Should Bitwig take Ableton 11 as an example?

[pdxindy]

The poll is pretty definitive... don't take Live 11 as an example for Bitwig

[Vladislav_Gronk]

The poll is pretty definitive... don't take Live 11 as an example for Bitwig

Yes, an attitude like this is surely what will drive Bitiwig forward.

Comping? MIDI Capture? No way, tHe PoLL iS dEfiNiTivE.

[apoclypse]

The poll is pretty definitive... don't take Live 11 as an example for Bitwig

Yet there is still a significant portion of users according to that poll that do think Bitwig needs to start thinking about the whole production process not just sound design.

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig, I have no interest in using it for sound design, I already own Reaktor and plenty of third party synths. If Bitwig wants to always be relegated to the niche crowd along with Renoise, it’s their product they can do what they want. I can’t go there with them though.

When I bought Bitwig I had hopes they would add much needed features that were missing from Ableton and initially this seemed to be their plan but Ableton now has some of the features I need. There is too much stuff missing in Bitwig and each update since 3.0 has been a bit of a disappointment for me.

Bad hardware support
Clunky mixer
Limited Midi editing tools
No groove support whatsoever other than the most basic of basic global swing.
Limited audio editing tools

At that point what does Bitwig actually have that’s special other than the modulation workflow? It doesn’t do audio better than other daws, it doesn’t do midi better than other daws. MPE is no longer really novel. Neither is clip launching. The best thing Bitwig has going for it imo is it’s amazing browser and search.

I really like Bitiwg, I like the ideas and potential the DAW has but the devs don’t seem interested in taking it there. They are instead interested in low hanging fruit like adding colors to EQs or whatever. They added a new EQ but didn’t bother to add m/s, l/r processing to it. But hey it has colors now. Like most things in Bitwig it feels half implemented.

[machinesworking]

Bad hardware support

Limited Midi editing tools


At that point what does Bitwig actually have that’s special other than the modulation workflow? It doesn’t do audio better than other daws, it doesn’t do midi better than other daws. MPE is no longer really novel. Neither is clip launching. The best thing Bitwig has going for it imo is it’s amazing browser and search.

I don't disagree with most of what you said but personally these points I can't get behind.

It's not perfect but the hardware support is pretty good IMO, they at least attempt to gage latency for instance, and there's a setting to offset some sync jitter from the Beatstep Pro here that's pretty cool. I don't see either of those features in Live.

MIDI editing tools wise, the plug ins aren't bad at all. Owning a Linnstrument I can split the thing into two MPE instruments, in Bitwig at least it's possible to send 1-8 to one instrument track and 9-16 to another from the same port instrument, since the Linnstrument doesn't give Bitwig multiple ports like the Beatstep Pro can for instance.

That goes on to the last IMO pretty great thing in Bitwig, controller support, it's propped up by people like Moss for sure, but the whole system IMO is much more straightforward and smooth to work in than Live, Logic etc.

MPE in Bitwig is top notch, for the above mentioned reasons, but just in general. I'm not sold on how Live approaches it yet, it's still in beta so credit to that, but right now it's buggy as well.

Not a new development, but I really really really hate with a passion that's more or less OCD, the fact that Live has no key commands for opening up the piano roll editor to full screen. the single key toggling of most of the panels is great too.

Anyway I personally would like comping to come to Bitwig, I think Live did a fantastic job with it, MIDI comping is such a solid idea.

[ReleaseCandidate]

Not a new development, but I really really really hate with a passion that's more or less OCD, the fact that Live has no key commands for opening up the piano roll editor to full screen.

If you don't use the clip editor other than in fullscreen, you don't need to change it's size ever. Only once in your default template.

Bitwig's idea of showing a waveform of another track as background is great.

[lokanchung]

Bad hardware support

I'd say it's more of lacking controller scripts.
I'm thinking about buying Launchpad Pro MK3 but there is only DrivenByMoss which I don't like. I would wrote own script if I had time but currently I can't. It really holding me down.

At that point what does Bitwig actually have that’s special other than the modulation workflow? It doesn’t do audio better than other daws, it doesn’t do midi better than other daws. MPE is no longer really novel. Neither is clip launching. The best thing Bitwig has going for it imo is it’s amazing browser and search.

I really like Bitiwg, I like the ideas and potential the DAW has but the devs don’t seem interested in taking it there. They are instead interested in low hanging fruit like adding colors to EQs or whatever. They added a new EQ but didn’t bother to add m/s, l/r processing to it. But hey it has colors now. Like most things in Bitwig it feels half implemented.

