Bitwig Studio 5.3 is here!

[Zombie Queen]

Did they fix follow playback button switching itself off at random times?

[_leras]

Yeah, I don‘t complain about their pricing model, which is fair, if one uses it right. If I had activated subscription last year April, when old ran out, I‘d be disappointed though.

Pricing model
Choose when you want to upgrade
If you buy upgrade in a sale that's fine and you can activate whenever you like
After you buy we'll also throw in the following years releases so you stay up to date

I still don't see a downside..

[SamDi]

Pricing model
Choose when you want to upgrade
If you buy upgrade in a sale that's fine and you can activate whenever you like
After you buy we'll also throw in the following years releases so you stay up to date

I still don't see a downside..

There is no downside. Ok there might be
one, if you say, you want to support the dev and keep upgrade subscription running continuously and then there are years, where is not happening so much or at least not at the topics, where you hoped to see some progress. But since you have it your hand how to handle it, it‘s OK.

On the other side, I feel it is a little pity for the devs, because I think they could gain much more economic success, if they would focus on core DAW features and thus make it much more attractive for users to buy upgrade subscriptions in much shorter intervals.

[pdxindy]

On the other side, I feel it is a little pity for the devs, because I think they could gain much more economic success, if they would focus on core DAW features and thus make it much more attractive for users to buy upgrade subscriptions in much shorter intervals.

The core of the DAW has been a focus in the past 2 updates.

In 5.3 they did a lot of work on the Audio System. They also added support for Windows Arm. These are both core features of the DAW.

In 5.2, they re-wrote the graphics engine to support GPU's and Hardware Acceleration. That is also a core feature of the DAW.

In both updates, the beta period lasted a long time because of those core changes and getting them right took longer. It was not some drum devices or grid modules that delayed the beta process, which shows where the real development effort went.

[_leras]

[quote=SamDi post_id=9045182
On the other side, I feel it is a little pity for the devs, because I think they could gain much more economic success, if they would focus on core DAW features and thus make it much more attractive for users to buy upgrade subscriptions in much shorter intervals.
[/quote]
I get what you mean, but they (it seems) have been working on some real fundamentals.

I'm pretty sure 6.0 will have what you mean/hope by core changes i.e. improved arranger, improved piano roll. I also want these, but could be argued these are more like improvements to what is there.

It's pretty hard to add 'game changer' features, given how good it is already. It's more just where they can make additions and incremtal improvements.

[Tj Shredder]

Complaining they should work on “core” DAW features without naming them doesn’t do anything. Yes I would need ARA, Midi comping and Midi 2.0, which I would not even call core features. I guess each individual would want something different as a core feature. Its different for each genre and use case…
Stability btw. Is a core feature where Bitwig shines, as crashing plugins don’t crash the project…

[Trancit]

It's pretty hard to add 'game changer' features, given how good it is already. It's more just where they can make additions and incremtal improvements.

Idk... sometimes it´s not about "game changing feature" but a simple catch up with your competition...
And that has nothing to do with turning Bitwig into DAW XYZ... this has to do with simple QoL improvements and there are many of them Bitwig is not capable of but all others do, apart from the single key strengths every DAW has.

I really hope that they do some real improvements in these areas like they have announced for the next update...
I.e. Polarity has achieved already a lot with "simple" controller scripts which proves that it´s not that hard to do to add some needed functionality to the PR, especially not if you have access to the code anyway...

[xbitz]

^^^ EZkeys 2: Grid Editor


from 0:33, so basically, a massive piano roll update and a arranger, chord track— and there should be some kind of audio-MIDI scrub tool, then as far as I'm concerned, long live Bitwig. , (and as a bonus, MIDI comping, and MIDI retrospective record) I always end up thinking that Cubase should be stripped down and added to Bitwig—and their love child, now that would be something!

