Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1

[enCiphered]

I can highly recommend you to get hands-on and extensively test Bitwig's instruments yourself. The sound, as a pure raw criterion, is fantastic and crystal clear, compared to similar instruments in other DAWs or third-party plugins. The short example videos you've linked lacks depth; perhaps you can get a better insight here:
But as mentioned, better try for yourself if you can find the time.

I already have. I was using Bitwig as my primary DAW for many years. And I've also already skimmed through that video and honestly it sounds like crap on my studio monitors. But your tastes are obviously different from mine (or your monitoring situation absolutely sucks)....

Gotcha! I had a feeling you were trolling. Not the sharpest troll around, but well

[xbitz]

Bitwig has two good synthesizers, the Diva and the Hive, well at least those are ... but Combos of Curves and Wavetable osc. also can also turn out well



ps. but now with the DUNE 3.5 genetics feature, you can put together an endless amount of new good-sounding presets, it's not that interesting anymore.

[Ou_Tis]

I can highly recommend you to get hands-on and extensively test Bitwig's instruments yourself. The sound, as a pure raw criterion, is fantastic and crystal clear, compared to similar instruments in other DAWs or third-party plugins. The short example videos you've linked lacks depth; perhaps you can get a better insight here:
But as mentioned, better try for yourself if you can find the time.

I already have. I was using Bitwig as my primary DAW for many years. And I've also already skimmed through that video and honestly it sounds like crap on my studio monitors. But your tastes are obviously different from mine (or your monitoring situation absolutely sucks)....

Gotcha! I had a feeling you were trolling. Not the sharpest troll around, but well

If you can't hear how ear-splittingly shrill that video gets then either your speakers are garbage or your hearing is shot. I literally find it painful to listen to. It's also ugly in a boring and aesthetically unpleasing way and the sound is unimpressive. While FM-4 does sound okay, as I said before---with comparable sound quality to Drift---it's nowhere near as good as, say, Bazille.

Bitwig has two good synthesizers, the Diva and the Hive, well at least those are ... but Combos of Curves and Wavetable osc. also can also turn out well



ps. but now with the DUNE 3.5 genetic feature, you can put together an endless amount of new good-sounding presets, it's not that interesting anymore.

lol Diva and Hive are U-he plugins. I actually don't like most of the factory presets in Diva, though there are some nice third-party preset banks. I do like U-he Repro, Bazille, and Hive2.

[liquidsound]

ps. but now with the DUNE 3.5 genetics feature, you can put together an endless amount of new good-sounding presets, it's not that interesting anymore.

If Dune 3.5 had the added function built in some of synths in the Reason Rack (such as Objekt, Algoritm) of dynamic randomization (via Slide) while playing the preset, would be even better. Actually superb!

In Dune 3.5 the amount has to be set before Randomization is initiated...

[billcarroll]

Incredible how much freaking energy you all put into endlessly debating which DAW is superior instead of just embracing the one you are using most. I'm pretty sure what actually matters to you guys isn't highlighting the awesome features of your chosen DAW, but more like having the final say.
It's nuts... anyone who has that much time can't be a real musician or music creator. (Insert a picture of a monkey wearing a crown here)

I suspect you might be on to something here.

[pdxindy]

You really think Organ and Polysynth sound good?

Yes, I do. I like Organ! Each of the partials can be modulated, including by pitch tracking FM. I have a couple dozen lovely pads saved using Organ. And it's very low on CPU.

Polysynth is also fine for lots of sounds and is also low on CPU use. It's a handy synth.

[syntonica]

I was okay with the built-in synths in Bitwig. Not great, but serviceable. But I think the new filters are a perfect addition that will open up a ton more sonic possibilities.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bitwig, but it will be what I will get if I ever have to switch DAWs from Mulab.

[pdxindy]

Personally I think Polymer is about the only instrument of note in Bitwig, everything has now been sort of rolled in to that. There is a lot better choice in Live Suite

If I could only use the included synths, I would rather have the ones in Bitwig compared to Live.

The Live instruments are limited in modulation. I don't just mean total number of modulators, but the modulators they have are pretty basic. For example, the envelopes are mostly just simple ADSR's... what if you want an DADSR in some case?

Of course that is easy to overcome by using 3rd Part Plugins which is why I mostly used plugin synths when I still used Live.

The Bitwig Instruments are much more flexible. The instruments can each have unlimited per voice modulation, including a variety of powerful modulators that none of the Live synths have at all.

Plus the Bitwig instruments also support Voice Stacking and Note Expressions. They also have a variety of MPE capabilities not possible in Live instruments.

