Why did you choose Bitwig Studio over Ableton Live as your Main DAW ?

[NWSM]

I started out with FL and Ableton, but Bitwig was more affordable back then and I wanted to support it. Now it’s gotten quite expensive too, so I’m waiting longer between upgrades — I don’t want to spend too much on music and sound exploring when I’m not earning anything from it (and pay for Plugins lol*)

I originally switched from FL Studio (started with Version 3), but that chaotic window management style was a nightmare. It’s still packed with creative tools, but some things just feel illogical — if I remember right, you still can’t edit shortcuts?

Now I’ve moved to Linux, and honestly, I love it. Just upgraded the Kernel while system is running, also update Firefox while watching YouTube and writing this comment — it’s that smooth.

Sometimes I feel a bit guilty getting all this amazing, free stuff…

[pdxindy]

Being able to add unlimited per voice modulators to my favorite synths is something no other DAW has.

I never understood what this means. Can you send me a video or something (not necessarily yours) when this is showcased? I want to see and hear a practical example. I have heard about this CLAP (is it?) feature, but never seen anyone use it. And I am genuinely interested to learn about it.

I could try to find it on YT, but YT seems like a pool of lunatics and self-proclaimed experts with a minority of truly nice human beings. Meaning a lot of time is lost in finding proper content. In case you have a link, please let me know.

I don't have a video to suggest.

Add an LFO modulator in Bitwig to ACE, Diva, Bazille, Zebra 3 (Not version 2) or Repro and that LFO can be per voice (polyphonic, not only monophonic). It's not complicated, just super useful.

[Tj Shredder]

Interestingly Live never attracted me though I am since 30 years a Max/MSP user. Actually before MSP appeared...
Bitwig was love on first sight even before the Grid appeared. It was simply so much more inspiring. The modular approach to modulation seems to open endless creative work flows.
That crashing plugins never killed the DAW is a welcome side effect...
Now with Plug Data I can even get that sort of patching into Bitwig.
The Grid is much less capable than Max/MSP, but certain things are way easier to achieve.
It was MPE capable long before Live got into that space. My main instrument is a LinnStrument, its a natural companion...

[foosnark]

When I originally tried Live, as someone who'd previously used FL Studio and then Maschine, I found almost nothing about it intuitive and noped out very quickly. FL Studio had grown over the years to be extremely... lumpy, a weird aggregate of inconsistent interface designs, and everything felt very indirect. Maschine 2.0 was pretty lean and mean for what it was then and I picked up basic usage in about an hour, if that.

At the time, I wasn't invested in the idea of changing my DAW enough to bother with tutorials.

While I was using Maschine, my workflow evolved from 100% in the box (sequencing everything and rendering it to audio), to a hybrid approach where I'd still sequence everything but had MIDI hardware so I needed to "render" in real time, to playing some stuff live (whether on hardware or softsynths) during that recording process, to eventually moving largely to modular hardware synths and away from DAW sequences. At that point I realized that doing all this using a glorified groovebox as my DAW probably wasn't the best approach, and started looking around.

Right about that same time, Bitwig introduced the Grid. I could do hardware and software modular simultaneously alongside software plugins, route things flexibly, and have all that modulation stuff that was already there. I was interested enough to go through a tutorial and to find a workaround for the way I record everything as a single stereo channel. (And then much more recently, they added the master recording feature too.)

[justin3am]

I used Live alongside Pro Tools for about 10 years. I worked at M-Audio when Live 4 came out and we were their distributor, so I was incentivized to learn it. It clicked for me right away. I had lots of fun with the MIDI plug-ins and the audio warping engine. I also liked recording ideas into the clip launcher, as a sketch pad.
I always disliked editing audio in Live, as a disliked MIDI editing in Pro Tools. So I used live for working with MIDI and tracking and I did my editing, arrangement and mixing in Pro Tools. It was a clunky process but I recorded a lot of material that way over a span of 10 or 11 years.

