The All In One Source Bitwig Information & Speculation Thread

[LawrenceF]

It's perfectly relevant though. Since you've dodged the question I'm thinking that it's what I suspected. Although you really like that feature, its not enough to make you choose Live when there is so much extra you could get by going with bitwig. And so it is with 90% of people I think.

It's not relevant (for me) because those two choices have not been considered (for me).

I can't truthfully answer a question like that without fully evaluating how both hosts may or may not serve my needs. Not sure how anyone could? It may turn out (after evaluating any two hosts) that one has positives that far outweigh any subjective negatives. But I don't know that since I've never demoed either Live or Bitwig?

In that regard, sure, it's rarely actually one single thing that sways any such decision, but a collection of things. We agree there.

One thing has nothing much to do with the other since I never even implied that the one thing would keep me away from a host I really like otherwise. It's just impossible (on the net) to focus on any single thing in isolation.

It's not a "daw war" thing. It's a "all good software should consider that stuff" thing.

[Arglebargle]

For f**k's sake, take that apostrophe out of the title.

[Ogopogo]

Right, ok. No it's not relevant to you in that way. And yes I suppose you couldn't truthfully answer it but a guess would be good enough in these circumstances I think. I assumed that you had some level of familiarity with each seeing as how you seem to be following this thread. But if your not that familiar then ok.

In that regard, sure, it's rarely actually one single thing that sways any such decision, but a collection of things. We agree there.

I suppose that's pretty much what I'm getting at. And the thing is that bitwig and live are so similar that the niggles that you can run into just aren't going to mean much in most cases compared to what bitwig has to offer.

Edit. oh yeah, you didn't imply that it would keep you away, but it did factor into Thomas's argument for why Bitwig is not going to "beat" ableton, so that's why I addressed it.

[LawrenceF]

Yeah Ogopogo. That's what causes the net forum problems, that we too often take these things too personally. To summarize my comments in a more concise way, what I was actually saying to the developers was only...

"Hey guys, you made a really nice product there. But maybe now you should circle back and tighten up some of those little housekeeping bits to make it even better."

Never said that one thing would keep me from choosing it over something else. It was really more just an FR or sorts. I dislike - something - in every workstation I own. I'm a big S1 fan but I could quickly fire off a list of things I don't like about it.

As relates to daw X "beating" daw Y, I think we all know by now that any such impression is a singular subjective impression in any single person's mind. Nobody loses anything unless they go out of business, stop selling their product, stop making a profit.

Ableton Live 10 will show up and it will start all over again.

Thanks O.

[Ogopogo]

Yeah, I think I gotcha now. And yeah it wouldn't be an internet discussion thread if somebody didn't take something too personally or people didn't talk past each other or just downright miss the point. Cheers, thanks for the conversation.

The only thing that I do wanna take issue with is that if a competitor comes along and takes 75% of your business and you have to lay off half your staff, I think that counts as losing.

[LawrenceF]

The only thing that I do wanna take issue with is that if a competitor comes along and takes 75% of your business and you have to lay off half your staff, I think that counts as losing.

Agree. I haven't really seen that happen yet, but I do agree, if that does happen, or has happened, yes, that would be "losing".

Of course, "the daw war" winner isn't really that, but more just a personal subjective opinion of "the best". All of these companies seem to carry on indefinitely. Even Avid's stock price is going up as of late. They were (afaik) the only company that appeared to maybe be in some trouble.

I seriously doubt if Bitwig will mark the beginning of the end of Ableton, or put the company into any financial trouble. More likely, it'll force them to maybe make an even better product.

You hear all the same things all the time. Reaper will bankrupt PT, whatever. It never actually happens.

[juansep]

So, I don't know if this has been answered but could any of the betatesters talk about the warp/timestretching algorithms? I've seen they have one called Stretch HD, so im guessing there's Stretch too which im thinking would be the alternative to Live's Complex and Complex Pro, but do they have any creative modes like Beats or Texture or Tones in Live?

[ThomasHelzle]

@LawrenceF: sorry I dragged you into this

@Ogopogo: It's great that you are so enthusiastic about Bitwig without actually having tested it
I look forward to see how you will like the actual product!

