The BITWIG Thread

Me too…20 plus years of collecting makes me super unorganized and stuck in my ways, and my own archaic way of organizing things. Unfortunately, I must have already installed the demo for Sononym. I guess I’ll just keep pushing away at BW. It’s not terrible. Making all these collections is forcing me to go through my mess. I’m sure it’s for the better.
Algorithmic thinking is definitely becoming mainstream.

Word…

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If any Grid users feel like checking this out - This video is an update of an old video I did, showing how to make a beat repeat/stutter effect in fx grid, but is an improved technique.
I’m sharing it here, because it is kind of inspired by retrigs on the older Elektron boxes.

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These days I decided to explore Bitwig built-in synths and, man, they are really underrated. I think most of the things I do with Reaktor, I can do with them. Phase-4 especially is a little gem.

I don’t know, it feels lighter to work with these built-in synths rather than VSTs. The only thing that is missing is a built-in physical modeling synth. You can build one of course with the grid but still.

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check this group on discord too!!!

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I fully agree. Like with many things in Bitwig, you have the ingredients there and an opportunity to learn… cooking with them. In comparison, many plugins, including popular ones, feel like a quick way to get fast food. Which fair enough, but for those of us that are here to learn the basics and not in a rush…

Yes, and this gap in physical modeling is what made the Anyma Omega compelling for me. Meanwhile, this video was posted recently:

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Exactly. If anything, I would like to become like Ferran Adria and not like Ronald McDonald.

I’m a little bit disappointed with Aodyo. I have the Sylphyo which is the best wind controller I’ve ever had, but they don’t update it anymore even if they said they will do it. I just sold the Anyma Phi because it’s too frustrating with the CPU problems. Their community forum is practically dead, they don’t communicate. French touch maybe ?

Although I hope I’m wrong and I wish the Omega will be a great physmod hardware synth. For now I use softwares for physmod and I explore what Bitwig can spit out about that.

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Probably not a common opinion, but I kind of prefer the Bitwig Piano roll so far to Abletons. Working in the arrangement mode as well so far seems easier to loop with too. It also knows if I made a long note for a pad that the next note should be long as well. I like that a lot. Really enjoying this Bitwig experience so far.

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Didn’t realize that using the project level macro knob basically gets close to endless Octatrack scenes in software form. Wow…

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This is exactly why I bought V5 and am switching to BW for at least a while. It’s a massive game changer for seamless arrangements. I’m pretty interested in seeing how people use this feature because it can do so many things.

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is it limited to 3 global modulation spots? i couldn’t see a way to add more the last time i was messing with it

Must have been updated. I just assigned 13 knobs to my fav Reaktor reverb. Very streamlined.

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More food for your thoughts? :slight_smile: I don’t think it will get closer than this when it comes to a Push-like hardware with Bitwig “inside”.

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I was gladly surprised to see Benn Jordan talking about Bitwig and choosing it for this video (you can skip to ~4:20 for the Bitwig stuff).

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I had similar experiences. Logic is usually rock solid with its midi, but I get weird jumps in poly-aftertouch values every once in a while when trying to record from a Linnstrument. I’m sure it’s something I could debug and even correct in the Environment, but I have Bitwig and it’s been smooth as silk so far. So it’s become my go to for MPE-ish recording and arranging.

Makes me wish for a CLAP version of the SWAM stuff.

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Yes, it was quite interesting.

Venus Theory and Benn Jordan got wrapped up in all the Bitwig spectral plugins nonsense and both swore off BItwig because of the bad taste that it left.

Interesting that he’s happy to use it in videos again.

I wish Venus Theory would do the same. His psychology based content he has switched to was initially interesting, but it’s started to get increasingly whiny (My wife won’t have it on because she finds it annoying) and running out of interesting ideas so I’d be really happy to see him engaging with Bitwig again.

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…last thing left to do in bw’s already fullfledged fancy synthesis galaxy…
a physical modeling planet…

then we can move on to next years 6.0 and the first appearance of the eye grid…

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…and i don’t see any evidence for well respected musicians/utubers/producers like bj or vt, that had “sworn off” bitwig at any point in their carreers…
they always knew, this piece of code is actually and indeed the smartest, smoothest and freshest take to find out there, to simply do the things they do…
and i’m not aware of any other company that realized their very own little spectral mistake that fast and turned it around for the better to be continued immediatly…

https://twitter.com/bennjordan/status/1583167423951228928?t=7iQ_0MW3fCQJ5SGvE4JW1A&s=19

https://www.reddit.com/r/Reaper/comments/zprcne/comment/j160p76/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

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Okay here’s the thing: there’s a spectrum, right? Ideology and pragmatism. In the best case, ideology can inspire us to constantly strive for something better whereas pragmatism lets us do the rubber-meets-road get-shit-done stuff. A DAW is a really stupid thing to get ideological about because it’s all about getting stuff done. Be ideological about your music, not the purity of the thing that makes it, you know?

Bitwig botched the strategy, support, and communications around spectral rollout. This is undeniable. They also 100% addressed and corrected this. If one is pragmatic about one’s tools, great! A tool broke, but they fixed it. Aces. But if one is ideological, now one has hammered a stake into the ground and cannot go back without eating crow, appearing weak, whatever. That’s a dumb corner to have painted oneself into, and one should try to escape it, IMHO.

Now, it seems VT and Benn were both mostly upset because people were angry/mean with them. That sucks, but seems less a Bitwig thing than a “I’ve decided to be a YouTube personality” thing. There’s the added and mostly hinted at allegation of Bitwig leadership being actively unhelpful during this time. That would certainly make me think twice about any partnerships I had with a company, and seems to have lead to both of them ending whatever deals they had, if any. Cool.

But, pragmatically, if Bitwig is the best tool for a job, wouldn’t one still use it? That seems to be the case with Benn. Bitwig’s the best at MPE, so that’s what gets pulled out.

VT doesn’t seem to be in that camp. This could be for pragmatic reasons; i.e. he never felt Bitwig was actually the best tool for the job and was only using it because of paid promotions or whatever. Or it could be ideological; i.e. he feels duty bound to only amplify 100% organic, cruelty free DAWs, and will use lesser tools as long as they meet some purity test that other, more capable tools do not.

It doesn’t matter to me, personally, because I don’t have time for either of those scenarios. Paid promotion is just advertisement, and advertisement is a dumb way to learn about a tool. And ideological purity in tools only limits what I can create which is the opposite of where I’m trying to get to.

All of which is to say, which YouTubers are using/not using Bitwig should be pretty immaterial. It says more about where they sit on the pragmatic/ideological spectrum than it does about the value of Bitwig.

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