Bitwig The Grid: It is just me...

[Noumena]

(was offtopic.)

[Noumena]

If I were to state my personal beef with the Grid it is that it there is not a note-fx or a modulator version of the grid that would allow me to build my own MIDI/note preprocessors/generators or modulator primitives. If we had the ability to produce MIDI/MPE notes in the Grid and *send* them to VSTs and to make Bitwig native polyophinic modulators in the Grid... I figure that would bring BWS to a level of ability in composition, processing and sound generation never before seen. My hope is that we get there, and I can clearly see that this is my priority vs other poster's desire to see something like a Reaktor Core implementation that allows us to make our own modules. I would also like that, certainly.

[pdxindy]

If I were to state my personal beef with the Grid it is that it there is not a note-fx or a modulator version of the grid that would allow me to build my own MIDI/note preprocessors/generators or modulator primitives. If we had the ability to produce MIDI/MPE notes in the Grid and *send* them to VSTs and to make Bitwig native polyophinic modulators in the Grid... I figure that would bring BWS to a level of ability in composition, processing and sound generation never before seen. My hope is that we get there, and I can clearly see that this is my priority vs other poster's desire to see something like a Reaktor Core implementation that allows us to make our own modules. I would also like that, certainly.

For sure they are making a Midi Grid device at some point. I remember one of the devs saying that was in the roadmap. When, who knows.

I would so love to be able to send polyphonic modulation to VST instruments... seems possible with any MPE capable synth, but maybe that needs some change in the VST's as well.

Every Bitwig device is made in their modular backend. So they obviously have capability to do more than what has been made available in the Grid to date.

[Noumena]

My hopes are raised because of a spate of bugs that I have reported related to their internal handling of notes... for instance right now you can't (or I can't, at least) use a midifx vst to process notes that go to an internal or MPE instrument... all sorts of stuff gets glitched and lost. I reported several bugs about this but only heard back that "something is coming that will take care of this." Sounds promising, like they are rebuilding the note handling internals.

But think about it -- if VSTs start to begin to support flexible modulation *per-note* and we have these kinds of tools in the grid and modulator layers... then to some degree all the VSTs will become modular, where we can write our own amp, lfo, etc modulation systems, that can interact with the wider environment... the kinds of things that Taches is doing in the grid, say. It would be grand. I am hopeful.

[pdxindy]

My hopes are raised because of a spate of bugs that I have reported related to their internal handling of notes... for instance right now you can't (or I can't, at least) use a midifx vst to process notes that go to an internal or MPE instrument... all sorts of stuff gets glitched and lost. I reported several bugs about this but only heard back that "something is coming that will take care of this." Sounds promising, like they are rebuilding the note handling internals.

But think about it -- if VSTs start to begin to support flexible modulation *per-note* and we have these kinds of tools in the grid and modulator layers... then to some degree all the VSTs will become modular, where we can write our own amp, lfo, etc modulation systems, that can interact with the wider environment... the kinds of things that Taches is doing in the grid, say. It would be grand. I am hopeful.

That would be really exciting!! That does sound promising!

[pdxindy]

This person is doing some fun Grid videos...

[Taika-Kim]

One thing is, that even if VSTs could receive per-note modulations, they often don't run at nearly an audio rate.

But I love the idea that you could patch into and from any point in a VST. It would probably be a problem for optimisation though, if everything was required to run at audio rate or higher.

[pablo39]

As much as I adore Bitwig Grid layout, the fact that you can zoom in/out, and all the aethetics, I just can't help but noticing its 'plasticky' sound, especially when compared with Reaktor.
That is why I gave up on the Grid.

To me sound quality matters most and it trumps everything else.

[zerocrossing]

One thing is, that even if VSTs could receive per-note modulations, they often don't run at nearly an audio rate.

VSTs can receive per note modulations. In fact, I'm unaware of any that don't. Many do run at audio rate and higher, to achieve lower aliasing on modulation effects. Have a look at RePro's polymod area for a simple but classic example of this, but it's fairly common. Plugins like VCV Rack and Reaktor allow you to choose the processing rate, but in something like Softube Modular, it's always oversampling at a pretty high rate, though who knows what that is. (Softube, that's who!)

But I love the idea that you could patch into and from any point in a VST. It would probably be a problem for optimisation though, if everything was required to run at audio rate or higher.

Well, you definitely can do this with various plugins, though whether or not they do a good job with an audio rate modulation source can vary. I just tried the Bitwig Audio rate modulator using a square wave generated by my Nina on the filter cutoff of Repro 5 and it sounding good, almost all the way up to C4. That's an acceptable level of quality to me. There are plugins that can do it better using internal oversampling, but I can also just turn to hardware and go crazy.

[zerocrossing]

As much as I adore Bitwig Grid layout, the fact that you can zoom in/out, and all the aethetics, I just can't help but noticing its 'plasticky' sound, especially when compared with Reaktor.
That is why I gave up on the Grid.

To me sound quality matters most and it trumps everything else.

Agreed. It's gotten a little better over time, some of the new filters are OK, but in general I find that I avoid it because I have other tools (like Reaktor) that just sound better.

[swilow11]

Reaktor definitely sounds better but at a price. Cardinal probably sounds better too.

I look at the grid as I do Phase Plant or Falcon. On their own, the various components don't sound great- not bad, just neutral- but the entire ecosystem is what draws me in. I actually wish I hadn't purchased the aforementioned because the Grid, and Bitwigs modulation system I'm general, can do all of that and more.

One oscillator which I think is a real stand out is the Bite module. If you make any form of psytrance, this is possibly the best sounding gritty FM system I've heard. Resource heavy though so I have made a generative patch which creates infinite variations. Record to audio and cut the good bits out to use as wavetables or SCW.

I've also recently been playing with the recorder in the grid. So good for making glitchy stuff.

[Ah_Dziz]

I still enjoy the grid as much as anything in bitwig. I'd love to see some better "housekeeping" coded into it like "macro containers" and such that could clean up large patches. I'd also love to see a low level programming module or even something like reaktor core that would let you setup your own DSP (proper buffer read/ write and feedback at 1 sample or less would go a long way for me as would a real fft ifft system) and ideally make bitwig devices, modulators, etc. It's still one of the simplest MPE capable modular synth platforms in my opinion so I grab it quite regularly when I'm using bitwig and need an interesting sound for MPE playability. I hardly use any of the other bitwig instruments aside from the drum machine.