Bitwig 5 is up

[pdxindy]

New browser is cluttered and not user friendly at all. My old collections are there - but they're all empty. There is no (obvious) way to add new items to them. New "smart" collections are actually filters.
How to create list/collection/folder/whatever with e.g. "only 10 VSTis out of 110 installed"?

The browser is going into the complete wrong direction IMHO. What needed me one or two clicks in version 4 does now take the double click amount. I could freely filter for vendur or category with one click. Now I need to choose filter type first for selecting the according item.

And who had this f***king idea, that when I insert an instrument, that I want to see all these crappy BW presets? It fells like bloatware and I found until now no chance to set this behavior off. I don't want to see any preset, when I want to choose a plugin.

Furthermore now any smartcollection is no text anymore but all the same icon.
Who from product management does think, that this will be any improvement?

I think, I should write them a feedback email to state, that I am not happy at all with this

Same impression after a play with the beta last night. I was hoping it was a user issue and there was some way to get it to behave more like the old browser. It definitely feels cluttered and it takes more actions to do the same things. Not a fan.

Right now, the default filters are not saved as they are supposed to me. I think you will be able to set it up pretty close to old behavior once those are working.

Do send them a message at the beta email. Now is the time to let them know your thoughts cause they will be refining the browser during the beta period.

[_leras]

The browser is going into the complete wrong direction IMHO. What needed me one or two clicks in version 4 does now take the double click amount. I could freely filter for vendur or category with one click. Now I need to choose filter type first for selecting the according item.

And who had this f***king idea, that when I insert an instrument, that I want to see all these crappy BW presets? It fells like bloatware and I found until now no chance to set this behavior off. I don't want to see any preset, when I want to choose a plugin.

Furthermore now any smartcollection is no text anymore but all the same icon.
Who from product management does think, that this will be any improvement?

I think, I should write them a feedback email to state, that I am not happy at all with this

I will definitely try both side by side and email them quick sharp.

The v4 browser is one of the things I'm like best about Bitwig. Sure it could be improved in places, but it's overall workflow is so quick and seemless I never seem to skip a beat when I want to load a plugin.

[_leras]

I saw Polarity experimenting with mod > tempo to create interesting grooves in his "Bitwig v5 is here!" vid. Pretty cool but a proper groove system would be appreciated I think.

Well, I guess groove is a form of curvy envelopes applied to timing...

I won't use everything in this new.version, but.some better groove tools definitely were top of my personal feature list.

[seipster]

BWS5 is an instrument.

[poonna]

I save individual Reaktor instruments as Bitwig presets so that I can quickly launch them as needed. In this case, the new browser which combines plugins and presets might have some merits to my use case.

[Sweet Tooth]

They made the browser even worse. YAY!

[pdxindy]

The v4 browser is one of the things I'm like best about Bitwig. Sure it could be improved in places, but it's overall workflow is so quick and seemless I never seem to skip a beat when I want to load a plugin.

I'm waiting until the obvious bugs are resolved. I love the v4 browser and nothing has ever come close to it for speed of loading a plugin.

The old browser was not as great for samples and presets. So for now, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have a great concept and I just cannot totally see it cause of initial issues. I mean, collections don't show plugins yet and the saved filters as default are not working either. Those are huge bugs.

[pdxindy]

I saw Polarity experimenting with mod > tempo to create interesting grooves in his "Bitwig v5 is here!" vid. Pretty cool but a proper groove system would be appreciated I think.

Well, I guess groove is a form of curvy envelopes applied to timing...

I won't use everything in this new.version, but.some better groove tools definitely were top of my personal feature list.

Polarity was doing some very interesting grooves using an MSEG in steps. It would have its limitations with tempo sync'ed FX of course.

[tshear23]

Really dislike the new browser. It seems so much more inefficient at achieving the same tasks. I'd love to see Bitwig offer the option to use the old browser as a global preference. I'm finding this new one is really a step back in terms of workflow.

[Jolaff]

Really dislike the new browser. It seems so much more inefficient at achieving the same tasks. I'd love to see Bitwig offer the option to use the old browser as a global preference. I'm finding this new one is really a step back in terms of workflow.

I never really liked the old browser. This one seams to have potential but for now it seams half finished. It will depend how they still work on it ...

[billcarroll]

Really dislike the new browser. It seems so much more inefficient at achieving the same tasks. I'd love to see Bitwig offer the option to use the old browser as a global preference. I'm finding this new one is really a step back in terms of workflow.

What are some issues you're having with the new browser? It would be interesting to look at some specifics to understand how you're affected.

Have you had a chance to read through the long section about the new browser in the release notes? A lot of functionality is described there with tips on how to use the new system.

[Stan Navi]

I like new browser, but...when I try to filter 3d party plugins, it shows me all vst2, vst3 plugins, even if it duplicates, though in settings I set "prefer VST3 over VST2" (can't check right now how it calls properly). I think it is kind of bug or omission.

I like how in Studio One browser I can hide plugins/formats which I don't want to see.

[j wazza]

Have you had a chance to read through the long section about the new browser in the release notes? A lot of functionality is described there with tips on how to use the new system.

a browser isn't something you should have to read the manual for imo, it should just be an easy, intuitive way to find everything

[ralfrobert]

Really dislike the new browser. It seems so much more inefficient at achieving the same tasks. I'd love to see Bitwig offer the option to use the old browser as a global preference. I'm finding this new one is really a step back in terms of workflow.

I just found the time to take a brief look at the browser. From what the release notes say, it seems to provide solutions for problems still to come (higher number of files and file types, potential for content awareness). I think smart searches and features like that can be expanded and very useful in the future (for example "find similar"). Unfortunately, the browser is something we use on a permanent basis, so this everyday thing has to fit into existing workflows (which it does not do always) and therefore leads to negative feedback in its current state.

We should give them the chance to deliver here. In the past, innovation has been there, so they will very likely streamline it in the beta phase.

Just my 2c.

[_leras]

Polarity was doing some very interesting grooves using an MSEG in steps. It would have its limitations with tempo sync'ed FX of course.

I'll try and take a look at his experiments with this.

I'm pretty simple though and really just want to be able to apply a groove to a part/clip, that remains seperate from the notes. More like a timing overlay.

Currently it just requires some fiddly manual shifting, or playing in the groove first.

I wonder if this will be one of the upcoming point releases, along with midi comping, which is bound to be in the works.