Let‘s speculate about 6.0

[pdxindy]

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Yep, and like it or not, that's really Bitwig's market. Well, not necessarily C++ programmers, but modular nerds. Consider that they were competing with Ableton and you know that they're primarily targeting electronic music producers. Add to that the fact that the Grid is at an abstraction level between MFL and VCV rack and you have a perfect storm of attraction for people who think in those terms. They are not music tech product creators, per se, rather, they are people who engage in a deeper abstraction of music in technical terms than typical musicians.

I like modular hardware, and I appreciate the flexibility of Bitwig's modular approach to their DAW, but I have zero interest in scripts or computer programming.

[monolithx]

Unfortunately, for live performance which implies routing, controls and sync, no DAW is able to satisfy needs without scripting.
Music notation and rythm are based on ratio and numbers, so the "artistic" aspect of things is very debatable...
The DAWs world is still today somewhere between music manual counting frames and true calculators.

[chaocrator]

i bet 6.0 still won't get proper MIDI export, and we'll have to continue using DAWproject and second DAW as a workaround for exporting anything but the notes, e.g. CC messages.

[perpetual3]

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Total tosh.

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Yeah. All the coding scripting talk is not what I’m about when I make music.

Total tosh

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Yep, and like it or not, that's really Bitwig's market. Well, not necessarily C++ programmers, but modular nerds. Consider that they were competing with Ableton and you know that they're primarily targeting electronic music producers. Add to that the fact that the Grid is at an abstraction level between MFL and VCV rack and you have a perfect storm of attraction for people who think in those terms. They are not music tech product creators, per se, rather, they are people who engage in a deeper abstraction of music in technical terms than typical musicians.

Total tosh.

How can stating my opinion about what I like when I make music total tosh?

[_leras]

Total tosh.

How can stating my opinion about what I like when I make music total tosh?

Not completely sure, but I thought he was agreeing with you and saying not all saw users needs scripting or c++ etc.

Vast majority don't need that stuff.

But everyone would benefit if it was available, along with some basic UI stuff and Bitwig hosted an online user library for creations.

[coroknight]

Most Ableton users probably aren’t interested in making custom max4live devices but they sure do benefit from the ecosystem.

It’s always fun when people argue against their own interests because they can’t see more than two feet in front of their face.

[BobDog]

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Total tosh.

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Yeah. All the coding scripting talk is not what I’m about when I make music.

Total tosh

Is music currently made by computer nerds? Going wild on scripts and C++ wtf crazy times man.....

Bitwig go for the musician is all i beg

Yep, and like it or not, that's really Bitwig's market. Well, not necessarily C++ programmers, but modular nerds. Consider that they were competing with Ableton and you know that they're primarily targeting electronic music producers. Add to that the fact that the Grid is at an abstraction level between MFL and VCV rack and you have a perfect storm of attraction for people who think in those terms. They are not music tech product creators, per se, rather, they are people who engage in a deeper abstraction of music in technical terms than typical musicians.

Total tosh.

How can stating my opinion about what I like when I make music total tosh?

Snip.

Edit: I’m so sorry, I misquoted you rather than someone else.

Ignore everything I say.

[pdxindy]

i bet 6.0 still won't get proper MIDI export, and we'll have to continue using DAWproject and second DAW as a workaround for exporting anything but the notes, e.g. CC messages.

I'm not taking that bet...

[rvlt]

i bet 6.0 still won't get proper MIDI export, and we'll have to continue using DAWproject and second DAW as a workaround for exporting anything but the notes, e.g. CC messages.

I'm not taking that bet...

that was fixed in 5.3.2 afaik, but I've never used that function since, so better double check

[chaocrator]

i bet 6.0 still won't get proper MIDI export, and we'll have to continue using DAWproject and second DAW as a workaround for exporting anything but the notes, e.g. CC messages.

I'm not taking that bet...

that was fixed in 5.3.2 afaik, but I've never used that function since, so better double check

you just made me happy.
it's indeed there.
i was waiting for this sooo long (since version 1 back in 2014) that did not even notice when this was finally fixed.
will take me a while to believe though.

[MegaPixel]

For me I would continue my upgrade plan with Bitwig Studio if v6 was to:

1. Focus on the UI/GUI, skinning is not complicated, I've used that hack tool to re-write some of bitwigs configuration to look a lot better.

Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to see notes, lines and block divide, loop lines etc, I don't have any issue with Studio One, Reaper or Cubase.

Just seeing the gaps between loop points on the blocks on the main timeline, etc was a god send. I find it much easier to see blocks (audio/midi) and all their features in reaper, studio one and cubase. Visual clarity and ease of use, while looking good. I've emailed them about creating a json file with things we can set ourselves, transparent blocks, allow us to configure various lines, dividers, etc etc instead of having other people create and update that tool that decompiled the bitwig jar file and then re-compiles it. The file they use is just a mess of definitions for this, so I don't see why they can't spend a bit of time doing this in an easily editable and accessible json file.

