Why you left Bitwig?

[EnGee]

But I agree with Passing Bye! There is no prefect DAW overall, just pick the one that works for you the best

or the three

Mostly I'm interested in playing with Jitter in Live.

I'm not sure I can ever go back to dragging the MIDI subwindow around all the time, and Bitwig has the best implementation of native Apple silicon VS x86 plug ins of any DAW.

I'll always use DP for bigger projects for the reasons mentioned about Logic, plus just better handling of those sorts of things.

Well, to be honest, I still can't choose only Bitwig as "my DAW" because I'm still confused about which one can serve me the best. I did the mistake by selling Bitwig and other DAWs more than once! But now, I want to sell only the one that I really really don't want anymore!

Bitwig is not among those candidates to sell though! But I need to get rid of Reason now and become crazy I also need to get rid of either Cubase or Live, but this time for good! But I can't do it! There are so many things related to Cubase and Live that makes me can't let them go!

[Passing Bye]

I'll always use DP for bigger projects for the reasons mentioned about Logic, plus just better handling of those sorts of things.

Yeah, seems like DP wins in all these proper implemented features, like automation and etc, Reaper too, PT also, seems like they sorted their essentials, kudos to them!

[machinesworking]

Well, to be honest, I still can't choose only Bitwig as "my DAW" because I'm still confused about which one can serve me the best. I did the mistake by selling Bitwig and other DAWs more than once! But now, I want to sell only the one that I really really don't want anymore!

I can't really sell any of mine. Reaper and Logic are impossible really to sell, and it's not worth the hassle. I could see getting back into Live and DP as a pair, but Bitwig shows too much promise to sell fro roughly $200 when you can just keep it and jump back in at any time.

Bitwig is not among those candidates to sell though! But I need to get rid of Reason now and become crazy I also need to get rid of either Cubase or Live, but this time for good! But I can't do it! There are so many things related to Cubase and Live that makes me can't let them go!

I bought back into Reason after ten years almost, because it's a great Rompler in another DAW as a VST3. Reason 12 is also due for a free upgrade to Apple Silicon support, so I wouldn't sell it if I were you.

I've got 15 years worth of songs in Live, I'm not selling it even if I don't use it as a main DAW. I do occasionally data mine old songs if they never went anywhere so the couple hundred I could get for it wouldn't make any difference compared to having to buy Suite again.

Cubase is a full featured old school DAW like DP and Logic, there's IMO situations where you want those features, mixing and mastering large track count songs makes much more sense with VCA faders, multiple automation types, and the lower CPU hit of old school DAWs.

I guess I quickly morphed into using two sequencers early on, Reason rewired into DP offered more tracks at a lower CPU hit than anything else previous to about 2006 when computers got fast enough to handle NI Reaktor etc. plug ins. Then after that Live had the most fun stretching algorithms, and Session View! but not a great sequencer at that point. So I used Logic thinking it would be magical on OS X, then Logic 7 killed that and I went back to DP, but kept using Live.

At this point I'm back to thinking it will mostly be DP and Bitwig, with Live for all it's great Max 4 Live elements including it's video features.

[machinesworking]

I'll always use DP for bigger projects for the reasons mentioned about Logic, plus just better handling of those sorts of things.

Yeah, seems like DP wins in all these proper implemented features, like automation and etc, Reaper too, PT also, seems like they sorted their essentials, kudos to them!

Yeah that's been a DP strong point forever! Automation in DP is pretty dammed great! The downside is it's Excel level complexity that isn't even as masked as Excel, i.e. it can be daunting and works best with templates IMO for different tasks. It's a great VEP master DAW, but Bitwig and Live are much more fun to just open up and start experimenting in. That's pretty much how I would describe the difference, if I know what I'm going to write then I reach for DP, if I don't I reach for Bitwig.

[EnGee]

I can't really sell any of mine. Reaper and Logic are impossible really to sell, and it's not worth the hassle. I could see getting back into Live and DP as a pair, but Bitwig shows too much promise to sell fro roughly $200 when you can just keep it and jump back in at any time.

