If you had to stick to one DAW, which one would it be?

[voidhead23]

The only things that I don't like in Bitwig (and Live) are:
1. No mapping for 3rd part drums. So, if I want to use Addictive Drums and do my beats with it, I choose either S1 or Cubase.

There is a way to do this in Live, it's just really clunky. I set up my mapping for my EZD/Kontakt libraries, save the multi group in the User Library and then i'm set.

[Jac459]

I use Ableton Live as well but always get a feeling it"s only for the cool kids or cool, very successful people which I am not.

I'm neither cool nor successful and still like Live best... It's the one DAW simple enough to not get in the way.

Common, you are "a bit" cool!

[Jac459]

Is it cool because of this "excel-like" look ? :-p

Maybe that's a good thing because it makes it easy and simple to use. In contrast I downloaded the Bitwig demo yesterday and spent a good half hour trying to figure out the browser and how to load stuff. Ableton's browser is simplicity itself.

I regret I didn't click well with Live because their whole ecosystem is really interesting...

[machinesworking]

The only things that I don't like in Bitwig (and Live) are:
1. No mapping for 3rd part drums. So, if I want to use Addictive Drums and do my beats with it, I choose either S1 or Cubase.
2. Can't play midi patterns for drums. There are tons of midi patterns for advanced drumming and again only with S1 or Cubase I can play those midi and make Addictive Drums playing them, for example.

Why Bitwig and Live don't become my 100% full time DAWs.

1. Super simplistic quantize settings.

2. No articulation maps for orchestral libraries.

3. no ARA or onboard solution for pitch correction at Melodyne level.

4. No groove pool in Bitwig, or video scoring, or SysEx support.

5. No count off click for just practicing in Live, you have to quickly turn off record while count off is happening. No click variations to speak of.

6. Simple MIDI editing in both.

7. Simple and basic arrangements that pale in comparison to DP, Logic or Cubase.

8. Limited selection of possible key shortcuts in Bitwig, hardwired super limited selection in Live.

9. "Always On" real time engines in both, so much much lower tracks counts in both. A quick Diva test had 16 tracks with 6 voices before overload in Bitwig and Live, VS 22 in Digital Performer and Reaper on the same machine with the same settings. that's 72% of Reaper and DP's capabilities, and with slight variations, that's been consistent for over a decade.

10. I find that I enjoy using both Bitwig and Live if I'm doing a song with 20 or so tracks at most, beyond that I end up feeling like I'm babysitting the UX of the DAW compared to the "dinosaurs", the older DAWs with "bloatware" have features for managing large projects, whereas I don't feel like Live or Bitwig were designed for that.

Of course use whatever you enjoy, and I own and use both, I'm just stating this because people constantly mention Bitwig and Live for their UX, but IMO it comes at a cost, you lose depth when you sacrifice functions for intuitiveness.

[Jac459]

The only things that I don't like in Bitwig (and Live) are:
1. No mapping for 3rd part drums. So, if I want to use Addictive Drums and do my beats with it, I choose either S1 or Cubase.
2. Can't play midi patterns for drums. There are tons of midi patterns for advanced drumming and again only with S1 or Cubase I can play those midi and make Addictive Drums playing them, for example.

Why Bitwig and Live don't become my 100% full time DAWs.

1. Super simplistic quantize settings.

2. No articulation maps for orchestral libraries.

3. no ARA or onboard solution for pitch correction at Melodyne level.

4. No groove pool in Bitwig, or video scoring, or SysEx support.

5. No count off click for just practicing in Live, you have to quickly turn off record while count off is happening. No click variations to speak of.

6. Simple MIDI editing in both.

7. Simple and basic arrangements that pale in comparison to DP, Logic or Cubase.

8. Limited selection of possible key shortcuts in Bitwig, hardwired super limited selection in Live.

9. "Always On" real time engines in both, so much much lower tracks counts in both. A quick Diva test had 16 tracks with 6 voices before overload in Bitwig and Live, VS 22 in Digital Performer and Reaper on the same machine with the same settings. that's 72% of Reaper and DP's capabilities, and with slight variations, that's been consistent for over a decade.

10. I find that I enjoy using both Bitwig and Live if I'm doing a song with 20 or so tracks at most, beyond that I end up feeling like I'm babysitting the UX of the DAW compared to the "dinosaurs", the older DAWs with "bloatware" have features for managing large projects, whereas I don't feel like Live or Bitwig were designed for that.

Of course use whatever you enjoy, and I own and use both, I'm just stating this because people constantly mention Bitwig and Live for their UX, but IMO it comes at a cost, you lose depth when you sacrifice functions for intuitiveness.

Interesting analysis.

2 remarks though:
1 - There is a ton of configurable shortcuts in bitwig that you can map however you want. I don't get what you are missing.
2 - Both bitwig and live comme with a ton of features that don't exist elsewhere. Your point that each daw has specific features is certainly true but saying that cubase or Logic have a superset of features of live and bitwig is certainly not (you don't explicitly say that neither).