[liquidsound]

Wrong: Always crashes... just one time I lost all! That´s a bit of a difference!

So let me get this straight.

You have demoed Live in the past, according to your post in another thread, and while in demo mode, it crashed various times and did recover your work as you reported.
That’s already a red flag…

Then you get inspired by v12 and you buy the Suite (past knowledge = Crashes) without properly demo it…

You know Ableton crashes on you (for some strange reason) but you go ahead and work on a production without saving (crashing amnesia?) and you complaining that Ableton has crashed on you and “have being crashing on a regular basis” as stated in your above quote….?

Then someone suggested to use a M4L device for auto-save and you have the audacity to say that you will not use something not built in (M4L is Live and devices blends quite well in it and getting better and better with stability) but you rather rely on your lack of awareness in saving your work (proving M4L is a better choice than your own responsibility for your own “precious” work)?

You have 3 choices:

1 - Sale the damn thing before it becomes history.

2 - Keep it and try to understand what’s going on with your system.

3 - Keep it and get the included upgrade to v12 and see if it works better with your system or whatever…

Also, complaining about the Browser “as is” is understandable but you know that a new browser is coming which means complaining for something that is not going to be with you in the near future, is a waste of time because is a momentary issue and you make it sound like a burden for life…

Ableton is above you head/temperament. Sell it and move on.

I did an entire year full immersion in Bitwig (overall not a pleasant experience but I gave it a year of production before making a competent and objective decision) and for sure it never crashed on me.

If that’s important to you then Bitwig is your solution.

If the DAW, as an ecosystem is more important, then pick that one and learn to work with its not so bright aspect, in your case: save your freaking work and if you don’t have the discipline for it then get the Dreadful M4L device to save you butt.

Sorry for the blunt post but you’re not new to this world of production and somehow you have been sounding like an amateur, and quite the opposite, you are not , you seem to know your craft quite well (that’s my impression).

You got that right.
Looks like he’s going for choice 1.

[pdxindy]

lol Diva and Hive are U-he plugins. I actually don't like most of the factory presets in Diva, though there are some nice third-party preset banks. I do like U-he Repro, Bazille, and Hive2.

ACE, Bazille, Diva and Hive (and soon RePro) are like XL upgrades in Bitwig using the CLAP versions and PolyMod. They also support Bitwig's Note expressions which are an underrated feature. The PolyMod capability gives them MPE capabilities not possible with other DAW's. Totally unique.

[JerGoertz]

Incredible how much freaking energy you all put into endlessly debating which DAW is superior instead of just embracing the one you are using most. I'm pretty sure what actually matters to you guys isn't highlighting the awesome features of your chosen DAW, but more like having the final say.
It's nuts... anyone who has that much time can't be a real musician or music creator. (Insert a picture of a monkey wearing a crown here)

I suspect you might be on to something here.

No, it's absolutely essential that we determine, once and for, which is best

[PieBerger]

Somehow, it feels like Bitwig is better put together, or has a newer codebase or something

It's more modern software, so naturally the codebase is newer and as a result the dev team were able to fix some of Live's shortcomings from day 1. I have made my peace with Ableton never implementing certain features e.g. bounce in place, ctrl/cmd select, because it's apparent it is simply not possible for them to be implemented in Live, due to its legacy framework most likely. Bitwig doesn't appear to be held back by the same issues, only the usual barriers of limited development time/cost, priority etc.

[xbitz]

this is what we know about it

Bitwig Studio only uses very small parts of Java, no Swing or anything like that. The audio engine is of course written in C++ (and Assembler, makes heavy use of the CPUs vector units), and also parts of the GUI are implemented natively, such as drawing the GUI on screen and other things...

https://www.facebook.com/bitwig/posts/676830755689149

[SLiC]

Incredible how much freaking energy you all put into endlessly debating which DAW is superior instead of just embracing the one you are using most. I'm pretty sure what actually matters to you guys isn't highlighting the awesome features of your chosen DAW, but more like having the final say.
It's nuts... anyone who has that much time can't be a real musician or music creator. (Insert a picture of a monkey wearing a crown here)

I suspect you might be on to something here.

No, it's absolutely essential that we determine, once and for, which is best

This thread is very specific to 'Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1', as soon as Live 12.1 or Bitwig 5.2 comes out we will of course need a new thread...

[xbitz]

sadly, the fact that the .dawproject does not carry over the input gains(so needs some light CPU stuff like FreeG Fader Plug-in), nor the ProEQ Linear-Phase Low-Cut Filter(from S1, https://blog.presonus.com/2020/07/17/pr ... -facelift/), deserves a tsk-tsk