I have also Reaper. I use it as a test and quick loader for plugins. I also can use it as a complete DAW of course but it is my last choice (but before FL Studio).

I bought back into Reason after ten years almost, because it's a great Rompler in another DAW as a VST3. Reason 12 is also due for a free upgrade to Apple Silicon support, so I wouldn't sell it if I were you.

I tried several times to "accept" Reason 12, but I couldn't! First, I hate their protection. They are so maniac about it! Installing Authorizer then login every time I want to use it! Ok! I can install that shit codemeter but even with it installed I need to login because I have Rent to Own synths! Come on!
Second reason to leave Reason is their Windows management! Man! I felt the bad taste of the old days when I had my small monitor and keep moving the windows around and keep calling Racks, Mixer and the midi editor! With my 2k resolution (on 4k) it is still the same! No! Thank you!

Reason was great when it was in the 4th and 5th version. This is the peak, then they lost it! Oh and there is no ReWire anymore! So, the nice workflow integrated with other DAWs (especially was popular with Live) is gone long time ago!

I've got 15 years worth of songs in Live, I'm not selling it even if I don't use it as a main DAW. I do occasionally data mine old songs if they never went anywhere so the couple hundred I could get for it wouldn't make any difference compared to having to buy Suite again.

Cubase is a full featured old school DAW like DP and Logic, there's IMO situations where you want those features, mixing and mastering large track count songs makes much more sense with VCA faders, multiple automation types, and the lower CPU hit of old school DAWs.

I guess I quickly morphed into using two sequencers early on, Reason rewired into DP offered more tracks at a lower CPU hit than anything else previous to about 2006 when computers got fast enough to handle NI Reaktor etc. plug ins. Then after that Live had the most fun stretching algorithms, and Session View! but not a great sequencer at that point. So I used Logic thinking it would be magical on OS X, then Logic 7 killed that and I went back to DP, but kept using Live.

At this point I'm back to thinking it will mostly be DP and Bitwig, with Live for all it's great Max 4 Live elements including it's video features.

I hear you! I don't have any experience with DP, but I started learning computer music with Logic 4 and kept till version 5.5 then jumped into Cubase/Sonar (mostly Cubase SL). I did returned to Logic 9 (with a hackintosh) and I liked it a lot, but the system wasn't very stable and without any updates! Now I have the latest Logic installed, but it feels somehow like a new DAW to master. I need to remember/relearn all the shortcuts (and they are a lot) while in Cubase/Studio One, I'm really at my best and don't think of workflow/shortcuts and that let me concentrate on the music.

Foolishly, I sold my Studio One Pro v5 license (it is ok, I use the Artist version now) when I felt that Cubase becomes stable, but before yesterday I had this strange noise and cpu hike and I was just not playing anything just thinking! Before that it exit without a prompt or error while I was browsing presets of a synth! I tried to reproduce all that, but I failed, so it is random and this is what pissed me off!

I like Bitwig for organising my ideas and be inspired, but then when I move to the arrangement view and start arranging and build the song, I begin to feel not comfortable to the workflow (snapping, markers, automation and editing are not so great for me like Cubase and Studio One). I know, it is not the fault of the program exactly but mine because I need to get used to the workflow. It is the same with Live. Live is very inspiring to me and for working and editing in the session view, but when I move to the arrangement view, I begin to feel the need to open Cubase or Studio One and continue there!

So in short,
Bitwig: Staying
Live: staying and might upgrade to Suite from Standard.
Cubase: staying for now, but not sure for how long!
S1: might be the main one again, although I'm tired of the small hidden bugs in midi editing.
Logic: might be the main one if I choose Mac to be my work/music computer.
Reason: Must go!
So, anyone want to buy Reason 12?

[machinesworking]

I have also Reaper. I use it as a test and quick loader for plugins. I also can use it as a complete DAW of course but it is my last choice (but before FL Studio).

I went deep into it for a year. It's cool, it can do most things, but I want my main DAW to do articulation mapping, and with Reaper it's a shit show, scripts etc. It's the most CPU efficient DAW there is, and it can do a lot of things at a really high level, but I find some of the basics annoying, MIDI editing, UX issues etc. If I dump DP it will be for Logic or Cubase most likely.