[BBFG#]

This seemed promising enough and got me to download and install. CPU usage went immediately to 100% and backed down slightly from that. I just left it open and after a few minutes it went down and idled around 33%.
Added an instrument layer in the track and added Pianoteq with BioTek3 in it and it didn't raise significantly. After a few minutes of playing it did seem to settle down to around 25%. Audio didn't seem to have the issues I had on the previous version 5. However, functions within it stopped working. Could not add or delete any more and could not even open settings to see if anything was causing it. Also it shut down all MIDI input controls except note on/off/velocity. Specifically, it disabled pitch/modulation and sustain/sostenuto pedals. Had to use task manager end task to quit. Opened Pianoteq stand alone and while the audio engine was fine (which is an improvement from earlier versions), the MIDI controllers were all turned off and once again, only a reboot of the OS resets everything back.
Bitwig is the only DAW I have that has these issues and only since version 5.
Bitwig 4 doesn't shut anything down and still works, however, Windows update has caused something in it that now makes it idle around 45% before adding any plugin.
So I have a mixed bag of disappointment here.

[D-Fusion]

This seemed promising enough and got me to download and install. CPU usage went immediately to 100% and backed down slightly from that. I just left it open and after a few minutes it went down and idled around 33%.
Added an instrument layer in the track and added Pianoteq with BioTek3 in it and it didn't raise significantly. After a few minutes of playing it did seem to settle down to around 25%. Audio didn't seem to have the issues I had on the previous version 5. However, functions within it stopped working. Could not add or delete any more and could not even open settings to see if anything was causing it. Also it shut down all MIDI input controls except note on/off/velocity. Specifically, it disabled pitch/modulation and sustain/sostenuto pedals. Had to use task manager end task to quit. Opened Pianoteq stand alone and while the audio engine was fine (which is an improvement from earlier versions), the MIDI controllers were all turned off and once again, only a reboot of the OS resets everything back.
Bitwig is the only DAW I have that has these issues and only since version 5.
Bitwig 4 doesn't shut anything down and still works, however, Windows update has caused something in it that now makes it idle around 45% before adding any plugin.
So I have a mixed bag of disappointment here.

Did you update to Windows 11 24H2?
That version broke all my hw synths + my midi controller connections that used windows usb generic drivers and some other usb HW.

The 24H2 is a update that should not have been released since it break many things so i had to re-install/Downgrade to windows 23h2 to get everything to work again.

[BBFG#]

Windows 10. I do consider all of these recent issues to be 60% Microsoft and 40% Bitwig. Right now everything on that system works fine except for Bitwig 5. Although Windows has disabled virtual cores and it decides if and when multi-threading can be used regardless of the app. So all CPU usage has effectively doubled by them by cutting those virtual cores in half.

[D-Fusion]

Windows 10. I do consider all of these recent issues to be 60% Microsoft and 40% Bitwig. Right now everything on that system works fine except for Bitwig 5. Although Windows has disabled virtual cores and it decides if and when multi-threading can be used regardless of the app. So all CPU usage has effectively doubled by them by cutting those virtual cores in half.

Hope you get it fixed
I had to ask since you mentioned windows.
The windows 11 24h2 update broke 2 of my pc's so i had to go back to 23h2 to fix my issues.

[Zombie Queen]

I just updated from 5.2.7... Holy crap... In projects where I used Kontakt, some of them are just broken, "broken pipeline" it says, the instance is lost. Just a warning. It had these happening before, but now it got worse, it can't open saves older version could. Bitwig + Kontakt is f-ing disaster.

[BBFG#]

Okay I rolled back to 4.4.8...
I also notice that whatever I turn off in Windows triggers another process to replace it in usage.
This time is was "Compatibility Telemetry" which is something that again scans hardware use and sends the data back to MS. Turning it off and restarting Bitwig shows a 50%-75% improvement in CPU use.

So check your Task Scheduler and disable it.

The Windows Compatibility Telemetry contains technical information about how the device and its associated software work. It sends data to Microsoft on a regular basis in order to improve the system and improve the user experience. To resolve your issue about its high CPU usage, you can disable this service in the Task Scheduler by following the steps below:

1. Click Start, type Task Scheduler, and then press Enter.

2. On the TaskScheduler window, go to this path: Task Scheduler Library\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience.

3. On the Application Experience folder, look for Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser.

4. Right-click on it, select Disable, and then confirm to complete the process.

So this is much more usable for me. I'll try one of the future versions when they show me something that looks like it might actually help more than the current version.