Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1

[aMUSEd]

Just get both

[enCiphered]

I can highly recommend you to get hands-on and extensively test Bitwig's instruments yourself.

Phase-4 is an excellent synth! I do wish it had the new filters though.

I think some people's opinions about the Bitwig instruments are outdated.

Polymer is amazing these days. It's come a long way since it's introduction and with the addition of the Bite Osc and the new Filters, plus the upgraded voice stacking, Polymer is as good as any 3rd party synth. I get great sounds from Polymer. Lots of characterful tones, noisy, crunchy, gorgeous sonic goodness. Being able to use Segments as the Amp Env also adds a lot of capability.

Well, not just outdated. I'm pretty sure that many people here have never, not properly or not extensively enough tested Phase-4 and Polymer and have therefore developed a premature opinion about them.
I agree with everything you said. And the new filter modes have really breathed new life into the instruments.
The evolution of Bitwig's stock instruments and effects is a testament to the company's commitment to providing people with powerful and creative tools. These instruments are not only up to par with third-party plugins, but they often surpass them in terms of versatility, creative potential, and sonic quality.
Just my humble 2 cents..

[apoclypse]

...
If you search you will find isolated.cases of users having crashes with either…but nothing common, both are considered pretty stable as can be seen by the lack of general crash reports. Bitwig sandboxing definitely helps with stopping crashes from plugins….this may be advantageous for some users.

This is not what I have seen...
I didn´t see any videos about users complaining Bitwig would crash constantly... but I see a ton for Ableton...
In the Bitwig forum I see to 99% just praise that it doesn´t crash ever ... never saw this praise about Ableton... and the Bitwig cases are often about beta versions...

I personally used Bitwig about 500% more than Ableton...
Bitwig didn´t crash a single time... Ableton nearly everytime...

Of course I see as well many people stating Ableton would be very stable for them... I have no clue what makes the difference...

Bitwig does crash and it crashes often. What it doesn't do is take down the whole app when it does. It usually gives you the opportunity to save and restart Bitwig in a graceful way. I can't tell you how many times Bitwig's audio engine crashed in the background while every looks fine, the UI works, every is responsive, but no audio comes out. Or how many times plugins that crash constantly on load, etc. In most other DAWs those things would instantly throw you to the desktop, Bitwig is more graceful about it but I wouldn't say it's more stable because of it. They just made a good UX choice when they designed their app.

I can say using the Ableton 12 Beta I've had less crashes with the few weeks of playing with it than I did with 11. I can definitely make it crash (and Bitwig's audio engine too for that matter) just by loading in Autotune, but overall it's much more stable 11.

[apoclypse]

TBH, I also chose Bitwig because their built in instruments are really good. The synths, and the Grid is just so damn good. The way its all set up....man its hard to not have fun with it.

Do you have an example of their built in instruments sounding "really good"? You really think Organ and Polysynth sound good?

Some Grid stuff I've heard with Bitwig devices only is interesting, but more in a "it's cool that they were able to assemble that weird complicated thing", not in a "that actually sounds good, or like something I'd ever use in a track" way....

And putting Grid devices together can be a mildly interesting intellectual puzzle, but I'd much rather learn actual broadly meaningful math (that has enduring abstract value, instead of wasting time on highly contingent puzzle conditions)....

I know I'm late to the party but I'd say Polymer sounds really damn good. I know it's just a Grid container but it really does sound good. The only thing I wish is that it had two OSC instead of one. Yes I know I can add that in Grid, but then I lose the nice and easy to use container. I hate watching all these videos/pics of people's grid setup being 3 screens full of macros. That's not my idea of fun.

[PieBerger]

In my experience (again, YMMV...) I haven't found an issue with any of that in Live. So, naturally I don't care about most. "Plugin sandboxing" would be nice to have (though Live never crashes on me because I use quality/reliable VST3 plugins all the time). However, "significantly better audio editing" intrigues me..could you expand a little on that? My audio editing work in Live has been bliss so far, I ignore what I'm supposed to miss...

You can't ctrl/cmd+select multiple clips, you can't add fades to multiple selected clips, you can't slice to grid, you can't glue clips together without creating a new audio file. This is beyond a BWS vs Live thing, editing in Live is just pants. It's never going to be as good as Cubase or Studio One and the rest, but it doesn't need to be, myself (and others) just want the fundamentals to be improved to bring it inline with modern editing standards/expectations.

[apoclypse]

Ableton Live 12 Suite is the way to go. Recently I added Reason Rack Plugin to it and couldn't be happier with this combo. Bitwig offers some nice things (such as The Grid and the whole modulation thing), but as a complete package it's no Ableton, sorry. Not even close. And even less now with the upcoming 12.

As someone who has used and loved Ableton for 15 years, I can say without a doubt that you’ve used Bitwig 5.1 very little, if at all. Bitwig is easily on par with Ableton now, and the grid and modulation make it far better IMO. The only reason I’m still using Ableton at this point is because I prefer its cleaner UI, and I’m betting Bitwig 6 will fix that as well. Every other feature is eons beyond Ableton.

I think on par really depends on what you are doing. Ableton's PR is actually pretty darn good now. If you do that kind of level of work Bitwig is sorely lacking imo.

But I mostly agree. The way macros, modulators, etc work is just better designed in Bitwig. If and when Bitwig starts addressing QoL features and workflow features, it will be beastly imo.

