Bitwig The Grid: It is just me...
-
- KVRist
- 58 posts since 8 Jun, 2006 from Ann Arbor, MI
Yes, to be more clear though, I am hoping that support is for ARM CPU types broadly (including generic armhf and arm64), and not solely Apple's ARM implementation
-
- KVRian
- 1262 posts since 15 May, 2002 from Finland
Just an update from someone who has been using the Grid quite a lot now.
It is really comfortable, fun and fast to work with, I'm able to prototype ideas very rapidly. The workflow is really the best I have seen in a software modular.
The lack of reusable containers is a chore, altough I can see how this makes it easier to see what everything does and how things are connected with a glance. I'm not sure how much more modules you could fit anyway on a fully zoomed out view before maxing out any CPU. Because every switch and gate runs at 4x audio rate all the time, bigger and more complicated patches get slowed down a lot easily by components that are not in practice receiving or sending data anywhere near audio rate.
Also, and maybe it's a particular problem with Linux and how the Intel HD Graphics drivers work with Vulkan (which is what BW uses to draw the gfx AFAIK), opening up a patch with a ton of modules will kill the CPU, causing even a 100% increase in DSP load, and causing the Grid interface to become very unresponsive. I'm on a i7 6700 btw.
I don't see an easy way out of this situation though, since the great sound is probably due to that high oversampling ratio. Also as far as I know, the low level audio routines are already heavily (assembler) optimised, so the code is pretty slick already probably.
Good thing is that you can do a lot of stuff with quite a limited amount of modules, in which case you can run dozens of voices easily on a single instance.
From my point of view I have stopped using VSTs almost completely besides some special DSP stuff, since I can mostly get what I want with the Grid and the overlaying modulation system.
It is really comfortable, fun and fast to work with, I'm able to prototype ideas very rapidly. The workflow is really the best I have seen in a software modular.
The lack of reusable containers is a chore, altough I can see how this makes it easier to see what everything does and how things are connected with a glance. I'm not sure how much more modules you could fit anyway on a fully zoomed out view before maxing out any CPU. Because every switch and gate runs at 4x audio rate all the time, bigger and more complicated patches get slowed down a lot easily by components that are not in practice receiving or sending data anywhere near audio rate.
Also, and maybe it's a particular problem with Linux and how the Intel HD Graphics drivers work with Vulkan (which is what BW uses to draw the gfx AFAIK), opening up a patch with a ton of modules will kill the CPU, causing even a 100% increase in DSP load, and causing the Grid interface to become very unresponsive. I'm on a i7 6700 btw.
I don't see an easy way out of this situation though, since the great sound is probably due to that high oversampling ratio. Also as far as I know, the low level audio routines are already heavily (assembler) optimised, so the code is pretty slick already probably.
Good thing is that you can do a lot of stuff with quite a limited amount of modules, in which case you can run dozens of voices easily on a single instance.
From my point of view I have stopped using VSTs almost completely besides some special DSP stuff, since I can mostly get what I want with the Grid and the overlaying modulation system.
-
- KVRist
- 58 posts since 8 Jun, 2006 from Ann Arbor, MI
This has pretty much been my experience as well.
Haven't had problems with patches maxing out the processor (my laptop has a discrete Nvidia chip), but I have had some pops and clicks. Nothing that makes it into the recording, but can be annoying. I'm guessing there are some irq balancing tricks I need to pull out to get jackaudio fully optimized. The Ubuntu Studio Controls tool has gotten me most of the way there, but still the occasional xrun at 48kHz 256 samples.
That all aside, I find I often reach for the grid before I even go to the stock synths. Haven't used the FX Grid as much and I'm still learning, but I was able to create some pretty rich and complex sounds with a relatively small Poly Grid module and some post-FX via Bitwig's excellent selection. Lots more to learn about the Grid, but just diving it at a cursory level yielded some pretty immediate joy.
Only VSTs I use right now are Modartt's PianoTeq, an IR loader for guitar cab emulation, and a few reverbs. Everything else is stock Bitwig tooling.
Haven't had problems with patches maxing out the processor (my laptop has a discrete Nvidia chip), but I have had some pops and clicks. Nothing that makes it into the recording, but can be annoying. I'm guessing there are some irq balancing tricks I need to pull out to get jackaudio fully optimized. The Ubuntu Studio Controls tool has gotten me most of the way there, but still the occasional xrun at 48kHz 256 samples.
