Let‘s speculate about 6.0

[Jac459]

A sampler with slicing at last? I'm totally in!

We have slicing already no?
With the modulators. What do you need more?

[esq1]

Hope there is a update for touch. A Radial Menü for the Grid. Change the Modules like with the Mouse. Yeah... a update for Touch i miss..

[TheYke]

A sampler with slicing at last? I'm totally in!

We have slicing already no?
With the modulators. What do you need more?

It's possible to slice with modulators, you're right. But for more conventional slicing needs it's quite tedious to set up, especially when using many slices not tied to the grid. That's why I use third party solutions for this. That's fine, but with a built-in slicing function, I could replace yet another plugin for bread and butter needs

[xbitz]

I think they should definitely focus on the core features. Piano roll, Sampler+, ...

I totally agree. The problem is everyone here (and elsewhere) have completely different ideas about what the 'core' features are. For instance I don't have any need for a chord track and do not consider this as core, but the piano roll and arranger could really do with some attention and better groove tools would be a big bonus. I also am not a big user of samples so not too fused about that but can understand some others find this really important.

It depends on how much you like to build consciously, for example in an uplifting environment, some of my notes>

General Principles
Add9 (2nd/9th): Freshness, openness, uplifting vibe. Ideal in mid-top range (A4–C5) for arpeggios and melodic tension.
Add11 (4th/11th): Bridge note, connects chords. Helps transition between motifs or sections.
Add6: Smooth, sweet sound. Fits vintage or deep trance textures.
Maj7: Jazzier, emotional character—use sparingly in uplifting trance.
Min7: Darker, moodier feel, fits progressive or melancholic trance.
Sus2: Fresh, airy color, great for breakdowns or soft intros.
Sus4: Suspenseful, unresolved tension, use for rhythmic push or transitions.

Tension Placement Strategy
Top Note Bridge: Use Add9 or Add11 as highest note for smooth transitions.
Mid–Top Layering: Add9 on top, Add11 in mid for airy, floating textures.
Don’t Overload: Avoid stacking all tensions—pick 1-2 for clarity.
Tension Combo: Add9 + Add11 + Add6 can work, but two at a time is usually best.

Musical Ideas
Motif Building: Choose a tension (like B as add9) as a recurring anchor note across multiple chords.
Passing Chords: Use Add11 as bridges, e.g., E in a D–E–F# progression.
Arpeggio Coloring: Don’t stick to plain triads—throw in 9ths and 11ths for movement.
Suspense & Release: Add9 for openness, Add11 for tension, triads to resolve.


for me a Cubase + S1 combo would be the best as on the video above, if I do it by ear, this would come out anyway, so it’s obviously just optional, but since I know this is what I’d get, I might as well start with the final solution. That’s how much the chord track can help ... Music conservatory? That’s for my next life.

[tumface]

Specific "scale highlighting" and "chord track" things I wouldn't mind, I guess, but I have been doing western music long enough that I don't think they would help me that much. I probably wouldn't even use them. I don't use the scale stuff at all in Ableton Live 12. It's too limiting and makes it hard to do borrowed chords, temporary root movement to a chord for soloing, slash chords split between 2 instruments, etc. I understand basic scale highlighting/constraining is useful for beginners who want to know which notes are "safe" to choose from, but it's sort of like training wheels. As soon as you get it, you don't want or need it anymore.

But, I can also imagine ways to add western music theory stuff that aren't limiting in the way that Live's is. There are other ways to do it. I feel like a Bitwig way to do it would be to provide you with the tools to make your own music system helpers. Instead of hard-coding it to western music, highlighting some notes on piano keys, and calling it a day.

The alternative tuning systems in Live 12 are pretty cool, though. Unfortunately, they didn't put in any way to adjust the reference pitch or morph the scales dynamically, so you can't use it for things like just intonation for choral music, barbershop quartet intonation, some fancier middle eastern stuff…

[pdxindy]

A sampler with slicing at last? I'm totally in!

We have slicing already no?
With the modulators. What do you need more?

It's possible to slice with modulators, you're right. But for more conventional slicing needs it's quite tedious to set up, especially when using many slices not tied to the grid. That's why I use third party solutions for this. That's fine, but with a built-in slicing function, I could replace yet another plugin for bread and butter needs

I get that lots of people want it, but I don't care if the devs add slicing to Sampler cause I will never use it if they do. It's a non feature for me.

[coroknight]

Samplers are interesting because a lot of the features people ask for already exist in audio clips. Adding these features to the sampler feels like duplicate work and conceptually messy.