I tried several times to "accept" Reason 12, but I couldn't! First, I hate their protection. They are so maniac about it! Installing Authorizer then login every time I want to use it! Ok! I can install that shit codemeter but even with it installed I need to login because I have Rent to Own synths! Come on!
Second reason to leave Reason is their Windows management! Man! I felt the bad taste of the old days when I had my small monitor and keep moving the windows around and keep calling Racks, Mixer and the midi editor! With my 2k resolution (on 4k) it is still the same! No! Thank you!

Reason was great when it was in the 4th and 5th version. This is the peak, then they lost it! Oh and there is no ReWire anymore! So, the nice workflow integrated with other DAWs (especially was popular with Live) is gone long time ago!

I have always used Reason rewired as a plug in toybox, and barring some weird issues with the VST 3 version in DP, ( it shows up as an Aux track?? you can send and recieve MIDI from it, but for some reason it pops up there instead of as an instrument track?? ), thats the way I'm going to use it as a VST 3 plug in. I haven't bought any rent to own devices and now I know not to. At the moment it's internet connected, but I will probably authorize it on the Apple Silicon Mac when I get one. As a DAW I never really got into it.

I hear you! I don't have any experience with DP, but I started learning computer music with Logic 4 and kept till version 5.5 then jumped into Cubase/Sonar (mostly Cubase SL). I did returned to Logic 9 (with a hackintosh) and I liked it a lot, but the system wasn't very stable and without any updates! Now I have the latest Logic installed, but it feels somehow like a new DAW to master. I need to remember/relearn all the shortcuts (and they are a lot) while in Cubase/Studio One, I'm really at my best and don't think of workflow/shortcuts and that let me concentrate on the music.

Foolishly, I sold my Studio One Pro v5 license (it is ok, I use the Artist version now) when I felt that Cubase becomes stable, but before yesterday I had this strange noise and cpu hike and I was just not playing anything just thinking! Before that it exit without a prompt or error while I was browsing presets of a synth! I tried to reproduce all that, but I failed, so it is random and this is what pissed me off!

Yeah I didn't gel with Studio One, but I haven't tried it since it came out years ago.
A friend of mine loves it, but I hear about it's odd limitations too.
Cubase was cool, but it wasn't until lately that it's as capable on Mac as it was on PC, agreed about Logic, after years away the shortcuts are all wonky to me, I hate what they did to the tools menu. I'm not a fan of how they changed external instruments around as well, I recall MIDI in previous to 7 versions anyway having a more direct approach to hardware synths than the external instrument etc. Plus the MIDI input limitation is annoying as f*ck once you use Live, Cubase, DP etc. etc.

I

like Bitwig for organising my ideas and be inspired, but then when I move to the arrangement view and start arranging and build the song, I begin to feel not comfortable to the workflow (snapping, markers, automation and editing are not so great for me like Cubase and Studio One). I know, it is not the fault of the program exactly but mine because I need to get used to the workflow. It is the same with Live. Live is very inspiring to me and for working and editing in the session view, but when I move to the arrangement view, I begin to feel the need to open Cubase or Studio One and continue there!

I don't like arranging complex parts in Bitwig or Live before it, because they simply aren't that well set up for it. Once you get into the big three older "full featured" DAWs Logic Cubase DP etc. it's hard to accept the limitations of a simpler UI.

To be honest though only a small portion of my songs fall into the complex arrangement category, and with simpler arrangements there's no issues with Bitwig.

So in short,
Bitwig: Staying
Live: staying and might upgrade to Suite from Standard.
Cubase: staying for now, but not sure for how long!
S1: might be the main one again, although I'm tired of the small hidden bugs in midi editing.
Logic: might be the main one if I choose Mac to be my work/music computer.
Reason: Must go!
So, anyone want to buy Reason 12?

