Bitwig Studio 4 announced (+beta available)!

[liquidsound]

If you use proper, real, big projects with 50+ M4L devices in Live, you'll watch your system kneeled down. And then you'll switch to Bitwig because this one can hold all the modulation one can throw at it without breaking a sweat because is the core of the daw, not a 3rd party code slapped over as is M4L.

Yes, in theory anything is possible in Live/m4l. In practice not too much is possible due to a very wasteful resource management (especially on Windows).

And yes, in theory less is possible in Bitwig but surprisingly anything is possible in practice because Bitwig gives 0 f's, no matter how many modulators I throw at it.

So scratch the surface and dig deeper and then come back with your findings - specs flexing is pretty useless for irl situations.

because I'm getting more and more into M4L in my music production and I'm barely scratched the surface with it and probably it will be more "frequent' in time, and while I found BW modulation system well integrate, I think it lack the almost unlimited ecosystem that M4L provides.

Perhaps, not the case yet but I can easly record the modulation to track if I need to.

And btw just because you asked, since it seems not appropiate to discuss M4L here, Isotonik Modulat can run as many modulations as needed and the cpu load is exactly as in BWS for what I rember when I tested it and also by recording the modulations I can then go back and fine tune to taste.

I understand, not your cup of tea, but you asked...

[pdxindy]

And yes, in theory less is possible in Bitwig but surprisingly anything is possible in practice because Bitwig gives 0 f's, no matter how many modulators I throw at it.

I guess that I do more sophisticated modulation than 85% of users and I basically never run into a situation where I cannot do what I want in Bitwig when it comes to modulation. An MSEG modulator would a useful addition but there are MSEG's available for use until a native one shows up.

Note sequencing is another matter. Midi Grid would be helpful to be able to elegantly use the sequencing capability of the Grid with VST's.

[SLiC]

Yeh, no midi grid, no improvements to basic midi editing and for some reason no midi comping…what do Bitwig have against Midi!

I would have preferred any of the above to Live and FL file import options, I always like the way Bitwig implement things when they do implement them, but I sometime wonder if their priorities and mine align!

I’m not really sure what the point of Polymer was, that was the only big miss for me…it’s too basic for most things in my opinion and the Grid really eliminates the need for something like this. A good shaper/MSEG would have been far more useful to me…it’s all about the integration and ease of use of the modulation system in Bitwig, if I need to use VST modulators I could be in any DAW.

[antic604]

I’m not really sure what the point of Polymer was, that was the only big miss for me…it’s too basic for most things in my opinion and the Grid really eliminates the need for something like this.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I guess we mostly assumed it's a showcase of (still...) incoming ability to design our own PolyGrid UIs

Still, some of the patches sound really good - perhaps it's the Grid's 4x oversampling?

https://youtu.be/Cy_0ULE9dnk

[SLiC]

It sounds fine, but why make a simple fixed architecture synth that is just playing a few grid modules be the feature of a major release...before that it was an EQ headlining (it was a good a EQ, but a priority?)

TBH there hasn't been a great deal that has excited me since 3 (lots of small gradual improvements all welcome however), 4 added the much needed comping (partially) but it isn't very exciting, just a feature every other DAW already has. Midi grid was what I wanted and what I was truly expecting, so I cant help but feel a little disappointed at the releases since V3.

[antic604]

TBH there hasn't been a great deal that has excited me since 3 (lots of small gradual improvements all welcome however)...

Indeed. I noticed how in the 3.x period it's the not-headline stuff that I liked the most:
3.1 - interactive help & slice in place
3.2 - updated arp, selector modes, XP filter
3.3 - free content scaling, modulator scaling

Feels like I'm rooting for underdog changes of an underdog DAW

[SLiC]

I guess the originality was always going to slow down - we were a bit spoilt on the way to 3...The pop up browser, the unified modulation system, the grid...the other stuff is all fine, but a lot of it is just catching up with what is already available in other DAWS...and if Bitwig is your only or primary DAW then its needed so I understand why they are doing it...but I still question the prioritisation!

Exporting Bitwig Projects in Auxy...seriously! Meanwhile- this has been on the website since version 1!!