I personally try to avoid comparing Live 1:1 to Bitwig since IMO it IS different enough, even if that may seem otherwise from the outside. I also don't list everything in BWS that's missing compared to Live, since I'm interested in the parts that are there and are great, but that's very personal of course - I never in my life used the AB slider in Live, so it being not available in BWS didn't even register until somebody asked here. No ReWire may be huge for some People and I personally don't really believe users will be too hot on Jack for Windows.
I'm sure there is a lot of other such stuff for people who are really digging deep into Live.

So for quite some time, BWS will have to do the catchup on enough fronts to give Ableton a good chance of doing the same.
Live is already on the HDs of virtually everybody interested in this kind of thing. To even make a mark in that market will be quite an effort and achievement.

- People have to pay for another DAW.
- People have to learn the differences and some new paradigms.
- People will have to change the way they work which can be big for performing artists.
- People will miss certain features or workflows.
- People have invested huge amounts of time and money in Ableton libraries, presets, setups, gear and whatnot.
- Live has tons of available tutorials and certified instructors.
- Tons of Hardware supports it.

I personally am somebody who enjoys learning so much, that I'm regularly stumped when somebody talks about not wanting to learn something new, but that fraction is actually pretty large it seems.

You are welcome to predict and assume as much as you want of course.
I can't do anything else either, even with the hands-on-experience.
Nobody knows how it all will unfold.

I just learned over the years that momentum and inertia are huge forces that are easy to underestimate. Otherwise we would all use BeOS today. It was years ahead of everything else and basically folded because of not good enough driver support.
Cinema 4D was ported already, Cubase as well, other software too. It blew everything else out of the water in the audio, video, 3D and OpenGL department. You were able to drag and drop videos on top of realtime 3D animations and the video played without problems as a texture on that realtime deforming 3D objects (that was before GeForce cards did Hardware OpenGL). And you could do that in 5 or 10 windows at the same time. At a time when Windows had problems on the same machine to play back that same video at all.
But it never got a real chance.
Everybody was using Windows already.

Bitwig has a good chance IMO, enough people are less than excited about the latest developments in Live to at least give BWS a fair start. Being available on 3 Platforms helps as well. After that, it's up to them to show over time how that basic paradigm can evolve.

My fingers are crossed.

Interesting times

Cheers,

Tom

[t3toooo]

aah,good to see this thread is still strong!

any news?

[ThomasHelzle]

So, I don't know if this has been answered but could any of the betatesters talk about the warp/timestretching algorithms? I've seen they have one called Stretch HD, so im guessing there's Stretch too which im thinking would be the alternative to Live's Complex and Complex Pro, but do they have any creative modes like Beats or Texture or Tones in Live?

There is "Raw" (= no stretch, raw, unaltered playback), "Stretch", "Stretch HD" and "Repitch" (which is the most simple faster/slower playback with no pitch-independent stretching). They sound good to my ears but I mostly use warping creatively so I leave the verdict about the quality or comparisons to others
No other modes available ATM.

Cheers,

Tom

[hibidy]

Not everyone is going to be pleased with everything, that includes things said in the forums or on the twitty

And furthermore, not everything that is said about everything being debated is going to be agreed upon by all the posters of user forums either, or the sub debates in between the not agreed upon topics

[ThomasHelzle]

Not everyone is going to be pleased with everything, that includes things said in the forums or on the twitty

And furthermore, not everything that is said about everything being debated is going to be agreed upon by all the posters of user forums either, or the sub debates in between the not agreed upon topics

That was almost Douglas-Adams-esque

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

[LawrenceF]

@LawrenceF: sorry I dragged you into this
Tom

No problem my friend. Nobody should take any of this stuff too seriously... it's only software.

Bitwig will (eventually) release and (as is the norm in every similar case ever), some will love it, some will hate it, and some others won't care very much either way.

Although, granted, it's the lovers vs the haters who always make for the most entertaining KVR threads.

[Ogopogo]

@Ogopogo: It's great that you are so enthusiastic about Bitwig without actually having tested it
I look forward to see how you will like the actual product!...

Well there's been enough enough that you can pretty much work out what each and every button does at this point. There's not too much that could be hiding away. But if you are holding things back as I think you said then maybe there will be something that will surprise me.

A lot of you points I feel I have touched on already, and did admit some are good points.

Yes I suppose there is a good likelihood that I am not factoring in inertia heavily enough. You could probably say I am like you, pretty willing to learn, if I see something that is more promising I am probably more likely than the average user to drop my current system and sort out or adapt to the issues that stand in the way.

Cheers. I can't wait till it comes out.