What is the future of Bitwig?

[pierb]

I remember when it was announced like 10 years ago the big thing IMO were modulators and the modular environment (which wasn't released as The Grid until v3).

Now that we have modular midi in 4.2 I think the original vision promised so long ago has finally been realized.

So what's the big picture vision for the future now?

Of course there are myriads of little evolutionary things they could add like MSEGs, QOL improvements in the piano roll, etc, but I'm wondering rather in the direction of Bitwig.

Will it continue to entrench itself into being the "experimental DAW"? Will it open itself to the more traditional DAW market like Studio One did?

[Tj Shredder]

They will infinitely hold back the promised collaboration features, to keep the crowd hoping for it... (I don't need it, as cloud services like Dropbox deliver already what I could possibly need...; - )
My big picture is covering multichannel tracks and basic tools for doing audio for video (like in Logic)

[pierb]

They will infinitely hold back the promised collaboration features, to keep the crowd hoping for it... (I don't need it, as cloud services like Dropbox deliver already what I could possibly need...; - )
My big picture is covering multichannel tracks and basic tools for doing audio for video (like in Logic)

Personally I have zero interest in collaboration features.

Regarding surround (and ultimately Atmos) I think Bitwig really needs to step up their game. Even if they are not intending on getting into the media composer market (which would need video, articulations, etc) Apple is pushing Atmos for music really hard. Logic already has it. Cubase 12 will have it soon.

Dolby even has a solution for Ableton Live not sure if that would work in Bitwig:

https://learning.dolby.com/hc/en-us/art ... eton-Live-

This is probably a controversial opinion... but if Bitwig is going to keep focusing on sound design features instead of DAW features, I think it would make a lot of sense to offer a way to load its devices into another DAW. Maybe like a Bitwig Rack or something.

It's really frustrating to see Studio One coming up with amazing features for writing music and composition like chord detection, musicloops, automatic articulations with VSL, etc, and Bitwig keeps getting left behind as far as music writing features.

[u-u-u]

[...]
It's really frustrating to see Studio One coming up with amazing features for writing music and composition like [...], musicloops, [...], etc, and Bitwig keeps getting left behind as far as music writing features.


[...]

Just watched the video about the S1 musicloops. I don't understand how you can be frustrated in this regard. The only advantage the S1 workflow might have over Bitwig Studio here is that you can unfold the 'musicloops' and drag out the individual parts. But the rest? Reusability of Bitwig Studio content is so much better in that regard.

For example Bitwig Studio's device nesting concept is soo much more powerful than S1's restricted device routing possibilities. Combined with the modulation concept, Bitwig's device nesting really cannot be compared to what S1 does. Because a device chain preset hasn't any real life reusability benefit for me until I can do more complex routings and assign modulations & top level remote controls that can control the whole device chain at once. So this whole "You can drag out a single device out of a device chain preset" in S1 is just irrelevant for me.
Also .bwclip and .bwscene files provide the same reusability of musical ideas as S1 musicloops but in combination with the powerful device nesting & modulation concept.

[pierb]

But the rest? Reusability of Bitwig Studio content is so much better in that regard.

AFAIK Bitwig is missing one crucial feature.

S1 stores an audio preview. This means you can quickly navigate your musicloops (terrible name) without having to load all the plugins in the chain. It's just as if you were navigating a folder of samples.

Sure in Bitwig you have presets for everything, but good luck using those. You have to wait for the whole channel to load to be able to hear it and decide if you want it. This simply makes Bitwig presets unusable IMO for anything other than very simple stuff.

Articulations is not something the electronic musician typically uses, but it's also a crucial feature for anything that uses orchestral sample libraries. Again, nothing here to be found in Bitwig. All other majors DAWs support something to alleviate this.

Regarding your other comments about S1, I totally agree. Bitwig is much more advanced in terms of sound design vs any other DAW. I mean if it wasn't I'd have no trouble moving onto another DAW lol

[pdxindy]

Will it continue to entrench itself into being the "experimental DAW"? Will it open itself to the more traditional DAW market like Studio One did?

Bitwig will continue to open itself to fresh and creative ways of doing tasks instead of entrenching itself in the stale old DAW paradigm.

[Tj Shredder]

Articulations is not something the electronic musician typically uses, but it's also a crucial feature for anything that uses orchestral sample libraries. Again, nothing here to be found in Bitwig. All other majors DAWs support something to alleviate this.

The instrument selector can do articulations with key switches…

[pierb]

Bitwig will continue to open itself to fresh and creative ways of doing tasks instead of entrenching itself in the stale old DAW paradigm.

LOL

Video support, Atmos, chord detection, scale mode, etc. Those features are definitely not stale

[pierb]

The instrument selector can do articulations with key switches…

And are the changes displayed on the track itself? Hmm no.

And does the instrument selector auto configures itself when loading a VSL instrument? Hmmm no.

See the VSL video I posted above to see what I'm talking about.

Also AFAIK the instrument selector requires you to load multiple instances of the instrument. You can't use it to switch articulations of a single Kontakt /VSL instance.

