Bitwig VS Ableton

Audio Plugin Hosts and other audio software applications discussion
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

syntonica wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 7:11 am
sQeetz wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 6:57 am
syntonica wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 6:39 am How is it effed up?
Only in Fullscreen. The mouse cursor changes to whatever is underneath it, no matter what.
I have contacted the guys at Bitwig, and they don't seem to care... so did I
Open a plugin and hover around.... the mouse cursor changes to whatever is beneath it.
I've made several videos about it just in case.....
Thanks. I never use full screen, so it won't bother me at all. But it's definitely a weird bug. I can't imagine it's Bitwig's fault, though, if the mouse cursor works properly otherwise. It sounds more like a macOS issue at first blush.
Bitwig has had some weird graphical issues on macOS. So I would definitely think its an issue on their end. I was making some stuff this weekend and started seeing some weird graphical artifacts in Bitwig. One example is that I have a few tracks grouped and they are all colored Yellow. In the Mixer view the color cuts off but when I hover over the track it goes back to Yellow. It's hard to explain but I've never seen an issue like that before (I'm on 4.4).

Bitwig is not as stable as I thought. I've been running into some pretty bad issues on my end. Plugins that keep crashing in the middle of session (and they crash like clock work). Weird graphical glitches, the audio system suddenly cutting off with no indication anywhere in the interface that the audio subsystem has crashed. It looks normal, the meters are moving, but you can't hear audio at all. Restarting Bitwig seems to get it back to normal but that has happened several times and I'm working on a fairly light song.

Just because the software doesn't crash the whole program doesn't make it stable. Sure it gives me the opportunity to save what I was working on but its glitchy overall. I don't remember 3.3 being this glitchy even on an M1 machine.
Studio One // Bitwig // Logic Pro // Ableton // Reason // FLStudio // MPC // Force // Maschine

Post

Muziksculp wrote: Sun Oct 30, 2022 11:05 pm Does 'LIVE' have a Video Track ?

Bitwig doesn't , you need to install an additional plugin for that. Kind of silly in 2022 not to have it in a DAW.
Yes, you can even 'warp' video...but you can only load Apple QuickTime format (.mov) I think.

I don't think anyone looking to score a movie will be using either Live ort Bitwig...there are much better DAWS for that...you probably need something that will mix in 5.1, 7.1, Dolby etc.
X32 and 24C mixers, S88MK3, Live + PUSH 3, Osmose, RedShift 6, Pro3, S4, Tempera, Syntakt, Digitone, OP1-F, OPXY, TR-1000, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

Post

apoclypse wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 2:30 pm Just because the software doesn't crash the whole program doesn't make it stable.
My thought exactly. It is glitchy...
MacMini M2 Pro MacOS Tahoe ……… Reason 14

Post

sQeetz wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:57 pm
apoclypse wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 2:30 pm Just because the software doesn't crash the whole program doesn't make it stable.
My thought exactly. It is glitchy...
I've only poked at it from behind a rock with a stick so far. But this is somewhat discouraging to hear. I'm also looking at Studio One, if they'd put up a demo of v6. My other choice is relearning Logic, but that's not going well--I keep licking the candy-colored piano icon... :P
I started on Logic 5 with a PowerBook G4 550Mhz. I now have a MacBook Air M1 and it's ~165x faster! So, why is my music not proportionally better? :(

Post

syntonica wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 4:24 pm ve only poked at it from behind a rock with a stick so far. But this is somewhat discouraging to hear. I'm also looking at Studio One, if they'd put up a demo of v6. My other choice is relearning Logic, but that's not going well--I keep licking the candy-colored piano icon... :P
If you have one of the newer Macs with the the Apple Silicon chip AND you like to use your apps full screen, then I could not recommend Bitwig. It's a s***ty experience. And they are not willing to correct it.
MacMini M2 Pro MacOS Tahoe ……… Reason 14

Post

sQeetz wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 4:37 pm
syntonica wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 4:24 pm ve only poked at it from behind a rock with a stick so far. But this is somewhat discouraging to hear. I'm also looking at Studio One, if they'd put up a demo of v6. My other choice is relearning Logic, but that's not going well--I keep licking the candy-colored piano icon... :P
If you have one of the newer Macs with the the Apple Silicon chip AND you like to use your apps full screen, then I could not recommend Bitwig. It's a s***ty experience. And they are not willing to correct it.
I have to say I've never fully understood the severity of this bug to you. I can replicate it, and it's a graphical glitch here, but it doesn't affect the functionality of the curser. That said though, what I don't like about it, or reading the graphics issues Apocalypse has that I've also experienced, is this feeling like Mac OS is the port. It comes down to the interface being Windows centric, right screen windows controls, white curser arrow etc. It makes you wonder how much of what they're doing GUI wise is really conforming to Mac OS GUI guidelines and how much is just a slew of fixes to get it working? It reeks of NI's issues forever where they instead of conforming to Mac OS standards outright tweaked their existing code with patches for up to 15 years of band aids until Apple Silicon killed their ability to apply band aids.

Or, to be fair since we're in a comparison thread, it reeks of the complete mess that Max 4 Live was when it first came out, making Live unstable and ruining a decent reputation Ableton had for reliable software. Except in this case it's a GUI that may not be capable of keeping up with Mac OS changes in it's current form.

To be doubly fair! :hihi: Falcon 2.8 here has severe GUI issues on Apple Silicon, every once in while it turns into old school TV static. Closing and opening it fixes the issue, but clearly developers on Apple Silicon are still figuring it out.