Collaboration features are planned for future versions of Bitwig Studio. Network support is already built into the core of the software and the Bitwig Studio project file format is designed bearing collaboration features in mind. So collaboration is part of the DNA of Bitwig Studio. We are dedicated to further develop our own collaboration technology.

[pdxindy]

I am constantly using new functionality from 3.3 - In hindsight, I am quite pleased with 3.3!

The comping is going to be a major audio editing tool for me. Good timing for me as I have been working with audio more and the new tools are putting a smile on my face. It's cool that the Operators and new Randomizations also work on individual audio events inside a clip! What a creative set of audio editing tools!

[apoclypse]

I’m not really sure what the point of Polymer was, that was the only big miss for me…it’s too basic for most things in my opinion and the Grid really eliminates the need for something like this.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I guess we mostly assumed it's a showcase of (still...) incoming ability to design our own PolyGrid UIs

Still, some of the patches sound really good - perhaps it's the Grid's 4x oversampling?

https://youtu.be/Cy_0ULE9dnk

Yeah this is what I think the point of Polymer is. A kind of testbed for how Grid UI's will work/look.

I always thought a good way to approach a Grid UI would be do the synth-y parts in Grid with automatic UIs for things like ADSR, etc, but then supplement that with modulators for actually building the UI parts that require buttons etc. That way you avoid the complexity of something like M4L which requires you to build the UI functionality into the device. Bitwig already does that it's just that it's a bit of a mess right now what with modulator buttons etc not exactly looking like native devices. I have a suspicion that's how they will handle it.

[SLiC]

It has amazed me how much 'stuff' the small development team at Bitwig have accomplished (especially when you think how big Ableton and Cycling73 are!), but I guess at some point they will have to prioritise development time.

Any one of the below features could be the 'headline' of a point or even major update (if they actually distinguish), its tough to pick an order! I am ignoring little things like MESG, better hardware scrips and better midi tools/piano role as they could drop (or drip) with any update. First 2 would make it pretty complete for me in either order, anything else a bonus. I dint want any more instruments and I only want one more effect: A convolution/impulse based fx (with loader)

Midi Grid
Audio pitch correction/quantise
GUI Designer to make sharable creations easily (maybe Network Sharing comes first?)
Video tracks or player
Network Sharing

[jens]

As they have a sale right now I was about to quickly snatch the 16-track edition, but checking on their site the version comparison for V4 I had to find out that it doesn't have comping... well, money saved.

[EnGee]

The 16-track also doesn't export wav file with more than 16bit!
Anyway, for those who don't care about wave format (just export to mp3), the 16-track has a value more than Live intro. It has all the instruments except the Grid and Phase4. Here, Polymer is a king I had the 16-track for a week or so before I bought old license (bitwig v1) and upgraded it. It was cheaper than upgrading from the 16-track.
I still have the 16-track version. I'll see what happens in the Charity on October before selling it.

[jens]

the 16-track has a value more than Live intro. It has all the instruments except the Grid and Phase4.

Hence the above... I typically don't use virtual instruments - and even if I would, I already own more than I could ever need. I record a lot of audio though - and without comping, I won't even demo it. So now they increased the potential user-base significantly by adding comping to V4, but then someone - whoever is in charge of deciding how the editions differ - got a stroke or something...


needless to say, Live Intro of course has comping. So for me it has infinitely more value than Bitwig 4 16-track, which has none.

[Passing Bye]

but then someone - whoever is in charge of deciding how the editions differ - got a stroke or something...

They crippled those versions in most stupidest ways for underdog company that charges yearly renewals, what they are afraid, that someone would actually find those lesser versions enough for their needs...

[antic604]

but then someone - whoever is in charge of deciding how the editions differ - got a stroke or something...

They crippled those versions in most stupidest ways for underdog company that charges yearly renewals, what they are afraid, that someone would actually find those lesser versions enough for their needs...

Yeah. I never understoon that 16-Track version. IMO the 8-Track should be full Bitwig, but just with 8 tracks & perhaps without Instrument Layers, so that users can't - easily - get around track limitation.