindy]

I have a soft spot for Live too... a couple times I briefly thought about upgrading to 10, but the $299 price was too much for what would be idle curiosity.

I am still on the fence between upgrading to the Whole Live 10 + Push or Bitwig.

My interest was only curiosity... no way I would use Live instead of Bitwig. MPE is too important to me.

[pdxindy]

$129 for updates is what people get hung up on but in the long run you save yourself over Cubase or Abelton Live.

I was still on Bitwig 1 and I just paid my $129 and I got Bitwig 2 immediately and got Bitwig Beta 3 also. I think it is a good plan but they need to figure a way to communicate it to the community. I feel great because I got Bitwig 3 for so cheap.

Stop spreading this lie, we have calculated Live vs bitwig cost staying up to date and bitwig becomes more expensive than live at 3 years at full prices for both but with live you are getting suite with more instruments and content.

He described his situation (and he said nothing about keeping up to date). He bought Bitwig 1 and just now finally updated to Bitwig 3 and all it cost him was $129... in the same situation the upgrade to Live 10 would be $299

[bmanic]

So true. The Bitwig staff has way too much class to stoop to that level. They need to keep their energy and focus on improving the product while listening to their customers' feedback constructively.

The guys that actually copied another DAW interface are classy

Aren't the Bitwig guys some of the original developers? So basically they just copied their own ideas and interface.. and made it much better (in my opinion).

@Slic:

A bit convenient you bashing on FL Studio developers without seemingly knowing the background of that image. It was originally posted by a troll who hates FL Studio. He wanted to show how badly it is going for them (yeah, he ain't all that smart).

As for Bitwig being the only company offering updates on a monthly basis.. eh.. Reaper anyone?

EDIT: No, I'm not a Bitwig user.. yet.

[bmanic]

$129 for updates is what people get hung up on but in the long run you save yourself over Cubase or Abelton Live.

I was still on Bitwig 1 and I just paid my $129 and I got Bitwig 2 immediately and got Bitwig Beta 3 also. I think it is a good plan but they need to figure a way to communicate it to the community. I feel great because I got Bitwig 3 for so cheap.

Stop spreading this lie, we have calculated Live vs bitwig cost staying up to date and bitwig becomes more expensive than live at 3 years at full prices for both but with live you are getting suite with more instruments and content.

He described his situation (and he said nothing about keeping up to date). He bought Bitwig 1 and just now finally updated to Bitwig 3 and all it cost him was $129... in the same situation the upgrade to Live 10 would be $299

Yes but major Ableton Live updates happen very rarely. Usually taking many years. Between these updates major features are introduced without any cost to the user.

In my opinion, no matter how you look at Bitwig, it's expensive. Especially if compared to something like Ableton Live Suite, which is ALSO expensive, but comes with seriously high quality additional content. Perhaps even the best content in the business (Logic Audio maybe on par, depending on what the user needs and what genres they are into).

[rod_zero]

So true. The Bitwig staff has way too much class to stoop to that level. They need to keep their energy and focus on improving the product while listening to their customers' feedback constructively.

The guys that actually copied another DAW interface are classy

Aren't the Bitwig guys some of the original developers? So basically they just copied their own ideas and interface.. and made it much better (in my opinion).

Nope,
"Ableton was founded in 1999 by Gerhard Behles, Robert Henke of Monolake, and Bernd Roggendorf.[5] After Behles' work on granular synthesis features for Native Instruments' Reaktor, as well as earlier software using a Silicon Graphics workstation at the Technical University of Berlin, Live was first released as commercial software in 2001.[6] Behles remains the chief executive officer of Ableton"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableton

Current Bitwig CEO is Placidus Schelbert, as per his personal linkedin profile he was International sales manager at Ableton since 2005, left in 2010

https://www.linkedin.com/in/placidussch ... bdomain=de

The rest of the founders listed on some of the news posted when bitwig was announced can be found on likedin and their profiles contain info about their positions at ableton and not one of them were there before 2005

[bmanic]

Ok! Thanks for correcting me!

[mtelesha]

$129 for updates is what people get hung up on but in the long run you save yourself over Cubase or Abelton Live.

I was still on Bitwig 1 and I just paid my $129 and I got Bitwig 2 immediately and got Bitwig Beta 3 also. I think it is a good plan but they need to figure a way to communicate it to the community. I feel great because I got Bitwig 3 for so cheap.

Stop spreading this lie, we have calculated Live vs bitwig cost staying up to date and bitwig becomes more expensive than live at 3 years at full prices for both but with live you are getting suite with more instruments and content.

What lie? I bought it at version 1 and never updated it till now.

[perpetual3]

From what I remember before V4 (when they introduced midi!) the origonal Live GUI was bloody awful, it really was a spreadsheet, Either way, in my opinion the Bitwig crew have vastly improved the original Live GUI and workflow (Bitwig actually reminds me more of Project5 by Cakewalk!) perhaps more importantly the Grid and unified modulation system moves it in to a new space....the clip launching feature is way down on the list of reasons why I use BWS...in
live it was pretty much the only reason I would open live over Cubase.

I hopped on the Live train at 1.5 and the GUI looks more or less the same to me, but I’m sill on v.9.

[pdxindy]

$129 for updates is what people get hung up on but in the long run you save yourself over Cubase or Abelton Live.

I was still on Bitwig 1 and I just paid my $129 and I got Bitwig 2 immediately and got Bitwig Beta 3 also. I think it is a good plan but they need to figure a way to communicate it to the community. I feel great because I got Bitwig 3 for so cheap.

Stop spreading this lie, we have calculated Live vs bitwig cost staying up to date and bitwig becomes more expensive than live at 3 years at full prices for both but with live you are getting suite with more instruments and content.

He described his situation (and he said nothing about keeping up to date). He bought Bitwig 1 and just now finally updated to Bitwig 3 and all it cost him was $129... in the same situation the upgrade to Live 10 would be $299

Yes but major Ableton Live updates happen very rarely. Usually taking many years. Between these updates major features are introduced without any cost to the user.

In my opinion, no matter how you look at Bitwig, it's expensive. Especially if compared to something like Ableton Live Suite, which is ALSO expensive, but comes with seriously high quality additional content. Perhaps even the best content in the business (Logic Audio maybe on par, depending on what the user needs and what genres they are into).

Actually, Live has averaged under 2 years per full point upgrade over its lifespan. It is just 8 -> 9 and 9 -> 10 that took a long time. When Live 8 was released, it was so buggy and the user outcry so loud that they publicly announced that development was halted so they could focus on bugs. It was something like a year and a half of bug fixing. I also think Ableton could afford to take a long time because they were selling Push to lots of users. At this point I think the existing user base either has a Push or doesn't want one. So my guess, is that the pace of paid upgrades will be picking up to every 2 years or so cause they will need the money.

Some people present the slow development pace as an advantage because it costs less... but one of the reasons I stopped using Live is because there was little development over a whole decade besides Push. I would rather have paid more and received some of the functionality that I wished for... like midi channel support and MPE and so on.

[tooneba]

So true. The Bitwig staff has way too much class to stoop to that level. They need to keep their energy and focus on improving the product while listening to their customers' feedback constructively.

The guys that actually copied another DAW interface are classy

lol