Post

machinesworking wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:09 pm I have to say I've never fully understood the severity of this bug to you. I can replicate it, and it's a graphical glitch here, but it doesn't affect the functionality of the curser.
It's like an itch you can't scratch... That's how that feels to me... I might be weird like that or maybe it's just my OCD.
What bugs me the most about it, though, is that they know about it, but will not fix it. For whatever reason
MacMini M2 Pro MacOS Tahoe ……… Reason 14

Post

machinesworking wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:09 pm It makes you wonder how much of what they're doing GUI wise is really conforming to Mac OS GUI guidelines and how much is just a slew of fixes to get it working? It reeks of NI's issues forever where they instead of conforming to Mac OS standards outright tweaked their existing code with patches for up to 15 years of band aids until Apple Silicon killed their ability to apply band aids.
My guess is that their using a cross-platform GUI toolkit that's powered by the GPU so they only need to write the GUI once. I'll have to check the GPU load with Bitwig opened to verify. If this is the case, it could very well explain the cursor bug. I tend to have a Cocoa mind when I think of Mac programming.

EDIT: definitely some GPU usage going on. I opened Bitwig up and the GPU usage increased by over 10% (MBA M1 w/7 GPU cores).

But all this will give the same look on both platforms and point to a staunch Windows user as the GUI designer. I'm not much for the Apple HUI guidelines these days as even they're going a weird. So far, other than everything on the tiny side, I haven't seen anything to egregiously offend me.
Last edited by syntonica on Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I started on Logic 5 with a PowerBook G4 550Mhz. I now have a MacBook Air M1 and it's ~165x faster! So, why is my music not proportionally better? :(

Post

One thing I'll add to the discussion is that I far prefer The Grid over M4L. Programming is one of my day jobs, so when I sit down to make music, the graphical interface is sheer bliss!
I started on Logic 5 with a PowerBook G4 550Mhz. I now have a MacBook Air M1 and it's ~165x faster! So, why is my music not proportionally better? :(

Post

syntonica wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:35 pm
machinesworking wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:09 pm It makes you wonder how much of what they're doing GUI wise is really conforming to Mac OS GUI guidelines and how much is just a slew of fixes to get it working? It reeks of NI's issues forever where they instead of conforming to Mac OS standards outright tweaked their existing code with patches for up to 15 years of band aids until Apple Silicon killed their ability to apply band aids.
My guess is that their using a cross-platform GUI toolkit that's powered by the GPU so they only need to write the GUI once. I'll have to check the GPU load with Bitwig opened to verify. If this is the case, it could very well explain the cursor bug. I tend to have a Cocoa mind when I think of Mac programming.

But all this will give the same look on both platforms and point to a staunch Windows user as the GUI designer. I'm not much for the Apple HUI guidelines these days as even they're going a weird. So far, other than everything on the tiny side, I haven't seen anything to egregiously offend me.
I'm sure you're right, JUCE I think is used, and it leads to some weird graphical issues.
One thing I'll add to the discussion is that I far prefer The Grid over M4L. Programming is one of my day jobs, so when I sit down to make music, the graphical interface is sheer bliss!
I'm not a programmer, and have only tasks in mind when using the Grid or Max4Live, so for me M4L beats the snot out of the Grid, because there's thousands of devices already built, and it's deeper integrated currently than the Grids promised core integration. For instance someone wrote a SysEx dump/write m4l device and now I can set up a clip to fire off saved patches for my hardware synths directly in Live, which like Bitwig does not natively support SysEx. So far nothing like that is possible in Bitwig. It's at this point the only area where Live is just better to me, it even has video DJ features in m4l with Jitter.

Post

machinesworking wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:09 pm That said though, what I don't like about it, or reading the graphics issues Apocalypse has that I've also experienced, is this feeling like Mac OS is the port. It comes down to the interface being Windows centric, right screen windows controls, white curser arrow etc.
Those have been fixed in the latest version, Bitwig on macOS now has standard window controls on the left and new cursors. It's still not making much use of the macOS menu bar, but IMO that's fine given the great custom menu system it comes with.

I only use Bitwig on Mac and it doesn't feel like "the port" to me. I'm also not experiencing many, or any glitches, really. Can reproduce sqeetz's pet issue but it doesn't affect me.
sQeetz wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 5:21 pm What bugs me the most about it, though, is that they know about it, but will not fix it. For whatever reason
Surely the reason is that it's disproportionally hard.

Post

I think Bitwig uses Java for the GUI.

For me, I like the experience with Live. It's more flexible and editing midi is fast and nice.

Logic Pro still my default one, but when I'm on Windows, Live is the main DAW. I think it's with Cubase the most stable on Windows while I prefer Logic and Live on Mac 😀
Using: Cubase Pro 15, Reason 13, Tascam US-4x4HR, MODX6, DM12D, LaunchKey 49, Yamaha guitar(Pacifica 612v) and bass (BB234) and some virtual instruments and synths.

Post

^^^ Mulab9 Plugin is very nice in Logic, needs an au wrapper like BC Patchwork but at least it is able to reopen it and Mulab has a nice taskbar (windows4ever) so instead of plugin closing plugin hiding (shortkeyable) also can be used for quick module accessing

"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

Post

Max has many advantages in the right hands, Can't do this in Bitwig!

https://elisabethhomeland.gumroad.com/l/qymjsa
X32 and 24C mixers, S88MK3, Live + PUSH 3, Osmose, RedShift 6, Pro3, S4, Tempera, Syntakt, Digitone, OP1-F, OPXY, TR-1000, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

Post

^^^ at the same time IMO these kind of projects can be built more easily in BWS



so if I would love to build these kinds of modular projects in a "virtual" environment I would choose BWS

"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

Post Reply

Return to “Hosts & Applications (Sequencers, DAWs, Audio Editors, etc.)”