2. The double drag area box (white and black), just use the 1 and integrate the functionality of the 2 to what is selected.

3. The piano roll.
- When you turn off the audio for note click and add, don't turn off the click of the audio for when you click a note on the virtual piano on the left (or add 2 mute/un-mute icons).
- subtle row highlighting on mouse over of notes and piano roll background, or even a faint line that follows the mouse position when over the piano roll.
- Piano roll features and tools that cubase, studio one and reaper have.

4. Allow the substitution of a VST2 for the VST3 or CLAP versions if available. While passing existing saved data to the newly loaded version (option to try try to pass data when running this feature, as it may crash the newly loaded plugin).

5. Start to use their own software each day for a couple of hours on projects and fix bugs. I've reported issues with track EQ's twitching or being grayed out but playing audio. The volume bar in the track under the track title flickering and lots more but nothing will be fixed as they typically only start to happen on larger tracks and after a few hours of working on a project. I've also had times where Solo and Mute do crazy things to the EQ and Volume sliders on the tracks.

6. Consistency with right click menu's especially with copy and paste. Copy a plugin and try right click paste into an empty track row, you can't, you have to use the keyboard. There's lots of little things like this, add's up to a lot.

7. Restore the old plugin/vst browser, this new one is shait...
It might have looked good on paper but did they actually test this other than search for what they wanted and not selecting the same ones within quick reach? Get 1000+ plugins installed and then spend some time organising then getting at what you want quickly without searching and having more than 10 categories and it all goes to shit (the dot coloring and staring is not great either), things get lost as they can't be wrapped in the available UI spaces etc. The last version did this just fine, this one is clunky at best.


I'm tempted to build a a plugin/vst and sample browser / organiser which allows you to drag and drop either the plugin/vst and/or sample into bitwig. It should work on any DAW that allows the drag and drop really.


I'm really not interested in more internal plugins that I will never use, no matter how many +'s they add to their name, Just improve what they got and they may get another studio sub renewal from me.

[nowiamone]

Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to see notes, lines and block divide, loop lines etc, I don't have any issue with Studio One, Reaper or Cubase.

It's not just you, it's objectively correct to say this. Note visibility is better in most other DAWs, as a) Bitwig isn't auto-adjusting note-height to appear bigger

increasing-note-visibility-ableton-vs-bitwig.jpg

b) Bitwig doesn't offer any further adjustments in contrast/strength of Midi (and Audio-)Events, like Cubase does.

Cubase-Waveform-and-Midi-Data-brightness.gif

This will be something i really really hope they will improve while the beta is running. As the BW6 Teaser Pic didn't show any improvements in that realm yet, imho. Notes still being frickly tiny, compared to other DAWs. Oh, and fully collapsed Tracks can still show Notes in Cubase and FL - that would be awesome to have, too. I prefer seeing content rather than a plain block of color.
Look: Fully collapsed and seeing what's actually going on... how much better than just plain color is this? I'd say a 100% better:

fruity-loops3.png

That being said, i'm glad that we already could see gridlines through clips in that Teaser Pic. Great improvement that is!

BItwig.jpg

Oh and speaking about the Piano roll, my most favorite fix would be: moving the object-selection lines AWAY.... far away .... into the beat-time-ruler-bar at the top of the Editor. Otherwise, resizing currently selected Notes will continue being a gigantic mess.

selected-notes-in-bitwig.gif

[Dionysos]

Oh and speaking about the Piano roll, my most favorite fix would be: moving the object-selection lines AWAY.... far away .... into the beat-time-ruler-bar at the top of the Editor. Otherwise, resizing currently selected Notes will continue being a gigantic mess.selected-notes-in-bitwig.gif

That also bugs me. I think you posted about this before as well, but I wouldn't mind the time selection not automatically being made along with note selection. While it is useful when you need, most of the time you don't, and it's visually noisy, too.

[liquidsound]

Oh and speaking about the Piano roll, my most favorite fix would be: moving the object-selection lines AWAY.... far away .... into the beat-time-ruler-bar at the top of the Editor. Otherwise, resizing currently selected Notes will continue being a gigantic mess.selected-notes-in-bitwig.gif

That issue (cursor change) is not there when using the pencil tool. It should be an easy adaptation…

[MegaPixel]

RE: Very poor UI
This does my head in all the time... I often line things up with loop/repeat lines, rather than dragging or duplicating the previous block. I just wish I could see them... The preview of BS6 UI revealed in that no 6 image doesn't fill me with much confidence that this will be resolved.

The hindrance of such a foundational bit of functionality and information at a glance is some real poor UI/UX. It's like the new Dune movies, who's bright idea was it to put white text subtitles with no black outline on a movie that is full of bright light pastel yellowy white dunes all through it...

Here's the current crapness.

Unselected blocks (hard to see loop marker on nearly all)


Selected blocks (can finally see the loop markers clearly, still needs work though)