I agree that real time has its advantages and drawbacks. Like sandboximg, you get a rock solid stability while losing certainly marginally on resource consumption.

[EnGee]

Why Bitwig and Live don't become my 100% full time DAWs.

1. Super simplistic quantize settings.

2. No articulation maps for orchestral libraries.

3. no ARA or onboard solution for pitch correction at Melodyne level.

4. No groove pool in Bitwig, or video scoring, or SysEx support.

5. No count off click for just practicing in Live, you have to quickly turn off record while count off is happening. No click variations to speak of.

6. Simple MIDI editing in both.

7. Simple and basic arrangements that pale in comparison to DP, Logic or Cubase.

8. Limited selection of possible key shortcuts in Bitwig, hardwired super limited selection in Live.

9. "Always On" real time engines in both, so much much lower tracks counts in both. A quick Diva test had 16 tracks with 6 voices before overload in Bitwig and Live, VS 22 in Digital Performer and Reaper on the same machine with the same settings. that's 72% of Reaper and DP's capabilities, and with slight variations, that's been consistent for over a decade.

10. I find that I enjoy using both Bitwig and Live if I'm doing a song with 20 or so tracks at most, beyond that I end up feeling like I'm babysitting the UX of the DAW compared to the "dinosaurs", the older DAWs with "bloatware" have features for managing large projects, whereas I don't feel like Live or Bitwig were designed for that.

Of course use whatever you enjoy, and I own and use both, I'm just stating this because people constantly mention Bitwig and Live for their UX, but IMO it comes at a cost, you lose depth when you sacrifice functions for intuitiveness.

I understand your points and I agree with them. If I'm into film scoring or orchestral works (or any work that require large projects), mostly my choice would be between Cubase and Logic (I don't know or tried DP or Pro Tools). However, I'm into small projects with tracks number don't exceed 16 (including drums!), so Bitwig or Live is perfect for what I want. Of course I could also use Cubase or Logic and I will be also fine! But the 'depth' is what I don't need most of the times, as my editing is not that demanding and I don't use MPE or articulations, but I do use modulations and automations (not that complex). So, 'compact' DAW feels more comfortable to use

[syntonica]

... Škoda cars ...

Oh crap! Škoda has a haček on it? I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years! (We have some Škoda-built electric trains here.)

This is becoming a pattern. I've been pronouncing 'güiro' wrong too, until I saw the word in a Spanish sentence. Typical Americans can't write foreign words correctly...

I'll never be one of the cool kids.

[liquidsound]

Is it cool because of this "excel-like" look ? :-p

Maybe that's a good thing because it makes it easy and simple to use. In contrast I downloaded the Bitwig demo yesterday and spent a good half hour trying to figure out the browser and how to load stuff. Ableton's browser is simplicity itself.

I regret I didn't click well with Live because their whole ecosystem is really interesting...

Unfortunately you don’t like the fact that Excel looks like Ableton
You should stop using Microsoft then

[machinesworking]

2 remarks though:
1 - There is a ton of configurable shortcuts in bitwig that you can map however you want. I don't get what you are missing.

There are twice as many shortcuts in Logic and DP, three times as many likely in Reaper. This has to do with a much wider set of tools for linear arrangements than Bitwig has. This goes to the next point...

2 - Both bitwig and live comme with a ton of features that don't exist elsewhere. Your point that each daw has specific features is certainly true but saying that cubase or Logic have a superset of features of live and bitwig is certainly not (you don't explicitly say that neither).

Well it would be a lie to say they don't really. Barring the Grid, Bitwig is very limited compared to Logic, Reaper, or DP (I've never been a Cubase user so I can't qualify there), just in terms of arrangement timelines, and all that entails. Where they both excel is with uninterrupted audio, time stretching, (not pitch really though), modern control surface support miles above the others, and in the case of Bitwig MPE and CLAP support, (although DP does MPE well and Reaper has CLAP).

You can't really compare the arrangement tools in them though, the Bitwig/Live method is about simplicity, not extensibility. Doesn't mean you can't get work done in them, just that Logic and DP have 30+ years of development

I agree that real time has its advantages and drawbacks. Like sandboximg, you get a rock solid stability while losing certainly marginally on resource consumption.

For sure, although these days I'm pretty good at managing plug ins and finding the sketchy ones. It's a feature all DAWs should have. It's the only DAW I will run Hybrid 3 in or any of the older Air plug ins that haven't been worked on in years. To be honest though, I haven't seen any significant increase in track count running all plug ins sanboxed or running them in Bitwig, they mention Memory in terms of system resources and there is zero change in track count or CPU use from running them all sandboxed. So IMO that part has little to do with Bitwigs CPU use, that's more about not having some sort of secondary buffer or rendering of audio not in real time, for tracks that are not record enabled. This is really super easy to prove if you own Logic, DP, Reaper etc. Bitwig and Live will show almost ZERO difference in CPU when a track is armed or not, but get 70% of what DP, Logic etc. can get CPU wise. Those DAWs on the other hand have significant hits on CPU from record arming tracks, since it gets rid of that buffer that gives them extra CPU.