[Tj Shredder]

I agree, the integration of VSL into Studio 1 is special. But only works with VSL. Anybody who can afford VSL libraries has no problem to get Studio 1 on top. Bitwig isn’t ready for cinematic huge orchestra scores anyway, it shines in different areas. Not that I wouldn’t welcome something like that, but other features have a higher priority…
Btw. to set a keyswitch in front and at the end of a part in the piano roll, isn’t that much of a hassle. It isn’t a deal breaker, as you would usually just play them with the part…
That instrument selector requires multiple instances is the nature of the beast. Its not different to Kontakt/VSL’s requirement to load multiple sample sets. You can easily store your articulation collection in a Bitwig preset…

[Tj Shredder]

Double

[u-u-u]

But the rest? Reusability of Bitwig Studio content is so much better in that regard.

AFAIK Bitwig is missing one crucial feature.

S1 stores an audio preview. This means you can quickly navigate your musicloops (terrible name) without having to load all the plugins in the chain. It's just as if you were navigating a folder of samples.

Sure in Bitwig you have presets for everything, but good luck using those. You have to wait for the whole channel to load to be able to hear it and decide if you want it. This simply makes Bitwig presets unusable IMO for anything other than very simple stuff.

Yes, that missing audio preview is a valid point. I sometimes worked around that (for clips, not presets) by

• grouping the tracks
• creating an empty clip on the group (is 1 bar by default)
• applying "Double content" to that clip to get the desired preview duration
• bouncing it in place
• deactivating all the grouped tracks (speeds up loading the clip preview in the browser)
• saving the clip to the library

Then when i select the saved clip in the browser, the audio preview loads very fast and plays for the desired duration. But it is very tedious to do that manually all the time.

But also consider that for Bitwig clips it cannot be decided automatically by the program for how long a clip preview should be rendered. For example a clip could contain automation with independent loop length or it could contain Chance or Recurrence operators. So e.g. even if the loop length is only 1 bar, the actual content might repeat after, say, 8 bars - or even never repeat.
So my main feature request would be that I can set a fixed preview length when saving a clip to the library and it then should automatically create an audio preview in the background. (I'll mail the support with a link to this post)

Another point to consider for a rendered audio preview: If "Synchronize previews to project" is set to ON, a pre-rendered audio preview would have to be time-stretched. So if "Synchronize previews to project" is ON, there could be an additional toggle, called "prefer pre-rendered preview".

Also at the moment a .bwscene clip that contain multiple clips with different loop lengths are not played back correctly in the preview browser. The shorter (looped) clips are only played once and don't continue to play while the longer clips are still playing. So even without rendering an audio preview in the background (which might take some time I don't want to spend waiting), it would be useful if I could set a fixed preview length nevertheless when saving the scene clip so that the browser preview works as desired afterwards.

Also when inserting the clip into the Arranger that fixed preview length could be used as default length for the inserted arranger clip(s). This would be especially useful for short clips that contain randomized values and events, long clip automation loops or recurrence operators.

So to sum up my feature request:

• allow me to set a fixed "default duration" when saving a clip to the library
• If set, this "default duration" is then used for browser preview and when inserting the saved clip into the arranger from the browser.
• (This "default duration" of saved clips should be editable via "Edit File Metadata")
• If I set the "default duration" in the save clip dialog, there also should be a check box "render preview" available. With this check box checked, an audio preview is rendered in background.
• If I don't set the "default duration" (leave it at 0.0.0.00) it would behave the same as it does now and never save an audio preview
• In the clip browser, there should be an additional toggle button "prefer pre-rendered clip preview". This is useful for faster preview loading times. Not sure sure whether this is only useful for activated "Synchronize previews to project" but maybe also if "Synchronize previews to project" is inactive - because the user might also want to preview multiple variations for randomized values / events

[carlca]

A similar issue is something that MuLab seem to have sorted, and Reaper as well, I think, and that's to provide the means to preview MIDI files with a sound device of one's choice. It's so useless having a preview that auditions a drum MIDI in GM Piano.

[pierb]

I agree, the integration of VSL into Studio 1 is special. But only works with VSL. Anybody who can afford VSL libraries has no problem to get Studio 1 on top. Bitwig isn’t ready for cinematic huge orchestra scores anyway, it shines in different areas. Not that I wouldn’t welcome something like that, but other features have a higher priority…

I agree.

In fact, if you recall, the whole point of this thread was to discuss the direction Bitwig is going to take in the coming years.

When it was announced a decade ago the vision was clear. But now the original vision seems to have been mostly realized and what we have is really not enough to use Bitwig as a generalist DAW. Which is a shame really, because it has so many features lacking in other DAWs.

I mean, Cubase 12 just introduced FX modulators... with MSEGs.

[j wazza]

some of the sample libraries that come with bitwig are surprisingly good, i hope they make more

i could see bitwig adding some granular stuff which I hope they do

and msegs

other than that im not sure what else it needs, just better sound quality for the existing stuff which they seem to be working towards with the new fx

this stuff would be nice though:
maybe some more options in the piano roll

making it easier to do pitch bends with vsts (not mpe)

a live looper

maybe some additive synthesis and/or resynthesis

adding some more of the devices to the grid like the frequency shifter

a convolution reverb?

analog modelled summing/mix engine like studio one?

a soundstage plugin that can place different sounds in a virtual room with distance etc would be cool, especially if it could be modulated

not fussed about the collaboration features