That all aside, I find I often reach for the grid before I even go to the stock synths. Haven't used the FX Grid as much and I'm still learning, but I was able to create some pretty rich and complex sounds with a relatively small Poly Grid module and some post-FX via Bitwig's excellent selection. Lots more to learn about the Grid, but just diving it at a cursory level yielded some pretty immediate joy.
Only VSTs I use right now are Modartt's PianoTeq, an IR loader for guitar cab emulation, and a few reverbs. Everything else is stock Bitwig tooling.
-
- KVRAF
- 25420 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
Yeah... fastest most fluid workflow of any software modular I’ve tried. First software modular I’ve enjoyed using from a workflow perspective. Usually software modular becomes too tedious and i stop using it.Taika-Kim wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:55 am Just an update from someone who has been using the Grid quite a lot now.
It is really comfortable, fun and fast to work with, I'm able to prototype ideas very rapidly. The workflow is really the best I have seen in a software modular.
...
Good thing is that you can do a lot of stuff with quite a limited amount of modules, in which case you can run dozens of voices easily on a single instance.
From my point of view I have stopped using VSTs almost completely besides some special DSP stuff, since I can mostly get what I want with the Grid and the overlaying modulation system.
I do mostly simple instruments in the Grid... rarely go over 20 modules (mostly modulation and MPE) and usually less. It’s almost as fast as a fixed architecture synth, but still so flexible. I’m using VST’s significantly less.
-
- KVRian
- 1262 posts since 15 May, 2002 from Finland
I think some of my sounds have a few hundred modules (additive with 48 partials for example so many controls are x 48,etc). So definitely I'm abusing the system badly 
Otherwise I just use Valhalla and Zynaptiq stuff regularily these days. Most VSTs are anyway based on the same classic componentsy, just wired a bit differently. But Morph 2 and Intensity do very sophisticated spectral processing that is unique and impossible to build, even if we had FFT tools etc.
Otherwise I just use Valhalla and Zynaptiq stuff regularily these days. Most VSTs are anyway based on the same classic componentsy, just wired a bit differently. But Morph 2 and Intensity do very sophisticated spectral processing that is unique and impossible to build, even if we had FFT tools etc.
-
- KVRian
- 1262 posts since 15 May, 2002 from Finland
Yupp, altough it's not as bad as it seems. Also there is no jumping back and forth between levels, which saves time. More than layout-wise, I think the benefit would be the ability to re-use parts of builds.
-
- KVRist
- 58 posts since 8 Jun, 2006 from Ann Arbor, MI
Perhaps not ideal, but because of the way you can route audio and messaging in and out of the grid, you can always modularize components as discrete modules / presets. Understood that this breaks up the flow of things a little, but just to say that one can always make a "container" out of a new module
-
- KVRian
- 1262 posts since 15 May, 2002 from Finland
I tried that but it's so messy that it does not pay off really. Also every instance brings it's own overhead. To some degree some things could get much better multithreading performance by splitting them up, and you also get the benefit of layered editing commands. Still in practice not that functional.
-
- Banned
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
Not just the flow, but you also loose the 4x oversampling that's available inside of the Grid
-
- KVRAF
- 25420 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
Whatever signal you route out and back in is not 4x oversampling... that may or may not make a difference depend on each situation.
I’d rather just work within one Grid instance
-
- KVRAF
- 14991 posts since 26 Jun, 2006 from San Francisco Bay Area
This is why I spent a day kicking its tires and then never used it again.Echoes in the Attic wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 1:19 pm Yep, amazing design. Just wish the oscillators didn't sound like plastic toy oscillators. A more analog sound like Reaktor blocks oscs would be cool.
Zerocrossing Media
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~
-
- KVRAF
- 7358 posts since 9 Jan, 2003 from Saint Louis MO
I suspect the oscillators in the Grid went for minimum CPU, basic "perfect" shapes. But they work great for phase modulation, phase distortion, etc.
-
- Banned
- 11467 posts since 4 Jan, 2017 from Warsaw, Poland
That'd be correct, but you can use all the math, logic, filter, phase, etc. modules to make those waveforms less perfect, incl. an "analog" drift to their shape.
