The BITWIG Thread

[William_WiLD]

Hi Bitwig Nauts.

Yesterday i was on something… But yesterday when i were on it in my mind it was just messing around, loosing my free time… So i put few VST, sounddesign a bit… Bouncing audio and continu with XLN XO, building a groove from a blank state (damn i love that XO thing)

Later in the night i was shit i love this beginning of something why the hell i bounce the first two tracks if i want to modulate i’m probably screw i didn’t save those two synth sounds

I usually say to the others (Save your iterations - and now i didn’t applied my rules)

But i realized something.
If i were on Ableton Live (and that’s probably why i react like this) i would have lost the two VST by bouncing in place (freeze - consolidate)

Bitwig is so clever when you bounce it’s create an hybrid track with a mixed icon of an instrument and an audio track. Your bounce as audio is there but it still kept the VST instrument with all the settings on the channel.

I really really love that.
Thanks Bitwig

[William_WiLD]

For those looking to a very cool text tool for bitwig this one linked here is very cool.

Deals -- Perennial List of Things on Sale - GAS Warning!

I find a really cool little tool. only 5 bucks but a real keeper to me there’s also MNotepad | MeldaProduction but i love the one from Lyons You can put timestamp to not forgot fix, construction idea to try the next session. You can make your rough balance and final balance screenshots and load it in the plugin so you never loose track of your balance values… when you click on the image it will show the image in a box in full resolution. And you can export data as well. Simple …

[Robobot]

Bitwig's Polygrid through Moog Minitaur filter "generated" piano

Polygrid sends noise and OSC into Moog Minitaur’s EXT in and a Piano “generated” melody that sends midi to the Polygrid and MT. I tried to stay focus
Some moments with cool sounds, either than that, Bitwig is a time killer!

[ivarin]

it’s the same in ableton until you consolidate. if you want to edit the waveform but keep plugins settings, cmd+drag (to duplicate) the clip from a frozen track, it’ll be a .wav

[William_WiLD]

Thanks for the tip - make sense as well

[Robobot]

one of the things I love in the Roland Juno series is the UI and how it so important and simple, yet deep and full of sweet spots, easy patching.
one of the reasons I love my a4 is that you can control it deeply with midi CC ( I didn’t really look for an NRPN convertor)
so I started making a ploygrid UI just like the Juno and a steps module to pitch the 2nd OSC and splitting the lfo… you know, bitwig
Yes, I know it, A4 will never sound like a Juno, but, this UI can deliver fresh sounds from the a4

A4 with Juno UI on Bitwig's polygrid

a4 juno.bwpreset (40.5 KB)

I love to learn your take on this.

[spikysimon]

Yeah I really love the way that Bitwig can really easily add to stuff you already have. I haven’t really tried using it like that with external hardware, but it’s opened up much of my existing softsynths and FX (adding extra LFO’s/envelopes/step sequencers, etc).

[William_WiLD]

I find compared to Ableton or Reason…

Bitwig take too much time to open. It’s like opening Reason for the first time and its first plugin scan. Then when Bitwig finally open, now it scan it doesn’t go faster with time. usually this same long opening.

(Re-installing my computer from scratch here)
Bitwig version 3.3.9 (same with precedent)

>>>>>

Not a big deal but still… slow like a turtle (it’s a ninja but after a breakfast at least…)

[negation]

Bitwig actually compiles the binaries at launch for optimization of your specific system which is pretty cool. This process takes a bit of time but it’s worth it imo

[gerkinear]

Yeah, but…
When it’s open, it’s peanuts, because you only wait once.
I love bitwig for the fact that it runs perfectly fine on linux mint.

[djx]

@William_WiLD

slow like a turtle (it’s a ninja but after a breakfast at least…)

Ha ha! I’m waiting 5 to 10 minutes for some of my synths to warm up and stay in tune, and a minute or two while my amp heats up, and you are complaining about 14 seconds? That 2nd scan happens in the background. I usually open my project and get myself set up while that’s happening. I guess it would depend on the project but I never really notice anything not working when I need it, Maybe it prioritizes things actually in the project… Always wondered about that…

[blipson]

At this discussion of Ableton, someone recommnended I look into Bitwig, so I’m asking my question here.

