What is the future of Bitwig?

[j wazza]

note fx have some limitations due to being designed for real-time usage, whereas offline note effects could be more powerful and, e.g. move notes back in time).

bitwigs time shift module can actually go back in time with audio or midi but it adds latency to all other tracks

[apoclypse]

My issue is that when people point out practical feature requests like piano roll improvements. This get drowned out by people saying Bitwig has modulators or note fx etc. that’s great but that’s not what we are talking about and they are not remotely the same thing.

The future of Bitwig for me is them actually completing what they started versus just half-assing features (audio warping is clunky, midi takes, limited piano roll, drum machine choking is implemented really stupidly, sampler doesn’t have time stretch nor audio slicing and countless other things).

Great that Polarity does amazing things with the DAW what does that have to do with everything else that is incomplete in Bitwig. Burial supposedly used Soundforge to make his music, does that mean I have to put up with the limitations of Soundforge too just because he made something amazing using it? What about all the other people who’ve made amazing things using better tools? I don’t think one person willing to put up with the limitation of something means everyone else should too. There should be a balance imo.

[j wazza]

My issue is that when people point out practical feature requests like piano roll improvements. This get drowned out by people saying Bitwig has modulators or note fx etc. that’s great but that’s not what we are talking about and they are not remotely the same thing.

The future of Bitwig for me is them actually completing what they started versus just half-assing features (audio warping is clunky, midi takes, limited piano roll, drum machine choking is implemented really stupidly, sampler doesn’t have time stretch nor audio slicing and countless other things).

the note fx are not the same thing but can be used for the same purposes, it would be good to also have it in the piano roll, were talking about both though and people can talk about what they want on here, noone has to shut up because theyre worried about drowning out what other people say, talking about alternatives and workarounds could be helpful for people who want certain features and dont want to wait until bitwig possibly add stuff

wym drum machine choking?

sampler does have time stretch by adjusting the speed, (although bitwigs timestretch is very bad compared to other daws and needs redoing) and you can slice audio clips to a sampler, it would be good to do it just in the sampler device though as well

[lokanchung]

the note fx are not the same thing but can be used for the same purposes

Technically yes, practically no. It's nonsense just to strum a few notes, I have to use note fx that doesn't even visualize the result, and assign different channel for those notes, add note fx layer and channel filter, while it can be done within a few clicks and tweaks in piano roll.
There might be a better way and I'd appreciate for any suggestions but that what I see.

[j wazza]

Technically yes, practically no. It's nonsense just to strum a few notes, I have to use note fx that doesn't even visualize the result, and assign different channel for those notes, add note fx layer and channel filter, while it can be done within a few clicks and tweaks in piano roll.
There might be a better way and I'd appreciate for any suggestions but that what I see.

the easiest way to do strum on certain notes would prob be by duplicating the track, but it would save cpu to do it with routing midi from another track, or with a step sequencer modulator/automation, but i agree that they should add it to the piano roll too

what did you mean by bitwig lacks groove?

[lokanchung]

what did you mean by bitwig lacks groove?

Groove is kinda Live term. It shifts notes along "groove", a predfined rhythm e.g. you can place 8th notes and make them play like swung notes. It can be applied per clip and can be used to quantize notes.

FL Studio on the other hand doesn't have per-clip groove. But the quantize tool can take groove and quantize along it.

It's a bit limited, but Bitwig have global shuffle and also can quantize notes along arbitrary amount of shuffle. I put groove as an example but actually this isn't a big deal for me.

[Frac-Capitaine]

My issue is that when people point out practical feature requests like piano roll improvements. This get drowned out by people saying Bitwig has modulators or note fx etc. that’s great but that’s not what we are talking about and they are not remotely the same thing.

The future of Bitwig for me is them actually completing what they started versus just half-assing features (audio warping is clunky, midi takes, limited piano roll, drum machine choking is implemented really stupidly, sampler doesn’t have time stretch nor audio slicing and countless other things).

Great that Polarity does amazing things with the DAW what does that have to do with everything else that is incomplete in Bitwig. Burial supposedly used Soundforge to make his music, does that mean I have to put up with the limitations of Soundforge too just because he made something amazing using it? What about all the other people who’ve made amazing things using better tools? I don’t think one person willing to put up with the limitation of something means everyone else should too. There should be a balance imo.

I totally agree. A feature that made sense but still not implemented is a Next Action for Scene not only for Clips.
Some people launch their "workaround generator 3000" and say "With Next Action for clip your are more free, and you can reproduce what you want to do...". Come on guys... Indeed Next Action for Clips is a awesome feature, but to reproduce the Ableton Live feature of Next Scene for Scene you have to fill a lot of empty clips, instead of just setting the next scene to launch and the time.
No one can argue (except the Bitwig developer team, but I doubt of it) that it impossible due to way Bitwig are programed. They could do it for clips, why not for scene ? It would be obvious to do it first for scene and then to clip. Am I the only Bitwig user that think this feature miss ?

[apoclypse]

My issue is that when people point out practical feature requests like piano roll improvements. This get drowned out by people saying Bitwig has modulators or note fx etc. that’s great but that’s not what we are talking about and they are not remotely the same thing.

The future of Bitwig for me is them actually completing what they started versus just half-assing features (audio warping is clunky, midi takes, limited piano roll, drum machine choking is implemented really stupidly, sampler doesn’t have time stretch nor audio slicing and countless other things).

the note fx are not the same thing but can be used for the same purposes, it would be good to also have it in the piano roll, were talking about both though and people can talk about what they want on here, noone has to shut up because theyre worried about drowning out what other people say, talking about alternatives and workarounds could be helpful for people who want certain features and dont want to wait until bitwig possibly add stuff

wym drum machine choking?

sampler does have time stretch by adjusting the speed, (although bitwigs timestretch is very bad compared to other daws and needs redoing) and you can slice audio clips to a sampler, it would be good to do it just in the sampler device though as well

NoteFX cannot be used for the same purpose imo. If want to do a strum in the PR, Note FX is in no way helpful in that regard. It's helpful if I'm playing stuff in realtime and want the effect but most of the time if I'm editing or doing something like scales in the PR its because I want to do those in the PR, I don't want to have to tweak some effect taking me out of the PR. just like when I do groove I want to see that reflected in the grid or notes not just hear the groove.

