Bitwig Studio 3.1 announced!

[killmaster]

The Note FX Micro-pitch has no effect here. It doesn't seem to change the outgoing MIDI at all. Maybe I just don't know how I'm supposed to use it, but putting in before a synth device on a track doesn't seem to alter the resulting scale.

Mmmh... I guess this will work only with Bitwig devices...

o, right! That is correct. Thanks. yeh, for some reason I didn't think of that. Wonder why it can't just output new midi data right to the next device even if its just a regular VST?

[neverbeeninariot]

I possibly read that wrong; is it half-of-the-note, or half-a-whole-note? IMO, if a note is under the play cursor when playback starts, it should chase.

I understood it as "half note" as in, two beats in 4/4. Which isn't that great either -- I often just use really slow tempos, so a half note could still be a while! IMHO it should be adjustable in seconds, default 1s, minimum 0 (as in, "always play if under the cursor").

Yeah, a 1/2 note could be an eternity in some ambient/drone music. Should really be configurable rather then a fixed value, IMO.

My other DAW (no names), chases everything, but having a choice of 'x number of y grid divisions' and/or 'x.0 number of y seconds' would be more flexible.

[foosnark]

The Micro-pitch device works with MPE-Ready VST plug-ins, as well as with Hardware via CV.

Bummer, it could have tried to convert to pitch bend... though on second thought, pitch bend ranges are pretty problematic sometimes.

[Taika-Kim]

I'm really really interested now to try create some xenharmonic stuff.

That means music made with sound that do not follow the normal harmonic series.

The problem with most microtonal scales is, that the partials can get dissonant badly.

The tuning system we have is not arbitrary, it's created to minimise dissonance in the harmonic series between all intervals (with some optimisation for easy transposing for the last few hundred years).

But it's possible to design a particular harmonic series for every microtonal scale, that has minimal dissonance between partials. That requires additive (or modal, where impulses are filtered resonantly) synthesis.

Bitwig mentioned gamelan in the release notes as an example. But if you play an Indonesian tuning with, say, a piano, it will just sound dissonant because the tuning is just half of the sound, and the harmonic series is still wrong.

Each gamelan orchestra has it's own tuning, made to minimise dissonance with it's particular set of instruments.

Metal bar instruments that a gamelan orchestra uses are notable among all acoustic instruments in the way what their harmonic series is not 1f, 2f, 3f, 4f, etc,like all string, woodwind human voice, etc.

Anyway, the math behind calculating those scales is pretty heavy at least for me, but now that we have microtuning support, it will finally make sense to start exploring this stuff in BW.

I have been writing about this thing all over I know, but it's really revelatory stuff. I can really, really recommend the book, "Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale" of William Sethares, where he goes into great detail about all this. And incredibly enough, he's still about the only one writing about this subject, that affects all microtonal music, many musicians seem to be completely oblivious to his findings.

[Reefius]

As I suspected, none of the bugs I mentioned earlier are fixed, and probably never will.

[be]

After installing the update, Bitwig won´t run anymore, telling me this:

bitbug.jpg

Has anyone else this problem, or a solution?

[Taika-Kim]

First go at Micro Pitch. The Javanese Chromatic 7 preset with a pentatonic 1,2,3,5,6 selection, using five instances of the Poly Modal Impulse Resonator preset from Wündertute for the sounds.

http://soundcloud.com/haltiamieli/31-beta-test-4

The preset allows to use the harmonic series of a metal bar instead of the normal harmonic series that additive synths and most acoustic instruments produce.

The first pass in the melody is played with metal bar harmonics, then the second one with the normal harmonic series. You will notice how the metal bar harmonics sound much better, which makes sense since (I'm not sure what is the source of the pitch info for this preset) the gamelan instruments (that are played in Java and Bali) are made from metal.

That modal synth preset was made with V2 so it can't trigger more than one note simultaneously, so after writing anything else than monophonic line the notes have to be humanized to make them trigger at different times. One day I want to make a Grid version of the instrument, but for now this has to do.

[mtelesha]

• Note Chase option: when enabled (Dashboard > Behavior > Resume Playback), starting the transport in the middle of a note will sound the note (if more than a half-note duration remains)

This somehow seems to be stillborn.
Only chase notes with >50% duration from playback position? Why not 10%, or 5... Tough luck if you're an ambient/drone kinda person....

[Edit] - actually, I possibly read that wrong; is it half-of-the-note, or half-a-whole-note? IMO, if a note is under the play cursor when playback starts, it should chase.

As someone that does use pads for very long lengths I absolutely DON'T want the pad to be read or played by this feature. I always bounce the a long drone or pad after I have them where I want them, because my pads develop over time and if the pad changes every time I am working on the pad I am going to mess up all the dynamics since I will only hear the start of my pads or drones.

[neverbeeninariot]

• Note Chase option: when enabled (Dashboard > Behavior > Resume Playback), starting the transport in the middle of a note will sound the note (if more than a half-note duration remains)

This somehow seems to be stillborn.
Only chase notes with >50% duration from playback position? Why not 10%, or 5... Tough luck if you're an ambient/drone kinda person....

[Edit] - actually, I possibly read that wrong; is it half-of-the-note, or half-a-whole-note? IMO, if a note is under the play cursor when playback starts, it should chase.

As someone that does use pads for very long lengths I absolutely DON'T want the pad to be read or played by this feature. I always bounce the a long drone or pad after I have them where I want them, because my pads develop over time and if the pad changes every time I am working on the pad I am going to mess up all the dynamics since I will only hear the start of my pads or drones.

Which is why it should be a) optional, and b) configurable : )

[anomandaris1]

http://soundcloud.com/haltiamieli/31-beta-test-4

The preset allows to use the harmonic series of a metal bar instead of the normal harmonic series that additive synths and most acoustic instruments produce.

The first pass in the melody is played with metal bar harmonics, then the second one with the normal harmonic series. You will notice how the metal bar harmonics sound much better, which makes sense since (I'm not sure what is the source of the pitch info for this preset).

Ok, the first take sounded really like gamelan music, but the second take timbre-wise wasn't too bad, too. It will be well suited for sci-fi soundtrack or just as "xenharmonic" music.

[antic604]

Which is why it should be a) optional, and b) configurable : )

It is optional. I'm not aware of DAW where it's customisable.

[psynical]

As I suspected, none of the bugs I mentioned earlier are fixed, and probably never will.

Have you generated bug reports? Participated in user forums? Talked to the devs?
They're not here reading the KVR forums, so if you haven't gone out of your way to call attention to your issues, they're not going to know what your problems are.

[Rivanni]

As someone that does use pads for very long lengths I absolutely DON'T want the pad to be read or played by this feature. I always bounce the a long drone or pad after I have them where I want them, because my pads develop over time and if the pad changes every time I am working on the pad I am going to mess up all the dynamics since I will only hear the start of my pads or drones.

With note chasing you will hear the part where you start playing. A long drone will not start from the beginning if you start in the middle of the note.

[sQeetz]

After installing the update, Bitwig won´t run anymore, telling me this:

bitbug.jpg

Has anyone else this problem, or a solution?

Had this, too.
I uninstalled the beta AND the current version, rebooted, installed the beta again, then it worked

[Proken]

Wanna buy this, but gonna wait till the sale starts to shine lol. They usually put it on sale in winter and summer time right?