Bitwig VS Ableton

[Fannon]

As a techy person, I do appreciate the nerdiness and creativity baked into Bitwig! That's why I enjoy using it and I can live with it not being as solid / polished as some other options (allthough it's also not as bad as this sounds now, for me it's quite usable).

However, I really wonder if they should consider taking a break from that. How awesome would it be if they take 1 year and only implement those most requested features and quality of live additions. Nothing really innovative or fanciful, just catching up with some of other DAWs in areas where users feel the need to.

I can imagine that this would push Bitwig wide forward with adoption. With more active users and customers, they can then also invest more into the creative and innovative stuff. I have no doubts that this is what they're good at. And if they would also more actively interact with the community and not delegate it to external Youtubers, that would be even more awesome (e.g. like Urs from u-he does it).

[Trancit]

The pop-up browser is awesome... I hardly do any clicking at all and frequently don't even touch the mouse to add devices. You can save which collection opens when it pops up and there are different saved defaults for when it is for FX, or Note FX or Instruments. I put any one of my most used plugins on a track with a few key strokes on the keyboard in like 3 seconds. I don't even need to see the screen at all. It's the fastest, most efficient system I have used in any DAW for adding devices to a track.

But imho that´s just true if you know exactly which plugin to load and type in it´s name...

If you just want to have a look around what the arsenal offers without having a special idea in mind it´s the worst browser one can imagine

[Trancit]

...
However, I really wonder if they should consider taking a break from that. How awesome would it be if they take 1 year and only implement those most requested features and quality of live additions. Nothing really innovative or fanciful, just catching up with some of other DAWs in areas where users feel the need to.
...

I consider this as a very good idea...

I know people are constantly argue against but imho for the moment even the craziest minds have got enough nerd toys to be busy for a long time...

I requested already multiple times to step a bit back from the usual Bitwig weirdness and concentrate a bit on the "normal" and production stuff than purely on sound design...while that shall not mean they haven´t done already very good stuff like the note devices or operators...

Nonetheless if one looks at the request lists at i.e. Bitwish... it´s mostly the "normal stuff" people are requesting more and more...

I really wish they would invest a bit more time into this than creating the next grid devices...

[perpetual3]

The pop-up browser is awesome... I hardly do any clicking at all and frequently don't even touch the mouse to add devices. You can save which collection opens when it pops up and there are different saved defaults for when it is for FX, or Note FX or Instruments. I put any one of my most used plugins on a track with a few key strokes on the keyboard in like 3 seconds. I don't even need to see the screen at all. It's the fastest, most efficient system I have used in any DAW for adding devices to a track.

But imho that´s just true if you know exactly which plugin to load and type in it´s name...

If you just want to have a look around what the arsenal offers without having a special idea in mind it´s the worst browser one can imagine

Which DAW has a better browser?

[pdxindy]

The pop-up browser is awesome... I hardly do any clicking at all and frequently don't even touch the mouse to add devices. You can save which collection opens when it pops up and there are different saved defaults for when it is for FX, or Note FX or Instruments. I put any one of my most used plugins on a track with a few key strokes on the keyboard in like 3 seconds. I don't even need to see the screen at all. It's the fastest, most efficient system I have used in any DAW for adding devices to a track.

But imho that´s just true if you know exactly which plugin to load and type in it´s name...

If you just want to have a look around what the arsenal offers without having a special idea in mind it´s the worst browser one can imagine

When I want to browse around, it is fast and effective in that case for me too. Considerably better than Live or Logic which are the two other DAW's I've used in recent years.

It's only worst for you cause you are stuck trying to make it work how you think it should instead of going with its strengths...

[Trancit]

...
Which DAW has a better browser?

For example Reaper...
Easy creating of everything you want... smart collections, user folders, easy plugin renaming, saving and recalling plugin chains, easy hiding of plugins from the list and many many many plugins visible in one single page without scrolling...

Same for Reapers media browser... it´s lightyears ahead of Bitwig... tagging (which I never use and nobody can tell me that he went through 200.000 samples to tag them all) aside...

Studio One has a great plugin browser too... different offerings how the plugins shall be grouped (by vendor, in a folder system, as a long list...) with easy drag n drop sorting and at least renaming of the plugins via editing the corresponding xml file...

FL Studio has a very nice system too...

[Trancit]

When I want to browse around, it is fast and effective in that case for me too. Considerably better than Live or Logic which are the two other DAW's I've used in recent years.

Now you compare Bitwig with the only 2 which are even worse... (I forgot about them before )

It's only worst for you cause you are stuck trying to make it work how you think it should instead of going with its strengths...

Maybe...
How do you want to do this in Bitwig other either clicking like crazy to change the filters or scrolling an endless list with tons of entries?

[SLiC]

When I want to browse around, it is fast and effective in that case for me too. Considerably better than Live or Logic which are the two other DAW's I've used in recent years.

Now you compare Bitwig with the only 2 which are even worse... (I forgot about them before )

I think Cubase and FL Studio are also much worse (although its a bit better, I still hate the browser/management in FLS21). Bitwig is the browser and plug manager for me.