This is exactly what I want to say. Devs seem not to be hardcore users who need to push DAW to the limit and get the best efficiency as possible, so they seem to have difficulty with figuring out what should be done for better productivity. It's time for them to see in ordinary producer's eye not an experimental artist.

[apoclypse]

It's not perfect but the hardware support is pretty good IMO, they at least attempt to gage latency for instance, and there's a setting to offset some sync jitter from the Beatstep Pro here that's pretty cool. I don't see either of those features in Live.

-----

That goes on to the last IMO pretty great thing in Bitwig, controller support, it's propped up by people like Moss for sure, but the whole system IMO is much more straightforward and smooth to work in than Live, Logic etc.

While I appreciate what Moss is doing. His scripts are unsupported, generally work the way he thinks the hardware would work (which doesn't always coincide the way it should actually work imo) and I've run into issues getting him to respond to issues and requests. Understandable he's doing this on his own time. The onus imo for controller scripts should be on Bitwig. They should either hire someone to create the scripts or start reaching out to manufacturers.

I tried creating a script but I have nob real interest in learning Java and the Javascript engine is rudimentary and will probably get deprecated at some point since they are using a very old engine there.

Live has excellent hardware support due to its popularity. It uses Python as the scripting language and while there is no official API it's pretty straightforward to use imo. Either way if Novation/Arturia/NI releases a new piece of hardware tomorrow I can almost guarantee that they will have Ableton support right out of the box. Can't really say the same for Bitwig.

Logic doesn't have the same kind of scripting capability (or at least its not exposed by Apple) but I can connect generic idi hardware into it and pretty much map everything inside of Logic. It's layer system can be pretty complex.

MPE in Bitwig is top notch, for the above mentioned reasons, but just in general. I'm not sold on how Live approaches it yet, it's still in beta so credit to that, but right now it's buggy as well.

In-terms of workflow, imo Live's implementation is superior. It's not always about having the most features it's about how it's presented to the user. At least to me. IMO Live's MPE implementation is cleaner and more organized which makes me want to use it more. I very rarely if ever bother with MPE editing in Bitwig since I find the experience pretty clunky.

Not a new development, but I really really really hate with a passion that's more or less OCD, the fact that Live has no key commands for opening up the piano roll editor to full screen. the single key toggling of most of the panels is great too.

Yeah this is an annoyance of Live. They need better key commands and/or an editor with more access to the software. I'd be surprised if they don't add this at some point since they seem to be more production workflow focused now.

[pdxindy]

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig

Before Bitwig v1 was even officially released, Bitwig had stated their plan to open up the modular backend and that was obviously an important part of their plan. That was always going to be a priority of theirs.

[pdxindy]

Like most things in Bitwig it feels half implemented.

Bitwig is obviously not for you. If most things feel half implemented to you, then it is never going to satisfy you and you should move on. Seriously... why spend your time hoping for it to be something it is not and never will be?

[pdxindy]

While I appreciate what Moss is doing. His scripts are unsupported, generally work the way he thinks the hardware would work (which doesn't always coincide the way it should actually work imo) and I've run into issues getting him to respond to issues and requests. Understandable he's doing this on his own time. The onus imo for controller scripts should be on Bitwig. They should either hire someone to create the scripts or start reaching out to manufacturers.

My guess is that Bitwig has reached out to manufacturers... doesn't mean they are going to write scripts for a new DAW that doesn't have a big userbase. Every release by Bitwig has additional controllers added. They are obviously not ignoring it. It takes time.

Moss's Flexi script is awesome. It let me create a script for an obscure controller that doesn't have any support. If that were Ableton (for which there is no support for that controller either) I would have been out of luck.

And as a long time Live user, I can say that over the years the Live forum has often had users complaining about controller issues and feeling frustrated with the lack of response from Ableton. In fact, over the years there have been hundreds of posts just like yours making the same complaints. Ableton was dedicated to Push and M4L. For almost 10 years they primarily focused on developing Push and M4L and very little happened with the core application. Since 10, they have finally come back to the core application and 11 has some solid additions.

The Grid and Bitwig's modular backend, being able to create user GUI's for Grid structures and so on is a fundamental part of Bitwig's vision and has been so right from the start. They are not gonna stop developing it just cause you don't have any interest in it. Just like Ableton will not stop developing M4L just cause some users don't care about it.