Digital Performer introduced a Live Performance Mode, that to a degree acts like what Live and Biwig do, it's a step towards a solution that doesn't ignore the benefits of either method.

Basically there are significant advantages to either approach, my biggest issue with Bitwig is it follows Lives approach too much, some parts are simple, then you can go into the weeds building an FM synth in the Grid, the same thing is true in Live with Max. Don't get me wrong though I love them both, it's just that I do end up missing the old school feature set when I work in them at times. My perfect DAW would be Bitwig mixed with DP, Max/MSP, and Metasynth!

[syntonica]

Unfortunately you don’t like the fact that Excel looks like Ableton
You should stop using Microsoft then

I always thought Live looked like Max. Very 1999.

[liquidsound]

Unfortunately you don’t like the fact that Excel looks like Ableton
You should stop using Microsoft then

I always thought Live looked like Max. Very 1999.

A classic then!

[syntonica]

Unfortunately you don’t like the fact that Excel looks like Ableton
You should stop using Microsoft then

I always thought Live looked like Max. Very 1999.

A classic then!

Tragically ugly! So ugly, in fact, I could never get into Max as its ugliness was so distracting.

[machinesworking]

Tragically ugly! So ugly, in fact, I could never get into Max as its ugliness was so distracting.

personally I appreciated the Windows 95, Excel look a lot more than the jelly bean early OS X , Vista look.

[Jac459]

[Unfortunately you don’t like the fact that Excel looks like Ableton
You should stop using Microsoft then

Definitely agree. 100% with you on this one.

Tbh, it is not that I dislike ableton, it is that I love bitwig too much.

[Jac459]

2 remarks though:
1 - There is a ton of configurable shortcuts in bitwig that you can map however you want. I don't get what you are missing.

There are twice as many shortcuts in Logic and DP, three times as many likely in Reaper. This has to do with a much wider set of tools for linear arrangements than Bitwig has. This goes to the next point...

2 - Both bitwig and live comme with a ton of features that don't exist elsewhere. Your point that each daw has specific features is certainly true but saying that cubase or Logic have a superset of features of live and bitwig is certainly not (you don't explicitly say that neither).

Well it would be a lie to say they don't really. Barring the Grid, Bitwig is very limited compared to Logic, Reaper, or DP (I've never been a Cubase user so I can't qualify there), just in terms of arrangement timelines, and all that entails. Where they both excel is with uninterrupted audio, time stretching, (not pitch really though), modern control surface support miles above the others, and in the case of Bitwig MPE and CLAP support, (although DP does MPE well and Reaper has CLAP).

You can't really compare the arrangement tools in them though, the Bitwig/Live method is about simplicity, not extensibility. Doesn't mean you can't get work done in them, just that Logic and DP have 30+ years of development

I agree that real time has its advantages and drawbacks. Like sandboximg, you get a rock solid stability while losing certainly marginally on resource consumption.

For sure, although these days I'm pretty good at managing plug ins and finding the sketchy ones. It's a feature all DAWs should have. It's the only DAW I will run Hybrid 3 in or any of the older Air plug ins that haven't been worked on in years. To be honest though, I haven't seen any significant increase in track count running all plug ins sanboxed or running them in Bitwig, they mention Memory in terms of system resources and there is zero change in track count or CPU use from running them all sandboxed. So IMO that part has little to do with Bitwigs CPU use, that's more about not having some sort of secondary buffer or rendering of audio not in real time, for tracks that are not record enabled. This is really super easy to prove if you own Logic, DP, Reaper etc. Bitwig and Live will show almost ZERO difference in CPU when a track is armed or not, but get 70% of what DP, Logic etc. can get CPU wise. Those DAWs on the other hand have significant hits on CPU from record arming tracks, since it gets rid of that buffer that gives them extra CPU.

Digital Performer introduced a Live Performance Mode, that to a degree acts like what Live and Biwig do, it's a step towards a solution that doesn't ignore the benefits of either method.

Basically there are significant advantages to either approach, my biggest issue with Bitwig is it follows Lives approach too much, some parts are simple, then you can go into the weeds building an FM synth in the Grid, the same thing is true in Live with Max. Don't get me wrong though I love them both, it's just that I do end up missing the old school feature set when I work in them at times. My perfect DAW would be Bitwig mixed with DP, Max/MSP, and Metasynth!

Thank you for your detailed feedback.
I am not as experienced as you on DAW as I used only reason, Live, bitwig and cubasis recently.
Decades ago, I used cubase and cakewalk, but it isn't relevant anymore.

That being said, if you are looking at the arrangement, surely you can find better feature coverage on the older DAWs, but talking about modulations, it seems to me that they are far behind. Bitwig on this very important aspect is king to me with audiorate modulations and so many different modulations proposed.
You were referring to do fm in the Grid but you actually don't even need the grid... you can do fm with just the modulations.
It is bloody powerful.

Now, are modulations more important than arrangement ? Or recoding ? It definitely depends. It is very much workflow dependant...