Can Bitwig on a Mac receive MIDI on one of its tracks from an IAC bus that’s sending to it on constantly changing MIDI channels (but still the same IAC bus), then output that MIDI to a plugin on the same channel it was received? In other words, if I’m modulating the channel being sent to Bitwig, can Bitwig follow along with that change on a single track, or do I have to create one track for each channel (for each IAC bus)?

[William_WiLD]

i was bitching a bit guys
i’m not usually dead serious

but it’s still 10 seconds too long

So Reason 12 is coming, Ableton Live 11 is already there - What Bitwig 3.4 will gives us ???

NB: someone told Roli Blocks doesn’t work, Roli recommend to use the seabord rise script and it works perfectly for me with my block seabord just to let people know, on Ableton 11 it’s now perfect with the MPE integration

[Fuseball]

I’ve never specifically used the IAC bus with my mac but Bitwig does appear to have a bit more control than Ableton over where you route your midi messages.

A Bitwig Instrument Track lets you specify a source for note input, such as a keyboard or midi port. It also lets you route channels to different ones, including From “All” and To “Same”.

The nearest I can get to simulating a multi-timbral routing here is setting up a hardware instrument device to control my Nord A1, setting MIDI Channel to “Keep Ch.” and sending it notes on different channels via the single Instrument Track. Works fine.

I think you can download a Bitwig demo, so give it a try.

[djx]

@William_WiLD

i was bitching a bit guys
i’m not usually dead serious

but it’s still 10 seconds too long

I totally got that. I was laughing along with your poetic description of the turtle and the ninja after breakfast… Still smiling as I write this actually

[blipson]

@Fuseball

A Bitwig Instrument Track lets you specify a source for note input, such as a keyboard or midi port. It also lets you route channels to different ones, including From “All” and To “Same”.

This sounds really promising, thanks.

Will this MIDI routing work with Bitwig Studio 16-Track? The list of features says 16-track version’s Note FX don’t include Channel Filter and Channel Map, so I’d like to make sure if the functionality you describe requires that full version.

[blipson]

@Fuseball

setting MIDI Channel to “Keep Ch.” and sending it notes on different channels via the single Instrument Track. Works fine.

I’ve verified this functionality: it’s exactly what I need. I wonder why Ableton’s never implemented a “keep channel” feature.

[tallrobphilp]

I really love Bitwig and I’ve been using it since it was in Alpha in 2013 (I think it was). I think it’s probably the most innovative DAW since Ableton introduced session view. The unified modulation system, Grid modular design (no more clunky eurorack emulations) and the general focus on making things fast and easy (I don’t think I’ve ever read the manual) makes it really great.

However…dramatic pause…I’m increasingly frustrated with some performance issues which may or may not be due to my getting-a-bit-old 2013 Macbook Pro. When I try to browse new device presets or “hot swap” things it’s so slow it’s almost unuseable. I just constantly get a long pause (sometimes 10 seconds or more) and a message saying “optimising devices” and I’ve never figured it out. I also own Reason 11 and it has some small similarities in terms of the easy way to just drag and drop anything anywhere and a single browser for everything, but it’s always incredibly snappy and there’s no lag. The closed Reason ecosystem has always had a major performance benefit - it’s stable, fast and it runs light on CPU.

Perhaps this performance issue will push me over the edge to buy a new M1 Mac, although I get nervous because Apple clearly have “good” and “bad” generations of laptops and if you are unlucky enough to get a “bad” one then it can be painful. I was lucky - my late 2013 MBP has been a trooper and in 90% of usage it still performs very well and it has almost never crashed or frozen even under huge stress.

Still, I’m excited about the next big Bitwig update and I trust they will add some fun stuff. I have been pleased every time so far.

[Fuseball]

I didn’t use Channel Map or Channel Filter, which offer even more control of which messages get sent and where, so the method I described should still work with the 16-Track version.

Sounds like you’ve got it working anyway.

[blipson]

I just did a quick setup working from Ableton’s paradigm, whose external instruments method works exactly the same except there’s no Keep Ch. option. Now that I’ve just received by Bitwig license, I’ll make a note of Channel Filter and Channel Map to see what they can offer. As I recall, REAPER also has plugins for mapping MIDI, but I’m liking how it’s already baked into BW’s basic functionality.