If you think about it a sampler is basically the same thing as putting audio on the timeline, just with it's own internal clock separate from the global clock.

What would be really cool IMO, is being able to create "sub-clocks" that you could drop audio and MIDI clips into and use the same editing tools everywhere. There's an experimental DAW called Blockhead that does something along these lines, although I'm not suggesting copying that 1-to-1 into Bitwig.

[tumface]

Samplers are interesting because a lot of the features people ask for already exist in audio clips. Adding these features to the sampler feels like duplicate work and conceptually messy.

Polyphony (in a single track) and playability via keyboard or MIDI are two big ones you can't do with audio clips right now. Both of those are really important, to me, for discovery and experimentation when songwriting.

(I do think Bitwig's audio clip editing is pretty great, though! Especially when set to Slice mode, you can chop them up and repitch them sampler-style easily, without timestretching junk.)

[coroknight]

Samplers are interesting because a lot of the features people ask for already exist in audio clips. Adding these features to the sampler feels like duplicate work and conceptually messy.

Polyphony (in a single track) and playability via keyboard or MIDI are two big ones you can't do with audio clips right now. Both of those are really important, to me, for discovery and experimentation when songwriting.

(I do think Bitwig's audio clip editing is pretty great, though! Especially when set to Slice mode, you can chop them up and repitch them sampler-style easily, without timestretching junk.)

A response lacking in creativity and imagination.

Is it a major feature that’s generally expected of any sampler? Then yes obviously it should still have that feature.

[coroknight]

What I’m saying is the sampler should become more like a container for clips. That way it can re-use existing UI widgets and editing tools for consistency across the application and so that adding features to clips automatically adds those features to the sampler as well.

If the sampler container creates multiple instances internally to support polyphony then that’s fine. It’s not a detail that influences the idea very much.

[tumface]

Samplers are interesting because a lot of the features people ask for already exist in audio clips. Adding these features to the sampler feels like duplicate work and conceptually messy.

Polyphony (in a single track) and playability via keyboard or MIDI are two big ones you can't do with audio clips right now. Both of those are really important, to me, for discovery and experimentation when songwriting.

A response lacking in creativity and imagination.

Is it a major feature that’s generally expected of any sampler? Then yes obviously it should still have that feature.

What I’m saying is the sampler should become more like a container for clips. That way it can re-use existing UI widgets and editing tools for consistency across the application and so that adding features to clips automatically adds those features to the sampler as well.

Samplers are interesting because a lot of the features people ask for already exist in audio clips.

already exist

I named two features that don't already exist in audio clips in Bitwig. Because that's what we were talking about. Then you said I'm lacking imagination because I didn't pretend to be in a world where that wasn't true when replying to you. It's not coherent.

[coroknight]

Yeah taking existing features from audio clips and putting them in the sampler. Like slicing… which they were discussing right above my comment. These are the kinds of features people ask for.

To be clear, saying they should take features from audio clips does not imply they should remove any existing features like polyphony.

[tumface]

I do agree your idea for a feature like that is cool.

I also hope they add something like clip aliases and/or clip folders (like Logic) to make de-duplicating parts of arrangements easier. It's annoying when you've got a 10 minute song or whatever and suddenly you need to modify a drum pattern that's repeated many times. Clip looping isn't enough, because it only works if the pattern is repeated without gaps. Ableton Live has this same problem and it baffles me that more people aren't bothered by it.

[JHernandez]

I wouldn't mind slicing in the sampler, (and a proper time stretch algo, two) if it actually slices the audio (destructive, I guess you would call it) and I can drag it out as an individual audio file. It would save me from using an external editor in some cases.

I love Sampler, and all the cool devices/containers/mods you can use with it. You can build your own instruments with Sampler, or several instances of it, and or go bananas with sound FX/design too. I use it in absolutely every sessions and song. It is the number 1 reason I use Bitwig, so any improvement to it is a plus in my book.

[pdxindy]

I do agree your idea for a feature like that is cool.

I also hope they add something like clip aliases and/or clip folders (like Logic) to make de-duplicating parts of arrangements easier. It's annoying when you've got a 10 minute song or whatever and suddenly you need to modify a drum pattern that's repeated many times. Clip looping isn't enough, because it only works if the pattern is repeated without gaps. Ableton Live has this same problem and it baffles me that more people aren't bothered by it.

When I use Logic, I am ambivalent about clip aliases. I'm undecided whether they are a net benefit. There are some plus sides and down sides to using them. Most of the time I end up not using them cause enough times I edit a clip and forget I am editing some other location on the timeline.

I also tend to have small variations and not that many identical clips.