Drum Machine choking, as in I want to do an MPC style choking for sliced samples. Normally in other drum modules this is handled with Mute groups, super easy to setup. Just select all the pads assign the group. Done. In Bitwig it's the dumbest most convoluted workflow I've seen. You have to choose each pad one by one and set it the choke targets to all because Bitwig doesn't let you do that across multiple pad selections. If you want to remove the choke targets you have to do the same.

[Jmf1928]

As a new user (8-track promo), I've found the most compelling pieces to be its abilities as a sequencer. No one else has Elektron-like trig conditions beyond simple probability. My current plan is actually to use Bitwig as a sequencer while still recording and mixing in Cubase.

I'm a big fan of the way Bitwig separates plugins from the core process, its ability to run Numerology on Mac, the refreshing UI, and their focus on experimental tools. I don't foresee using it as my primary recording/mixing platform, but I'm expecting to eventually upgrade to the full platform and take heavy advantage of its sequencing capabilities. Given that they're almost surely not going to have access to Max for user-generated content, perhaps they could pursue Numerology, Loomer, or both.

[j wazza]

As a new user (8-track promo), I've found the most compelling pieces to be its abilities as a sequencer. No one else has Elektron-like trig conditions beyond simple probability. My current plan is actually to use Bitwig as a sequencer while still recording and mixing in Cubase.

I'm a big fan of the way Bitwig separates plugins from the core process, its ability to run Numerology on Mac, the refreshing UI, and their focus on experimental tools. I don't foresee using it as my primary recording/mixing platform, but I'm expecting to eventually upgrade to the full platform and take heavy advantage of its sequencing capabilities. Given that they're almost surely not going to have access to Max for user-generated content, perhaps they could pursue Numerology, Loomer, or both.

what do you mean elektron like trig conditions?

[Jmf1928]

I suppose Ableton has note probability, but Bitwig allows for a wider range of conditions (cycle Logic, previous note condition) etc. Feels similar to my Analog RYTM with the added benefit of note interrelationship.

[pierb]

What makes sense is to do your own thing, your own fresh take on something, like with music.
The really interesting music isn't just copying stuff from all over the place into one song.
It's a fresh approach, your own specific view and ear and voice and style.
And yes, it's always a certain niche.

Sure, innovate when that improves the thing, but also use what has been proven to work too. Cars don't have 4 wheels because car companies are copying each other ffs.

Eg: have you seen the new midi remote configuration in Cubase 12? This should become a default feature in all DAWs. I really can't believe Steinberg has beat Ableton and Bitwig to it which are supposedly the innovative DAWs.

[PhilipVasta]

-Track freeze.

Given Bitwig's inter-device routing capabilities, what would you expect to happen to tracks that rely on a device signal from a track you're about to freeze, if freezing was a thing?

A seamless one-click freeze function in Bitwig seems very hard to implement to me, even just on a conceptual level. At the same time, the bounce functionality we do have seems adequate enough, without any of the caveats of one-click freeze.

But then again, maybe people use freeze differently (& more frequently) than I imagine.

Good point, thanks. Regarding devices that modulate another, I guess the same thing issue arises when you deactivate that device, right? It breaks whatever scenario you've set up, of course, but that's just an expected, natural consequence. The program doesn't (and shouldn't) forbid you to do it.

The bounce function is fine (well, except for Bitwig's insistence on forcing you to rename and color it every time); it simply doesn't cover certain workflows adequately in my opinion. Whether the current bounce functionality feels acceptable is dependent on your workflow. Which goes back to my point before that a DAW should be, to the extent possible, agnostic toward the music you create.

Maybe there is some underlying technical reason that track freeze literally cannot be implemented, though, I don't know.

[JHernandez]

BTW, I mentioned Polarity because if Bitwig did in fact intend for their DAW to be used a certain way he would be someone I'd say is using as intended, if that were true. Just saying, people can learn a lot from him in that regard and beyond. I personally don't work that way.

I didn't bring him up as some means to put aside anyone's personal subjective concerns.

[cel4145]

I totally agree. A feature that made sense but still not implemented is a Next Action for Scene not only for Clips.
Some people launch their "workaround generator 3000" and say "With Next Action for clip your are more free, and you can reproduce what you want to do...". Come on guys... Indeed Next Action for Clips is a awesome feature, but to reproduce the Ableton Live feature of Next Scene for Scene you have to fill a lot of empty clips, instead of just setting the next scene to launch and the time.
No one can argue (except the Bitwig developer team, but I doubt of it) that it impossible due to way Bitwig are programed. They could do it for clips, why not for scene ? It would be obvious to do it first for scene and then to clip. Am I the only Bitwig user that think this feature miss ?

I would love it if there was a Next Action for a Scene option for triggering all blocks in the next Scene. I prefer to do most of my "arranging" in the clip launcher and would probably stay in it until 95% done composing. But it gets annoying when you want to play through several scenes and you have to trigger each scene independently because the previous scene had an empty slot and won't trigger the block in the next scene.

And please don't suggest the method of putting empty clips in unused blocks. That's a hack, and the point here is to point out user experience issues that affect composing. Plus, it takes away from the quick visual of seeing which scenes contain what loops when working with electronic music.