Along came Bitwig. Nektar had a relationship with Bitwig from the beginning, when it was still in beta... so again I was incentivized to learn a new tool, which I'm not typically inclined to do. But like Live, Bitwig clicked right away for me. The audio editing and project navigation were such a huge improvement over Live, that I was even able to ditch Pro Tools for most things. I had grown to rely on Max4Live but after a few months of using Bitwig 1.0, I didn't feel the need to use Max in Live, so I just got a license for the standalone version.

Once the added CV tools and improved modulation in Bitwig 2.0, there was no going back. Bitwig's become a core part of the way I work with music and outboard instruments/effects.

These days, I do all mixing and mastering for clients in Bitwig; the last remaining work that I was still doing in Pro Tools. I can move around Bitwig just as fast as I could in PT and it just feels natural too me.

Edit: I should note that ever since Bitwig has become my main DAW I have paid for the licenses I use. I had used an NFR when I first got my hands on Bitwig v1 but I bought my first license shortly after that.

[pboy]

It just came to mind that, in my post above, I forgot an important factor: MPE support! For a long time Live did not support MPE.

[BobDog]

It still doesn't properly really, what with it changing the midi channels At least BW had the sense to fix theirs in the end.

Still for me though I do mostly stick with Ableton over BW if I want to do actually do anything, if I want to play around a bit for fun then I use BW. I'm still in the position where I would love the BW devices and rack as a plugin to use in other DAWs.

[pdxindy]

It just came to mind that, in my post above, I forgot an important factor: MPE support! For a long time Live did not support MPE.

Live still doesn't record a note's midi channel.

As one example, the Linnstrument has a channel per row mode and that won't work in Live. Live randomizes midi channels and so what you play in the channel per row mode will not play back the same as you played it.

[pc999]

Workflow, controllers and Linux support.

[pboy]

It just came to mind that, in my post above, I forgot an important factor: MPE support! For a long time Live did not support MPE.

Live still doesn't record a note's midi channel.

As one example, the Linnstrument has a channel per row mode and that won't work in Live. Live randomizes midi channels and so what you play in the channel per row mode will not play back the same as you played it.

Oh, so it is that bad... I haven't used Live since version 11. Doing MPE with the Seaboard and Linnstrument I am happy with Bitwig.

[Download SOphist]

more orange.

[monolithx]

It all depends if you need Max or not. Personally, I can hardly do without Max in today DAWs world. Specially with AI being able to build Max patches. I'm not convinced by Grid performances and I don't like synths in their micro UIs. But, yeah, routing is cool.

[DJ-Superherpes]

If i compair just workflow its 80 to 20 for BWS over Live.

[questionaire]

Because it sounds better

All jokes aside its just more fun and straightforward to work in Bitwig its more intuitive

Like quantizing the only thing i need to do in Bitwig is hit q, in Ableton i need to choose 1/8, 1/16 or whatever

I dont know but recording in a midi clip gives me more accurate results, in ableton i always need to adjust start midi points

But i am a person who is not the average musician here, i make punk/dance/electronics/EBM, i record more audio and not so much interested in the grid

BTW the sampler is a genious piece of art

[Milkman]

I really, really like ctrl-b bounce to audio from midi. Sure, other DAWs have the ability to bounce from midi to audio, but it usually requires a few clicks and considering how to export your part. In BWS, you just ctrl-b on the midi part, and the current channel settings are rendered into an audio file that inserts itself in-line, not on a new audio track, and converts that track to a "hybrid" track.

This, for me, is an incredibly freeing, amazing workflow tool that I tried to recreate in cubase (I used ctrl+r for the shortcut for "render part in place", then it comes up with a few settings, rename the file, etc, then it exports, builds a new lane, adds that audio file to the new lane)

The ability to affortlessly ctrl-b a midi part, add the new audio to the mix, move on to other sound design for the same synth that I just ctrl-b'ed, is idiosyncratically one of my favorite things in numerous DAWs lol.