So this is just a suggestion. Recently I've started to think about video, so Live is looking good again, plus the last update looks great! What has always bothered me about Live is navigation, so I decided yesterday to deep dive into it, specifically how to navigate it's interface. Panel selection in Live has always eluded me. I've got it down for the most part now, it's embedded. Basically it's a hot mess but it works, you can navigate most of the interface including searching, selecting, instantiating a plug in on a track, without touching the mouse. Live (and I've used it forever, since version 4), has always struck me as an entirely too mouse driven DAW, I'm still not happy with it's lack of a dedicated full screen piano roll editor, but beyond that I did the research to find the navigation tricks to make it less like wading through mud to use.
Here's my findings, some will think I'm dumb for just finally finding this all out, but it's not documented in the manual, you have to mess around with the interface to find these things, and some things out there are just wrong, like shortcuts that no longer exist to bring focus to the Session/Arrangement panel etc.
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=243857
because of our conversation about the arrangement view in Bitwig and working with it, I think I should look into that as well. It's likely that Live does have a more developed Arrangement View, but you can certainly do things to make it better if you deep dive.

[EnGee]

The very strong positive point in favour of Live is the strong support by the hardware manufacturers (that is midi controllers). It is really the best DAW I have experiment with. There is no problem at all with any midi controller I have, so actually I use the midi controller most of the times when navigate in arrangement view.

Bitwig IMO, is better in the arrangement view overall because it feels more like Cubase than Live. However, it is still not there for me to switch completely from Cubase/S1 linear workflow. So, most of the times I have just ideas recorded/edited ideas in Bitwig. I hope the development team begin to concentrate on the arrangement view and make midi editing, clips arrangement and markers more advanced because I use the markers a lot in the navigation among the different parts.

On the other hand, you should give S1 a chance. It is like Logic and Cubase f**ked each other and there is a child called S1. There are many similarities with Mommy and Daddy! But S1 is more easy going than its parents although not as pretty or complex as them

[fjolle]

You need to pick lesser evil or combine stuff, like compose in one DAW, arrange and mix in another or third or find the way to do all that in one, they are all flawed.

Maybe this is where I need to end up.

I agree they're all flawed. I started out with Cubase 20 years ago and hoped to find some connection with the latest versions. IMHO it's a mess from a usability standpoint, and things feel disconnected now in the later versions. Studio One gave me lots of problems with latency and delay compensation (that both Bitwig and Live handles with no issues) + it was quite unstable. I've been using Live on/off for maybe 10-15 years, and I feel it's becoming increasingly fragile.

Bitwig is definitely the biggest positive surprise I've had for a while. I'm just venting a bit because I've been running into these issues lately.

they simply don't hiccup when altering things while the sequence is running as often as Logic etc. You and any Logic user is familiar with overload message which half the time is due to you doing something like instantiating an instrument while the sequence is running. The increase in performance is mostly due to track buffering methods that Logic, DP etc. use to give extra time to functions of the sequence that are not being interacted with, it pre- buffers or renders the non record enabled tracks saving massive amounts of CPU. You can test this yourself, just record arm all tracks in Logic VS live or Bitwig. All of a sudden Logic is the piggy DAW!

That is true. Logic will simply throw a message and give up heheh. I'll try to do some actual tests with multi track recording instead of just playback.

[machinesworking]

On the other hand, you should give S1 a chance. It is like Logic and Cubase f**ked each other and there is a child called S1. There are many similarities with Mommy and Daddy! But S1 is more easy going than its parents although not as pretty or complex as them

As a DP user I never picked up Cubase, went to Logic instead when I felt (unrealistically), that DP was more buggy. I thought Cubase was cool, but Logic clicked more. At this point though I'm pretty die hard on DP. The articulation mapping maybe because it came last, is just better, and it's just odd enough to keep me interested.

Studio One seems cool but everyone mentions it not being as complex as Cubase or Logic, and my whole point of using DP is to have a DAW that does literally everything like those two do. So Studio One being a bit like Live or Bitwig in that way without the uninterupted audio engine or Clips/Session View, it just doesn't grab me. In some ways if I was smart I would just use Logic, I just don't gel with it the way I did around version 6.