[pdxindy]

It's only worst for you cause you are stuck trying to make it work how you think it should instead of going with its strengths...

Maybe...
How do you want to do this in Bitwig other either clicking like crazy to change the filters or scrolling an endless list with tons of entries?

I don't know... maybe you have too many plugins? All my plugins together don't create an endless list. It also seems like you are not making use of the capabilities of the browser.

When I open the popup browser to add FX, it defaults to my collection of most used FX. That list is all visible at once. No clicking or scrolling.

When I open the popup browser to add Note FX, it defaults to my collection of most used Note FX. That list is smaller than the FX list.

For Instruments, it defaults to my most used instruments. That list also just fits without scrolling.

95% of the time I don't click or scroll at all.

Even the other 5% of the time I am not clicking and clicking and scrolling like you are describing.

It's hard for me to imagine how you are making it so hard.

[Fannon]

Bitwigs Browser with Plugins is quite manageable, but if you use it for presets, clips, samples it becomes a bit more difficult. One thing that annoys me a bit, for example: It starts with a tree of all Bitwig package, and with the sub categories already opened. That way, I always need to close it first so I can see and navigate my own samples. There's no button to collapse all with one click or to change the order / default behavior.

Search works well enough, but that's not excactly browsing. I would say, the Bitwig browser has a few nice ideas, but could be improved for sure. Something that I would also find very nice if Bitwig comes with more tags and categories by default and we got some AI classification for samples that auto-tags your library. But that's something that entire products do on their own. Better to improve the basic ergonomics first

[SLiC]

Yeh, that how I have it set up (Chill Computer Guy did a good video on it, see below)

I love that Bitwig automaticity hides duplicates and only shows VST3 when available (all, options in setup)
I love that it is context intelligent, depending on what I am loading (instrument, fx, note fx etc) it just defaults to show me my favourites list(s) for that category- nothing faster! Also 'unlimited' favourite collections (hello Ableton!)
Smart collections very cool- I can set up a smart collection for say 'reverbs' and if I add an new plugin that a reverb its automaticity added to that collection!
Everything can be auditioned live from midi files to samples, it tempo etc

I don't know of another DAW that does all this so easily and the pop up is better for not using screen real estate (not hiding/unhiding browsers).

[apoclypse]

Yeh, that how I have it set up (Chill Computer Guy did a good video on it, see below)

I love that Bitwig automaticity hides duplicates and only shows VST3 when available (all, options in setup)
I love that it is context intelligent, depending on what I am loading (instrument, fx, note fx etc) it just defaults to show me my favourites list(s) for that category- nothing faster! Also 'unlimited' favourite collections (hello Ableton!)
Smart collections very cool- I can set up a smart collection for say 'reverbs' and if I add an new plugin that a reverb its automaticity added to that collection!
Everything can be auditioned live from midi files to samples, it tempo etc

I don't know of another DAW that does all this so easily and the pop up is better for not using screen real estate (not hiding/unhiding browsers).

Exactly. I personally have not found any other browser that's as good. It has some issues (I hate that 99+ thing) and I think Bitwig could do with a bit of UI reorganizing to make things easier to read but overall nothing comes close to how powerful it is imo. Unlike other DAW browsers I actually want to and actively do use it.

[Fannon]

Yeh, that how I have it set up (Chill Computer Guy did a good video on it, see below)

Thanks for posting that, that helped me. I didn't know about "Remember selected filters".

What it didn't cover are "Smart Collections". This is what for example u-he also has in their preset browser and its a really powerful feature. There it's also explained well, how you can construct your own "queries" / "filters. However, in Bitwig this feature seems buggy to me. I tried a few times, but my smart collections always end up empty after using them one or two times...

In general, I think the u-he preset browser has a few things that Bitwigs browser could learn from.

For example, a filter in u-he can look like: "#Bass:* #Favourite 2 #Favourite 3 #Favourite 4". Which selects all presets within the Bass category (including subcategories) but reduces it only to those which are marked as favorites of certain degrees.

Anyone using this and some tips how to use it correctly?

[EnGee]

Bitwig sometimes copy things from Ableton even if it's stupid!
I hate it when they mix synths with effects for 3rd party. Why?
Bitwig has two browsers. The one on the right is almost useless, while using tags is overcomplicates things with not elegant pop up browser.
I prefer Live's colours folders as I can put my favourite synths in one colour and the effects in another. Still not ideal but more elegant solution than messy Bitwig browser.

I like when saving presets in native devices. There is a complete organized folder/sub-foldrrs with the devices, so no browsing needed.

Anyway, those are the less important reasons that made me choose Live over Bitwig. There are more important ones like the clearer policy and pricing. Also, the contents are better. The workflow and environment are also quicker and more spacious.
The most important question is whom you trust more. In my case I trust Ableton more than any other DAW company in both ethical and technical aspects.

[liquidsound]

Unfortunately Ableton removed the ability to use Aliases for the VST which was a great way to have unlimited collections.