Bitwig Studio stability on MacOS

[Enrize]

Im currently working on a project with 117 tracks and its pretty smooth (MacBook Pro M1 Pro 16''), A little choppy on vertical scroll through all tracks but not that bad at all.

Try to download a demo and see how it will run on your machine (You can load a demo song and duplicate some tracks to push it a bit)

[Annabanna]

I believe Logic does that as well. AU plugins are run in a AU service on macOS (at least on M1 Macs). So they are running in a separate process. That being said I've rarely had Bitwig crash on me. It's very stable on macOS, but the UI is very laggy and there is some wonkiness here and there.

So you are using primarily with AU's? Has anyone run it with AU's vs VST's, and seen if/how this affects performance?

What exactly is "very" laggy? Is that on an M1 machine? How many tracks? Is it better if you don't have multiple open plugins?

Any specific "wonkiness?"

I'm fed up with Logic's inability to compensate for sidechain latency, and am ready to jump ship... not to mention Logic crashes on me at least a few times a week due to plugin crashes.

[fireapplered]

No problems at all on a late 2013 iMac.

[syntonica]

The one quibble I have with Bitwig on MacOS is that it shows that it wasn't designed for it. It might work fine, but the lack of use of the menu bar and the window button placement and... there are a lot of cues reinforcing that thought.

The placement and design of the window controls was changed to be in line with macOS conventions in a recent update.
The menu bar still isn't used, though.

You'll see this on many cross-platform prograns. For consistency and flexibility, rhey'll write their own GUI system, thus avoiding different style menu bars, docks, context menus, etc. The actual GUI only needs to be wriiten once and the OS-specific backend code to do the display is pretty much the only platform-specific code.

In the end, it makes for better consistency for end-users who can jump between platforms without having to stop and reorient. It makes it better for the programmers as the lion's share of the codebase will run on all three platforms and only needs to be written once.

I'm surprised they even bothered to "fix" the Mac version, but I guess the squeaky Mac-user gets the grease.

[zipb]

Bitwig is the most stable DAW that I use on a regular basis(that is, Bitwig, Logic, Cubase)
I must admit it's not a completely fair comparison, as I don't use BW much for more traditional DAW purposes(writing and recording 'normal' pop music)

[Annabanna]

...I don't use BW much for more traditional DAW purposes(writing and recording 'normal' pop music)

Why not?

[docbot]

UI is very laggy on my M1 Air. Overall performance is fine. After Logic you will feel UI lag a lot.

That's the reason why I also don't use it. Some people don't seem to notice this, but I find Bitwig frustratingly laggy compared to Ableton and FL.

Dealbreaker for me. Hope they fix this

[zipb]

...I don't use BW much for more traditional DAW purposes(writing and recording 'normal' pop music)

Why not?

For more or less straight band recording/composing Cubase is much better for me. Multitrack warping, pitch correction, time correction, chords stuff and... and...

I use Logic Pro most though, just because the people I work with use it, or Garageband, and I can just continue where they left off.

I did use Bitwig for a couple of these(pop) projects, it was fun and worked out fine, but basic pop stuff is just easier in Cubase or Logic.

[Jac459]

That's the reason why I also don't use it. Some people don't seem to notice this, but I find Bitwig frustratingly laggy compared to Ableton and FL.

Dealbreaker for me. Hope they fix this

It is more than some people don't have the issue. Butter smooth in both my mba m1 and my mbp m2 pro.
I was having lag issues with reason studio though.

When bitwig says they are in 60fps it is quite very much sufficient, we are not playing fortnite.

[swartzfeger]

Same experience as a lot here -- Logic is smooth for me, but Bitwig is smoother.

Logic may be a touch more performant with heavy plugins like Acustica Audio, but I can't give up Bitwig for sound design and most DAW duties.

[Winstontaneous]

I have a 2012 MacBook Pro. Bought & sold Bitwig 1.x due to Mac performance issues - GUI lag, instant high CPU, endless noisy fans even on blank projects, and some sandboxed plugins causing Bitwig to crash. Kept demo-ing through 2.x but wasn't until later 3.x that Bitwig worked reasonably well on my machine and I bought another license. Lots of plugin scanning/loading issues in the last year, even on projects with only stock plugins and following instructions to fix.

I like Bitwig for experimentation but it's never been consistently stable/performant enough on Mac to be my main DAW. On my machine Logic Pro X with only stock plugins is rock solid and very fast...but Logic is the least stable AU host I've found and the buss/FX routing architecture is terrible...go Apple! So I use Ableton Live more than anything else.

[Jac459]

2012 mbp start to be a bit aged... .
Something lighter like reaper can be a better choice for such a config.

But bitwig on m1 or m2 is like a ferrari, super snappy and fast.

[Zoiper]

Renoise Redux has been the only plugin that consistently crashes for me.

[mickeyl]

I'm seriously considering to switch from Logic Pro. It has accumulated some nasty and hard to reproduce cutting-sound-on-playback bugs over the years which do not happen with Bitwig. Performance-wise I don't see any major differences on Apple Silicon.

[teilo]

I believe Logic does that as well. AU plugins are run in a AU service on macOS (at least on M1 Macs). So they are running in a separate process. That being said I've rarely had Bitwig crash on me. It's very stable on macOS, but the UI is very laggy and there is some wonkiness here and there.

So you are using primarily with AU's? Has anyone run it with AU's vs VST's, and seen if/how this affects performance?

Bitwig does not host AUs. It supports VST2, VST3, and CLAP.