Cubase vs. Bitwig Studio - Which is better for MIDI?

[bharris22]

I work primarily with MIDI data, and last year bought Cubase during Steinberg's crossgrade sale thinking that once 10.5 came out, I would register and use it (I currently use Ableton for electronic stuff, and ProTools for recording audio, primarily). However, once it was clear that Hi-DPI was not yet supported in Cubase, I did not register the serial and still have it in the unopened box. In reading the recent threads about Bitwig, it seems like there is a lot to offer there with regard to MIDI and the built-in devices, and I am wondering now whether I should try to sell or trade this Cubase license and go with Bitwig instead.

Any thoughts on this issue would be appreciated .

Thanks!

PS - I also have Reaktor 6, so between that and Max 4 Live, I have access to many devices for manipulating MIDI already.

[daw.one]

To answer the question: Cubase vs. Bitwig Studio - Which is better for MIDI? My oversimplified answer would be: Cubase, hands down.

I own both and I think they are both very different animals (like your Ableton & Pro-Tools combo). Wich one is better for MIDI really depends on what aspect of MIDI you are focusing on and what type of work you do. In general I find Cubase' feature set regarding editing, recording and composing (traditional) MIDI is much more elaborate than Bitwig'.

[antic604]

The quick answer would be - Cubase (even though I'm a Bitwig fanboy).

BUT, the way you've asked it isn't really telling much - what you mean by "for MIDI"? Because I use MIDI for 95% of my tracks (I only use audio for spoken samples and even then I mostly put it in a sampler, which is ...MIDI driven) and I still prefer Bitwig, because of what it can do WITH the notes triggered by MIDI clips. Sure, it offers much less editing options for the notes themselves compared to Cubase (or most DAWs, really), but I'm not writing complex harmonic & melodic stuff like classic music, so that doesn't matter 99% of the time. For me.

[xbitz]

depend on your needs wouldn't use Bitwig for MIDI orchestration (handling different articulations etc.) but its Grid(inbuilt modular playground) contains tools for MIDI note pitch processing (can compare them with each other or with pitch constants etc.), for ex. can be built multivoiced unit which can separate the middle note of a triad etc.

or can be added different modulations to the voices of a triad


so quite versatile, ofc. it can be done using MIDI channels(Bitwig supports time nicely) but it was more fun

[bharris22]

These are all very helpful answers - thanks! Based upon your responses, it does seem like it would be good for me to have the MIDI note editing power that Cubase seems to have over other DAWs. The problem is that I am a sucker for inventive modular devices, which is why I enjoy all of the amazing M4L and Reaktor MIDI sequencers and other generative devices that I have found in those environments. I guess the answer is, as usual so often for me on KVR, to get both . I may scour the second-hand market for a relatively inexpensive Bitwig license.

Thanks again!