Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1

[pdxindy]

You don't need iLok for Melodyne anymore

Good to know

[SLiC]

You don't need iLok for Melodyne anymore

Good to know

Especially if Bitwig ever does drop ARA but its a useful VST IMO, Editor will be enough for the vast majority of people but Studio does have some nice stuff like the sound editor and 'quantise to a reference track' (I have used this to quantise midi to my live recordings where my timing is all over the place!). Cheap upgrades and offers all the time...

Currently neither Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1 has audio quantise (and may never had it natively) so I think it is worth looking at, and if not needing or even using features was a thing I wouldn't own much software at all

[pdxindy]

Most of my compositions are all original material.

All of mine are- I play guitar/bass/drums and sing, no midi for that so I need Melodyne!

Good you have it then... I don't need it cause I'm not looking to edit audio that way. When I record an instrument, if I am not happy with it, I record it again until I am. I find playing more fun than editing.

[Ou_Tis]

So I guess we've found the answer to "Bitwig vs Ableton" and it's Tracktion, since Waveform comes with Melodyne Essential....

Even in Melodyne pitch shifting by more than a tiny amount causes changes in timbre that usually make the audio sound worse---I often spend a lot of time tweaking Melodyne's per-note Timbre to compensate.

But if you don't care that much about audio quality, or your recordings or samples sound like noisy garbage fires to begin with, or you're going for an obvious intentional pitch-shifting effect, then you could just use whatever your DAW has....

[pdxindy]

In no way are either tech anything to write off, but there you go.

Plenty of tech I can write off cause it doesn't do something I have a need for.

For example, software that can split existing songs/clips into stems. The tech is impressive. I have zero need for it.

[pdxindy]

So I guess we've found the answer to "Bitwig vs Ableton"

It's Bitwig

For me...

[SLiC]

Most of my compositions are all original material.

All of mine are- I play guitar/bass/drums and sing, no midi for that so I need Melodyne!

Good you have it then... I don't need it cause I'm not looking to edit audio that way. When I record an instrument, if I am not happy with it, I record it again until I am. I find playing more fun than editing.

I do agree with that, thats why I comp midi when I record MPE boards like the Osmose, MPE midi expression editing is a nightmare. I am happy to tweak one bum note in an otherwise good guitar solo though…I often find my first take has the best feel (If not note perfect) and the more I play it the worse it gets! I’m afraid when I sing that needs a lot more work

[Ou_Tis]

Most of my compositions are all original material.

All of mine are- I play guitar/bass/drums and sing, no midi for that so I need Melodyne!

Good you have it then... I don't need it cause I'm not looking to edit audio that way. When I record an instrument, if I am not happy with it, I record it again until I am. I find playing more fun than editing.

I do agree with that, thats why I comp midi when I record MPE boards like the Osmose, MPE midi expression editing is a nightmare. I am happy to tweak one bum note in an otherwise good guitar solo though…I often find my first take has the best feel (If not note perfect) and the more I play it the worse it gets! I’m afraid when I sing that needs a lot more work

It's not that bad in Ableton and Bitwig---though in Bitwig you may want to check that it's accurately recording MPE pitchbend automation from your controller, especially if it's one of the more sensitive MPE controllers. That's the main reason why I finally switched to Ableton. (That, and plugins not working correctly in Bitwig....)

In Cubase MPE expression editing is a nightmare. Especially polyphonic pitchbend. That's why I bought Ableton (well, upgraded from Lite) even though I already have Cubase Pro (which I almost never use).

[machinesworking]

One solid on the Ableton side is Menu items support in Mac OS. In case some of you don't know you can customize keyboard shortcuts for any Menu item in Mac OS, Windows ties shortcuts to the window itself leaving Windows incapable of customizing the shortcuts, and unfortunately Bitwig follows Windows conventions with it's menus, they are not accessible in Mac OS.

Even further, there is an iPad app called Metagrid that can access any Mac OS Menu item without assigning a keyboard shortcut, so most all of the commands in Live can be accessed via Metagrids customizable interface.

It sucks because Bitwig could easily stomp on Live here, but with the customizability even with the limited amount of keyboard shortcuts Live has the upper hand.

[liquidsound]

Currently neither Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1 has audio quantise...

What do you mean with quantize in your context?
AFAIK even Live 11 has Audio Quantize unless you mean Auto-quantize on recording audio...

[SLiC]

Currently neither Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1 has audio quantise...

What do you mean with quantize in your context?
AFAIK even Live 11 has Audio Quantize unless you mean Auto-quantize on recording audio...

Sorry, we were talking audio pitch correction, quantise to key/scale etc.

[liquidsound]

Currently neither Live 12 or Bitwig 5.1 has audio quantise...

What do you mean with quantize in your context?
AFAIK even Live 11 has Audio Quantize unless you mean Auto-quantize on recording audio...

Sorry, we were talking audio pitch correction, quantise to key/scale etc.

[Nathanananan]

For me Bitwig wins because it has Rent to Own.
Money is tight AF around here and I just can't shell out $550-$750 for Live in one go.
Ableton does offer payment plans but the payments are too high for me.

[apoclypse]

So I guess we've found the answer to "Bitwig vs Ableton" and it's Tracktion, since Waveform comes with Melodyne Essential....

Even in Melodyne pitch shifting by more than a tiny amount causes changes in timbre that usually make the audio sound worse---I often spend a lot of time tweaking Melodyne's per-note Timbre to compensate.

But if you don't care that much about audio quality, or your recordings or samples sound like noisy garbage fires to begin with, or you're going for an obvious intentional pitch-shifting effect, then you could just use whatever your DAW has....

I mean by that logic, Studio One should win this hands down. If audio features are your thing S1 is really hard to beat. Neither Ableton or Bitwig's audio features are that great imo. They are okay, they work, but if I seriously need to edit audio I'm not using either apps. Just adding comping and normalization doesn't all of sudden make Bitwig or Ableton good at audio imo.

[xbitz]

well yepp, I hope that this year Bitwig's plan will be to bring their audio and MIDI (piano roll, retro recording, and ARA integration) handling up to the level of other DAWs, right up to per clip MIDI, FX chains, and meanwhile add new modules to the Grid

I would even be happy if things could not only be converted into the Grid, but also from the Grid, with some nice UI builder, but that's it


Just go for it Bitwig, there's again something to draw inspiration from