[pdxindy]

You can't ctrl/cmd+select multiple clips, you can't add fades to multiple selected clips, you can't slice to grid, you can't glue clips together without creating a new audio file. This is beyond a BWS vs Live thing, editing in Live is just pants. It's never going to be as good as Cubase or Studio One and the rest, but it doesn't need to be, myself (and others) just want the fundamentals to be improved to bring it inline with modern editing standards/expectations.

Plus you cannot edit audio at all in Live's Session View.

It's great in Bitwig. You can cut up a clip in the Clip Launcher. And you can do all sorts of creative stuff with the audio events inside the clip. Have an audio clip looping in the clip launcher, and want a few of the events in the clip to randomize their panning on each loop? So easy!

And yeah, in Arrange, you can consolidate a bunch of clips together into one clip, loop it, and you still can go into the editor and edit the individual bits... or use the Operators with them, or Note Expressions, etc.

[machinesworking]

You can't ctrl/cmd+select multiple clips, you can't add fades to multiple selected clips, you can't slice to grid, you can't glue clips together without creating a new audio file. This is beyond a BWS vs Live thing, editing in Live is just pants. It's never going to be as good as Cubase or Studio One and the rest, but it doesn't need to be, myself (and others) just want the fundamentals to be improved to bring it inline with modern editing standards/expectations.

Plus you cannot edit audio at all in Live's Session View.

It's great in Bitwig. You can cut up a clip in the Clip Launcher. And you can do all sorts of creative stuff with the audio events inside the clip. Have an audio clip looping in the clip launcher, and want a few of the events in the clip to randomize their panning on each loop? So easy!

And yeah, in Arrange, you can consolidate a bunch of clips together into one clip, loop it, and you still can go into the editor and edit the individual bits... or use the Operators with them, or Note Expressions, etc.

Yep this is another big plus of Bitwig, that clips can contain multiple audio files and you can slice and dice them in the clip. It’s funny but Live is now the only Clip capable DAW I know that can’t host multiple audio files in a single clip, both DP and Logic can, but neither are a viable solution if you like Bitwig or Lives conductor (tempo) control in launcher/session clips, because both do not have the ability to change tempo with clips.

[a9k1tp]

Bitwig is the solution to the workflow mess and bad habits that Ableton introduced and taught people.

You can't put a midi plugin and a synth on a same track on Ableton, it's really annoying. Ableton is full of workflow mess like this.

[S950]

For me this comes down to Ableton feeling like it’s carrying the weight of design and architecture choices that are quite old now, and that will remain no matter how many new features are added.

Bitwig isn’t carrying that weight on account of not going first, and it shows in many aspects.

Both DAWs offer great features and I’d be able make music without too many real limitations in both. These two DAWs have more things in common than they have apart.

[pdxindy]

You can't put a midi plugin and a synth on a same track on Ableton, it's really annoying. Ableton is full of workflow mess like this.

Isn't that addressed now in V12?

[machinesworking]

For me this comes down to Ableton feeling like it’s carrying the weight of design and architecture choices that are quite old now, and that will remain no matter how many new features are added.

Bitwig isn’t carrying that weight on account of not going first, and it shows in many aspects.

Both DAWs offer great features and I’d be able make music without too many real limitations in both. These two DAWs have more things in common than they have apart.

Both have dead ends and signs of bloatware. Bitwig does with its badly implemented monitor support. lost in space touch support. Live has some old school bus style routing limitations and the mentioned one audio file per clip…

Nothing stops me from making music in either, we’re spoiled for choice these days.

[liquidsound]

Bitwig is the solution to the workflow mess and bad habits that Ableton introduced and taught people.

You can't put a midi plugin and a synth on a same track on Ableton, it's really annoying. Ableton is full of workflow mess like this.

Easy. You do this once for Scaler (for example).

Add a MIDI track and put Scaler on it.
Add a MIDI empty track (or add your a VST you usually use with Scaler. I often use Riffer and Diva).
Route the empty (or loaded) MIDI track to the Scaler track.
Group them, Rename and save as a Clip. DONE!

Anytime you need SCALER just drag the Clip into your Arrangement. All set up for you. Put your favorite VST in the "empty" MIDI track.

Note: You can also drive your VST, in addition to MIDI coming in, with additional midi notes in the VST track.
For example, If I use the Riffer and Diva I may have chords in the Diva track as well and have it both going.

It's not messy at all and actually quite flexible if, for example, you use a random generator as a MIDI device, you can immediately record (print) the midi, while creating Take Lanes in the process, and go straight to MIDI comping.

[mholloway]

You can't put a midi plugin and a synth on a same track on Ableton, it's really annoying. Ableton is full of workflow mess like this.

Isn't that addressed now in V12?

Nope. You still have to have the third party MIDI tool on a separate track, then change the MIDI input routing on your instrument track. It's a bit annoying having to switch back and forth between multiple tracks, one for controlling the MIDI device and one for the actual instrument interface, but it works. Bitwig does feel a lot faster in this regard.

[vertibration]

You can't put a midi plugin and a synth on a same track on Ableton, it's really annoying. Ableton is full of workflow mess like this.

Isn't that addressed now in V12?

Nope. You still have to have the third party MIDI tool on a separate track, then change the MIDI input routing on your instrument track. It's a bit annoying having to switch back and forth between multiple tracks, one for controlling the MIDI device and one for the actual instrument interface, but it works. Bitwig does feel a lot faster in this regard.

Cthulhu on a synth track with no routing is superb