If Live as of 11 works better for you, just go use it. It's not a big deal. Live 11 is an excellent update.

[SpaceCadetOnLeave]

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig

Before Bitwig v1 was even officially released, Bitwig had stated their plan to open up the modular backend and that was obviously an important part of their plan. That was always going to be a priority of theirs.

No,
they were cautiously thinking about a way to open up the backend for 3rd party ideas or even maybe for skilled users. Period.
The marketing hyped modular formula came much, much later. When suddenly everybody was a "Sound-designer".
You are rewriting history, again.

[pdxindy]

MPE in Bitwig is top notch, for the above mentioned reasons, but just in general. I'm not sold on how Live approaches it yet, it's still in beta so credit to that, but right now it's buggy as well.

In-terms of workflow, imo Live's implementation is superior. It's not always about having the most features it's about how it's presented to the user. At least to me. IMO Live's MPE implementation is cleaner and more organized which makes me want to use it more. I very rarely if ever bother with MPE editing in Bitwig since I find the experience pretty clunky.

I like that Live's MPE has all the expression parameters visible at once, instead of having to switch between them like in Bitwig. So I agree that workflow is better in that regard.

Live's MPE implementation is still incomplete. Live is still not recording each notes midi channel. Since I don't have Live 11, I'm not sure exactly what they are doing but I assume it is like early Bitwig where Live auto rotates the midi channel. This is a drawback. Live is not recording all the data of what you play. So for example, I assume the Linnstrument mode of Channel per Row (like a guitar) wont work with Live's MPE. Likewise, sometimes I constrain the Linnstrument to a certain range of channels. This wont work in Live's implementation. Until Bitwig added full midi channel support, the MPE was somewhat crippled like it currently is in Live.

Besides that, Live's MPE is limited in another important way. Each Live instrument is limited to the modulation included with it. Simpler for example, you have to convert it to Sampler, add the MPE modulation, then convert it back to Simpler. If you want to change it, the process will be the same of having to convert back to Sampler. Speaking of tedious workflow. None of the modulators from M4L will work with MPE because they are global only, not per voice.

In comparison, the entire Bitwig modulation system is integrated and works with MPE. Every Bitwig instrument has unlimited per voice modulation and sophisticated MPE capability and all that is integrated with the voice stacking as well.

[pdxindy]

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig

Before Bitwig v1 was even officially released, Bitwig had stated their plan to open up the modular backend and that was obviously an important part of their plan. That was always going to be a priority of theirs.

No,
they were cautiously thinking about a way to open up the backend for 3rd party ideas or even maybe for skilled users. Period.
The marketing hyped modular formula came much, much later. When suddenly everybody was a "Sound-designer".
You are rewriting history, again.

I think my memory is pretty solid in this instance. There was even an image up at the time of a Grid like construct showing the modular system. So I think my post is accurate.

[SpaceCadetOnLeave]

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig

Before Bitwig v1 was even officially released, Bitwig had stated their plan to open up the modular backend and that was obviously an important part of their plan. That was always going to be a priority of theirs.

No,
they were cautiously thinking about a way to open up the backend for 3rd party ideas or even maybe for skilled users. Period.
The marketing hyped modular formula came much, much later. When suddenly everybody was a "Sound-designer".
You are rewriting history, again.

I think my memory is pretty solid in this instance. There was even an image up at the time of a Grid like construct showing the modular system. So I think my post is accurate.

nah that was a scheme of the program itself.
but i have to go now, it's almost finished and i have an idea for the next track.

[pdxindy]

The Grid didnt exist when I bought Bitwig

Before Bitwig v1 was even officially released, Bitwig had stated their plan to open up the modular backend and that was obviously an important part of their plan. That was always going to be a priority of theirs.

No,
they were cautiously thinking about a way to open up the backend for 3rd party ideas or even maybe for skilled users. Period.
The marketing hyped modular formula came much, much later. When suddenly everybody was a "Sound-designer".
You are rewriting history, again.

I think my memory is pretty solid in this instance. There was even an image up at the time of a Grid like construct showing the modular system. So I think my post is accurate.

nah that was a scheme of the program itself.
but i have to go now, it's almost finished and i have an idea for the next track.

Well, if I am wrong, what I am sure of is that I had the same thinking that the plan was to open up the modular backend to users (which they are in the process of doing). If I am re-writing history, it is because I had the wrong idea right from the start