Bitwig 6 Beta coming soon

[aMUSEd]

Actually I might skip this release anyway.

It's not that I don't like it - in fact it kindof reminds me increasingly of how Audiomulch made automation central to composition which is very cool (come back Audiomulch) - it's just that I tend towards extreme minimalism in my music making and don't really have lots of clips/tracks/automation to deal with usually so I'm in no rush.

[SLiC]

Solid update overall, however: Ack! Still no ARA...

I don't know what it is with Live and Bitwig that they ignore audio pitch editing, its not a full DAW without this most basic of features which can be found in Reason, Studio One, Logic, Cubase etc. No midi comping either but the automation looks good now (but really just catching up with the competition other than automation clips which is nice)

[tumface]

Amazing update. All of the things it added are useful for me, except scale highlighting, which I never use. But that's fine, I can just ignore it.

I'm glad they didn't spend energy on other-people's-content-remix technologies like stem splitting and vocal pitch editing. Those things just aren't my cup of tea. I realize other people often ask for them, but it's nice to get things my way for once.

[pdxindy]

Amazing update. All of the things it added are useful for me, except scale highlighting, which I never use. But that's fine, I can just ignore it.

The scale highlighting could interest me as long as there is some way to add 'off' notes without disabling it.

What is cool for me is that the arpeggiator (and other note fx) can follow the global scale. Plus the global scale can be automated and even modulated.

[Cyoon]

The scale highlighting could interest me as long as there is some way to add 'off' notes without disabling it.

I also like that feature, off notes show up different visually but are possible yes. I'd like to see custom scales too, since for example a Phrygian Dominant couldn't be reflected currently. Already requested towards Bitwig now.

[tumface]

Honestly, if I do things with complex transpositions and stepping across keys, I've found it easier to just use a nondestructive transpose device (or whatever the DAW provides) to make it so the white keys represent the scale or relative mode of what I need, and then adjust the transposition offset at different points in the song as needed. Totally removes the need for hard-coded scale highlighting stuff, and for beginners, makes it easier to see the functional scale degrees instead of just a "allowed or disallowed" highlighting for the notes.

It also fixes the problem where you change keys or relative/parallel modes in the middle of a clip, but the scale highlighting can't show two different highlights at once. Honestly never liked the scale highlighting stuff in any DAW, since it's never extensive enough to even match the transposition trick Just my opinion though! I realize not everyone is me.

[jens]

Solid update overall, however: Ack! Still no ARA...

I don't know what it is with Live and Bitwig that they ignore audio pitch editing, its not a full DAW without this most basic of features which can be found in Reason, Studio One, Logic, Cubase etc. No midi comping either but the automation looks good now (but really just catching up with the competition other than automation clips which is nice)

Well, at this point ARA is far far more than //just// pitch-editing.

Reason doesn't support it either by the way and while its pitch-editor isn't half bad and offers most of the advantages ARA does (the audio-material doesn't need to imported into the editor first and edits are aware of/follow arrangement changes), it in no way at all offers all the functionality even just Melodyne* does, not to mention all the other ARA compatible plugins out there.



*it seems a lot of folks have at best a rather rudimentary idea of what Melodyne is actually capable of/offers feature-wise. It's so much more than just basic pitch-editing.
And let's not get started on Spectralayers, another incredibly mighty ARA-tool.


But yes, I do notice that the seemingly more modern DAWs such as Live, Bitwig, Reason and FL all do not support this ground-breaking, super-modern feature/protocol, which to me seems absurd beyond words, to be frank.

[jens]

Solid update overall, however: Ack! Still no ARA...

I am holding out hope that they will take their own swing at a drum replacer, polyphonic tuning editor, and automatic phase matched waveform stretching/alignment editor. Won't hold my breath. But I will hold some hope...

Well, even if they managed to do that - which certainly would be a mountain of work - they still wouldn't be able to cover nearly everything all the various ARA plugins offer. Plus new ARA-compatible plugins come out on a regular basis so it would be a lost race to begin with.

Personally I find it troublesome that they appqrently didn't even reply to the request for ARA yet.

UA at least said they can't promise when but want to support ARA in Luna at some point in the future (mind you: a completely free DAW) and the same goes for Cakewalk Next, another free DAW.

[tumface]

ARA was super buggy the last time I tried it in other software. Dunno if it's improved any in the last couple of years. I guess I should try it in REAPER and see what it's like. I actually do a lot of manual spectral audio editing using RX and Acoustica, and ARA is not really something I've had a dire need for, but could be nice.

Just on my own personal list (I realize I'm not everyone) I don't think it makes the top 20, but I wouldn't be against it, if it can be done in a non-buggy way.

[pdxindy]

But yes, I do notice that the seemingly more modern DAWs such as Live, Bitwig, Reason and FL all do not support this ground-breaking, super-modern feature/protocol, which to me seems absurd beyond words, to be frank.

Not sure why they don't, but for me personally, I don't own a single ARA plugin, don't plan on ever buying one and for that reason, don't care of ARA is ever added to Bitwig.

[SLiC]

I am just amazed anyone playing in instruments or vocals doesn't need to fix pitch, maybe its just my playing/singing! Ableton added a native pitch correction (Auto Shift) which is scale aware, so I guess this has to come first...but it isn't the same as midi like editing offered by other DAWS or Melodyne (via ARA)

[tumface]

Personally, I find the artifacts from these polyphonic pitch correctors really grating, so I try to avoid them at all costs. And I don't work on music in any genres that require the Cher/T-Pain effect, which prefers to use real-time autotune (also sounding bad, but clearly I'm in the minority in popular culture here) and which is easy enough to add to Bitwig with a plugin. Yeah, wouldn't mind having an auto-tune device or whatever in Bitwig, since I can just ignore like I do in Live, but it's not personally one of my priorities. I realize I'm not the only user of Bitwig and that some people really want this, and it's fine, I just want to make sure my own voice is heard in the crowd of people encouraging or discouraging various features.

[jens]

But yes, I do notice that the seemingly more modern DAWs such as Live, Bitwig, Reason and FL all do not support this ground-breaking, super-modern feature/protocol, which to me seems absurd beyond words, to be frank.

Not sure why they don't, but for me personally, I don't own a single ARA plugin, don't plan on ever buying one and for that reason, don't care of ARA is ever added to Bitwig.

It depends on any number of factors such as whether you use a lot of audio in the first place, whether if you do that is self-recorded stuff or some libraries, what you do with it, what your artistic objective is, whether you are recording in a booth or studio or at home, etc. .

Same as with my MIDI - personally I barely ever use it, so I can't even comprehend most of the complaints people have about its implementation in various DAWs - wouldn't ever care either.

[jens]

Personally, I find the artifacts from these polyphonic pitch correctors really grating, so I try to avoid them at all costs.

Are there any others besides Melodyne?

In Melodyne it depends on how much you transpose the material. If I ever use it, it's to correct an otherwise good take where I accidentally* played a major chord instead of a minor one (or vice versa) or perhaps some bum note during a fingerpicking part or so... and a half note is absolutely no problem at all.





*happens to me all the time, however usually I won't fix it but instead record another take. But if it's a difficult part to play and I want to move on to another instrument already...

[tumface]

Are there any others besides Melodyne?

rePitch and Pitchmap are two. They are "real time" effects but require a huge amount of lookahead/PDC, so they're not really real time.

*happens to me all the time, however usually I won't fix it but instead record another take. But if it's a difficult part to play and I want to move on to another instrument already...

Understandable, yeah. Makes sense.