Connect 4/12 - audio interface from ...Bitwig?!

No tricks. Just that the euro people I know seem to prefer TRS. It’s some combination of limited space for DIN ports, having a number of stereo 3.5mm cables at hand, and it being aesthetically weird to have a bunch of thin patch spaghetti flowing everywhere and then a big MIDI chonky boy hanging off the front, I think?

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I, for one, welcome our new TRS MIDI overlords.

Awesome looking box.

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Yeah, I guess I am euro folk and I would rather have old school DIN. But actually, isn’t it possible to hook two devices up together with just a TRS cable (which would look similar to Eurorack patching) if they are both TRS midi? That could be tricky.

…if i had not an antilope audio interface with great clocking converters in use for all bw laptop work, THIS bw audio AND midi all in one hub would be an instant buy for me…

but if it turns out to do a good job in clocking and converting, for around 500 bux i assume this will be the case, my antilope one is out for sale soon enough for sure…

but hey…for now…chances are hi for TOMORROW to end the actual beta phase…

I think it’s a smart move for them!

They obviously could’ve gone for a controller (like Push/Move for Live), but I’m afraid the user base isn’t big enough (yet).

An audio interface is something that’s DAW-agnostic, although this particular one will appeal to Bitwig’s target demographic, i.e. hardware and/or modular geeks, so it might - in the process - encourage some of them to try & move to to Bitwig.

Fingers crossed it works for them! :slight_smile:

If Bitwig would get the designers/engineers from the original NI Maschine team, and adds Jürgen from DrivenByMoss to the team, and let them create a dedicated Maschine-like “groovebox” that integrates natively with Bitwig, and essentially delivers what Maschine was not able to achieve with their lackluster update strategy, i think they have a winner on their hands.

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Good thinking! Especially since (select) NI stuff running on Akai MPC hardware - end of Maschine?

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I don’t need this audio interface but I think it makes perfect sense and it shows Bitwig’s dedication to their own little corner of the market. I hope it’s a sign that the company is strong and that they are looking to the future with other hardware.

Count me in for a dedicated Bitwig controller!

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There are plenty of eurorack modules that take TRS so It doesn’t really matter since you’re likely to be using a converter cable if you’ve got more than one midi module. It’s more space efficient but still trips everyone up when you got to make sure you found the right kind of TRS cable when it looks 90% like the others.

I didn’t have the best luck getting USB audio working reliably on Linux with Bitwig, so I wonder if this interface would be an “it just works” solution.

Same experience here, same hopes.

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On Linux, this is achieved reliably with a USB class-compliant audio interface. Sometimes an audio interface isn’t labelled as USB class compliant but is compliant enough to work in Linux, but this is more risky, and this is why most of us check online for places like linuxmusicians.com before buying. Sometimes there are community drivers, etc.

What is seldom is to have a vendor that mentions Linux as officially supported, from day 1, which makes sense for Bitwig, and this is what they say:

Compatible with macOS / Windows / Linux

From your lips to God’s ears . . .

I understand that’s the intention, but my experience has still been that Ubuntu has not been As Reliable As Other Platforms, even with class-compliant hardware. (Part of my issue was that my Yamaha MG10xu is supposed to be class-compliant, but in practice it works much better with Yamaha’s custom drivers.)

Things will happen like: my system reverting to “Dummy Audio” for input/output after disconnecting the USB audio device, so I have to resort to obscure tools to kickstart one of the various audio systems. I’m a systems administrator by day, so it’s not alien to me, but it’s unpredictable, which is annoying.

This is not Bitwig’s fault, but rather more like an interaction between the Intel audio chipset driver(s) on one of my laptops and some combination of Jack, Pipewire, ALSA, etc. – but it also not something I have to deal with on macOS or Windows.

Still, I’ve had fun with e.g. the Roland P-6 on Ubuntu, or M8, and intend to continue to play with that kind of rig. Also the Audio4c, but that has an additional power brick which makes it less fun.

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That’s a risky endeavor. Personally, I’d prefer them to make a solid sketchpad a-la Move rather than going after the MPC.

I think we can discuss that in the Bitwig thread.

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Blagger/roaster weaverbeats gives unexpected love to 4/12 after 3.30 minutes.

After thinking some more about it, I’m surprised that there is no possibility to expand the inputs. Or am I missing something? Everything else seems like a total winner for semi-modular or modular users. Let’s hope it’s stable, it could fill the void for a small synth setup.

Yeah, he hardly ever does that - it was surprising from him :slight_smile:

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Have you seen the video? It’s not small :frowning:

Well, it’s not big either. I meant a synth setup that’s small, like someone starting out or someone scaling down to 3-4 devices like a sampler, synth and modular. Maybe the size could be an issue if you want to use the big knob for parameter input so you’d need to keep it close but it’s only 20.7 (W) x 16.3 (L) x 5.9 (H) cm.

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Another NAMM video: