DAW with best MPE support + fastest bug fixes?

[pdxindy]

Yep, and I think while Bitwig has pissed everyone off lately with the add-on pack, I think people who are threatening to leave will realize quite quickly how much better so many things are in Bitwig, including MPE. But also things like mulit-out VST chains on a single track, and the modulation system in general, and the remote control set up, and hybrid tracks, and the stability etc. I recently got Live again but it's such a huge reminder of how much Bitwig got right.

I'm staying with Bitwig regardless of being annoyed about how they went about this new thing. I'm already over it. I just found 2 new kittens living here... (there are a bunch of semi-feral kitties). Seeing these cute new kittens, well, compared to that, who cares about an add-on! hehehe

[Echoes in the Attic]

Yep, and I think while Bitwig has pissed everyone off lately with the add-on pack, I think people who are threatening to leave will realize quite quickly how much better so many things are in Bitwig, including MPE. But also things like mulit-out VST chains on a single track, and the modulation system in general, and the remote control set up, and hybrid tracks, and the stability etc. I recently got Live again but it's such a huge reminder of how much Bitwig got right.

I'm staying with Bitwig regardless of being annoyed about how they went about this new thing. I'm already over it. I just found 2 new kittens living here... (there are a bunch of semi-feral kitties). Seeing these cute new kittens, well, compared to that, who cares about an add-on! hehehe

Good perspective! I didn't find any kittens, I just don't really care about those new shiny things (the add-ons I mean not the kittens).

[amitmusician]

I have evaluated many DAWs recently for MPE features especially pitch bend editing in the piano roll.
Please correct me if I am wrong. Here are my findings,

Ableton and Bitwig (with micro pitch option) can show MPE note slides very conveniently in the piano roll itself (after the correct setup). Also, the node slides can be edited conveniently using smooth curves. So it is convenient to make two chords slide into each other in the piano roll itself.

Cubase
It has a Note Expressions Editor. It can show the pitch bends in the note expressions (looks like a popup) in the piano roll. Not sure how to snap to semitone gaps with curves. Found it very inconvenient. If we split the MPE data on different channels then maybe we can edit pitch bends properly as it has a way to enable snap to semitones. Not being able to zoom in on the midi controller lane makes it an even worse experience. Overall very inconvenient for pitch slide editing. Maybe for other kinds of expressions, it's not a big issue.

Reaper
Similar story, no convenient way of snapping to semitones. And in the forums, I read people are suggesting doing some maths and figuring out midi cc values. Some people said there is a technical reason why they didn't implement it, but I don't buy it. It may require some additional one-time configuration to set up snapping to semitones, but it can be done, and it is already possible in Ableton and Bitwig.

FL Studio
No MPE support and from the official forums it seems it is a very low-priority feature request.

Studio One
AFAIK it's a similar story to Reaper, Cubase.

[Held]

Reaper
Similar story, no convenient way of snapping to semitones. And in the forums, I read people are suggesting doing some maths and figuring out midi cc values. Some people said there is a technical reason why they didn't implement it, but I don't buy it. It may require some additional one-time configuration to set up snapping to semitones, but it can be done, and it is already possible in Ableton and Bitwig.

There's a script for REAPER that helps you move pitch bend by semitones, but you have to manage the note midi channels manually which is a pain.

Ableton and Bitwig (with micro pitch option) can show MPE note slides very conveniently in the piano roll itself (after the correct setup). Also, the node slides can be edited conveniently using smooth curves. So it is convenient to make two chords slide into each other in the piano roll itself.

Being able to edit pitch bends inside the piano roll is the reason why I switched to Bitwig (and being on Linux at the time, otherwise I would have gone for Ableton).

One major downside of Bitwig is when editing other MPE curves like pressure in a chord, there's no visualization of which pressure curve belongs to which note. There are ways to work around that, but it's tedious.

Ableton handles this much better, so if MPE editing is a priority, Ableton is the best.

[Bartone]

And Ableton offers retrospective midi recording? So that's a plus for Ableton .

[pdxindy]

One major downside of Bitwig is when editing other MPE curves like pressure in a chord, there's no visualization of which pressure curve belongs to which note. There are ways to work around that, but it's tedious.

Ableton handles this much better, so if MPE editing is a priority, Ableton is the best.

In Bitwig, there is a key command to color notes by channel in the editor. With this, each midi channel has a different color and the Timbre and Pressure nodes also follow this color.

There is also the multi-channel editor. With the Selected Channels mode, only the selected midi channel is active and only the notes and the timbre and pressure curves in the selected channel can be edited. Very useful. Then there is also the Selected Channel (hide others) mode where you only see the selected channel. This is also useful for dense data.

Then there are also the Histograms... you can scale, change value average and add chaos to groups of selected timbre and pressure curve points.

Then there is also the Spread Histogram. Here you can add random variations so when a clip is looping, the pressure or timbre value of specific curve points can have randomization each time the note plays.

In comparison, Ableton doesn't even record the midi channel of each played note.