I'm pretty sure going forward I'm going to be using DP and Bitwig, plus Live for messing with Jitter and it's V-Jay properties, collaborating with friends that use Live etc.

[EnGee]

DP seems a great DAW. I still believe that sticking with one DAW and limited few instruments is the way to go to be productive and to progress musically.

I might take advantage of the limited instruments supported in native M1 Mac and try to master Logic with few synths like Zebra, Bazille and J-8

[machinesworking]

DP seems a great DAW. I still believe that sticking with one DAW and limited few instruments is the way to go to be productive and to progress musically.

I might take advantage of the limited instruments supported in native M1 Mac and try to master Logic with few synths like Zebra, Bazille and J-8

I have a micro/macro mindset on that. I'm a firm believer in no absolutes, but I find it helps me to have a very wide pallet, and a strong ability to concentrate on only a few things. Meaning, I own hundreds of plug ins, I'm a sucker for a sale on a collection, but I use most synths for specific things, and most samplers as Romplers rather than sample mangling devices.

With that in mind I totally hear you. The good part about the M1 migration is most of the things I want to concentrate on are there or almost there.
Of stuff I own:
U-He, AAS, Equator 2, Cypher 2, Sektor are there.
Falcon, Lion, Plasmonic, and apparently Reason, are almost there.
Mastering wise DMG is there.
DAW wise Bitwig and DP are already M1 ready, Live is in beta.

All the NI, Arturia, Xils, Plugin Alliance, and IK stuff (plus various smaller companies), I have can sit in the Mac Pro here as a VEP slave if I need to go big.

Same goes for plug in collections I own, they can all sit on the Mac Pro. Like you when I do get an M1x or M2 etc. I don't plan on using but a small critical amount of Rosetta plug ins, and only if I have to (looking at you Amplitube 5 and VEP plug in). It's a good test for whose willing to jump through Apples hoops as well. If I'm staying on this platform I'm not wanting to concentrate on developers that can't or will not keep up with them, that doesn't make any sense.

Anyway at this point I'm not jumping in until the new projected 14 and 16" Macbook Pros are announced, want to see what it will have, and what they will charge.

[xbitz]

" Cubase/S1 linear workflow" Cubase is able to highlight piano roll rows not just scale but chord-based too (and display chord-non chord-out of scale chord with different colors)

using it together with the arranger track makes it a really nice music theory hacking scratchpad, so can be used creatively too (not just linearly) especially nice because track versions also can be used on chord track too (I've reused the chords of another track on the video for ex. just in a different order and notes in it)

[EnGee]

@xbitz: Thank you, although I don't like such workflow or inspiring ideas.

@machinesworking: Maybe your way of thinking is better. Maybe restrictions are supposed to be controlled by our minds not by having or not having tools.

Anyway, so let's return to the topic! If you have left Bitwig, please let us know why

[machinesworking]

@xbitz: Thank you, although I don't like such workflow or inspiring ideas.

@machinesworking: Maybe your way of thinking is better. Maybe restrictions are supposed to be controlled by our minds not by having or not having tools.

Anyway, so let's return to the topic! If you have left Bitwig, please let us know why

My journey was to find a replacement for DP and Live at the time when Logic, Bitwig and Reaper had MPE. Once DP and Live got MPE, the limitations of Bitwig had me returning to them, but to put it flatly I haven't really left. I'm just honestly slightly disappointed with with V4, I'm much less of a random element person when sequencing than I am a taming my happy accidents musician, so most of V4 leaves me out of the loop. I haven't given up completely but so far the biggest new "feature" is M1 support, which is more about "yay they got it done early!" rather than be surprised by it.

[EnGee]

Other than the M1 support, v4 did a little to me. I never use Probability in music! I much prefer if they invested in the arrangement view and enhanced the workflow there!

One main reason to leave Bitwig for me, if they keep going in that direction of probabilities and dice rolling composition! Let's see what the next updates will be about. I have my plan till May next year, so let's see if they bring something that I need (markers, better automation lanes, ...etc).