[Held]

One major downside of Bitwig is when editing other MPE curves like pressure in a chord, there's no visualization of which pressure curve belongs to which note. There are ways to work around that, but it's tedious.

Ableton handles this much better, so if MPE editing is a priority, Ableton is the best.

In Bitwig, there is a key command to color notes by channel in the editor. With this, each midi channel has a different color and the Timbre and Pressure nodes also follow this color.

That may work for recorded MIDI, but it doesn't work if you insert the notes in the piano roll. They all have the same color, even if you set the note colors per channel. So Ableton works much better for my use case.

But for people who need to preserve the channel information, Bitwig might work better.

[pdxindy]

but it doesn't work if you insert the notes in the piano roll. They all have the same color

Yeah, if you put all the notes on the same channel, then they have the same color. Put the notes on different channels and its easy to edit.

Ableton doesn't save midi channel data per note. You're describing one example where that has some small workflow advantage in Ableton because you can ignore midi channels, but it also has limitations.

Ableton automatically round robins notes onto midi channels 1-16... If I am outputting that track to my Elektron Analog Four, it needs to receive only channels 1-4. Can't do it in Ableton. Easy to do in Bitwig. You also cannot depend on a specific note in Ableton being on a specific channel. So if you have different sounds per midi channel it wont play back the same each time in Ableton and it will in Bitwig.

And since Bitwig does save midi channel data per note, you can use that in all sorts of ways that aren't even possible in Ableton. The MPE capabilities in Bitwig go far far beyond what can be done in Ableton.

[Held]

but it doesn't work if you insert the notes in the piano roll. They all have the same color

Yeah, if you put all the notes on the same channel, then they have the same color. Put the notes on different channels and its easy to edit.

If I'm going to manage my MIDI channels manually, I might as well stick with REAPER which has a much better MIDI editor outside of MPE.

In Ableton, you don't have to mess with channels to have a great MPE editing experience.

But you do you.

[pdxindy]

If I'm going to manage my MIDI channels manually, I might as well stick with REAPER which has a much better MIDI editor outside of MPE.

In Ableton, you don't have to mess with channels to have a great MPE editing experience.

But you do you.

It is trivially easy to work with midi channels in Bitwig and the editing experience is both great and far more flexible. It opens up a wide range of capabilities for both MPE and general modulation that are not even possible in Ableton.

You have no idea what you are missing

[Held]

If I'm going to manage my MIDI channels manually, I might as well stick with REAPER which has a much better MIDI editor outside of MPE.

In Ableton, you don't have to mess with channels to have a great MPE editing experience.

But you do you.

It is trivially easy to work with midi channels in Bitwig and the editing experience is both great and far more flexible. It opens up a wide range of capabilities for both MPE and general modulation that are not even possible in Ableton.

You have no idea what you are missing

After using Bitwig for the last year and trying the Ableton demo now, I'm having a much better time with Ableton and I'm not missing much. Yeah, the modulators are cool, but Bitwig is sorely lacking when it comes to the foundations of creating songs and not just randomized patches.

Considering how much Bitwig users go on about things that can't be done in Ableton, there's shockingly little music released by Bitwig users compared to Ableton users.

I used Bitwig because there aren't many options on Linux, but since I'm back on Windows, I greatly enjoy working with MPE and MIDI in Ableton. I'm going to go back to that now.

[Bartone]

I am still confused why Bitwig is said to be so modern and capable to do Everything - but it doesn’t have retrospective midi record? That seems to be included almost every other modern day DAWs?

[Held]

I am still confused why Bitwig is said to be so modern and capable to do Everything - but it doesn’t have retrospective midi record? That seems to be included almost every other modern day DAWs?

Bitwig isn't capable to do everything. It has a modulation system that is great and can do some cool stuff with the new CLAP plugin format, but that's pretty much the only unique selling point.

Everything else is done better in some other DAW. Editing MIDI and automation envelopes is very awkward and slow. In Bitwig, your supposed to keep your MIDI and automation simple, and use MIDI FX and modulation instead. Some people love it and make loops, random patches, or experimental sounds, but it's difficult to produce a complete song with.

There are some very vocal people who consider Bitwig revolutionary, but after having used it for a year, I don't see it.

[pdxindy]

Some people love it and make loops, random patches, or experimental sounds, but it's difficult to produce a complete song with.

It's easy to produce a complete song in Bitwig. Just cause you had trouble doing so is no indication of the capability of the software.

I would say it is easy to complete a song in every modern DAW. They are more than capable of doing so.

[pdxindy]

I am still confused why Bitwig is said to be so modern and capable to do Everything

I doubt anyone says Bitwig is capable to do everything.

If you want notation, it does not do that.
If you want built-in pitch correction, it does not do that.
And there are other things like that. There is plenty it doesn't do including retrospective recording.

Bitwig has some very useful modern features. Plugin sandboxing is great. Bitwig is by far the most stable DAW I have ever used.

If you want the DAW that has the most capable MPE implementation (back to thread topic), that is without a doubt, Bitwig. You can do a bunch of musically useful stuff that no other DAW can do.