The BITWIG Thread

The Lounge Other Gear
#1835

Don’t underestimate Bitwig’s wavetable oscillator inside the Grid. And the power of the Grid in general.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks almost exclusively playing around in the Grid and I really think it’s something special. Many of the YT videos on Bitwig focus on complex subjects or how to make massive generative patches etc. That stuff is great and I enjoy it, but I think it doesn’t get enough credit as a more “straightforward” sound design environment.

It’s so quick and easy to drop in a couple of oscillators, a filter, an envelope etc and build very simple patches that sound great. I would especially encourage people to explore the Phase-1 oscillator along with the shaper modules, you can get some very thick/rich/insert-adjective sounds going in no time without going overboard on the patching.

I also realised that the new curve stuff (basically multi-segment envelopes, oscillators and LFOs) are an absolute dream for complex sound design. I’ve been doing DIY DnB drum synthesis and you can be very precise with making your own drums with transient/body/noise components with very precise envelopes, adding distorting and saturation to some parts and not others etc.

I also made some absolutely filthy bass sounds with a couple of oscillators, a bit of FM and some shaping/distortion.

I’m probably preaching to the choir but I’ve realised I can do 90% or more of what is possible in many “premium” VSTs like Pigments, Phase Plant etc with the Grid modules, plus there’s no excess bloat, just the bits I need and nothing else.

13 Likes
#1836

I abuse the Chebyshev shaper/distortion/filtering module far too much. The slightest movement of the dial creates such wildly different results. Love it!

1 Like
#1837

I would really appreciate it if you could elaborate more on your diy dnb drum design workflow.

2 Likes
#1838

It’s nothing special, I basically followed some tutorials about DnB drums from scratch and took it from there. It’s still a work in progress and when I A/B it with tracks I like it sounds pretty weedy but you have to start somewhere, right?!

I’ll attach a drum machine preset. I’m on version 5-point-something, I hope this works for you.

DnB Drums 1.bwpreset (49.6 KB)

3 Likes
#1839

Thank you.

#1840

This is huge !

9 Likes
DAWProject
#1841

yes! And imagine hardware companies like Akai, Elektron or Roland would adapt that format and you could export your groovebox projects as DAWProject files.

4 Likes
#1842

Would you mind sharing a bit of how you connect steamdeck to the outside world ? Audio and midi I/O please ?

:sweat_smile:

#1843

-Midi through usb-c
-audio via the headphone jack

I didn’t really go beyond that and have since given up on this quest. It’s still fun for sure, but tiny bit wig is hard to use haha

#1844

Thanks !

Yeah I can imagine that but having the setup done on my workstation and ported to a plug n’ play portable complex vst host, appeals to me ! :heart_eyes:

1 Like
#1845

Bitwig is on fire, this is huge too !

16 Likes
#1846

I don’t really understand what TouchDesigner even is (apart from it being the core of the M8 Tracker’s OS, or something?) And neither the press release nor their website is helping me out in this regard. If you could you summarize what it is and/or why this is huge, I’d be forever thankful!

3 Likes
#1847

Check out this guy and what he does with Touchdesigner and sounds. It’s better than any summary I can do :

https://www.instagram.com/nouses_kou/

#1848

Very impressive, but I still don’t understand what are the practical applications of this Bitwig connection to TouchDesigner. What are the benefits for musicians, developers or users.

1 Like
#1849

Touchdesigner is its own world, like Max MSP was before Max for Live if you will.

So if you really want to summarize things, this is a little bit like a Max for Live for visual design and for Bitwig.

#1850

You could use it to make custom visuals for a song, or a set by having Bitwig modulators control parameters in a custom visualizer you build in Touch Designer.

3 Likes
#1851

Yeah, if I had time to learn Touch Designer. Everything I see done with it is spectacular. Would be amazing to have strobe style visuals synced to a Bitwig project using modulators. Pretty over whelming. Maybe if it were like M4L, where developers could make patches for Touch Designer? Or maybe I’ll just at some point go down the Touch Designer rabbit hole.
Exciting times tho

#1852

…as much as i appreciate, bitwig is closing the gap to visual content creating, i’d much prefer, they would give it a try on their own…

i really need to get my own hands on visual production capabilties…
but, damn, i need it to be under the same hood, with the exact same fluent workflow as bitwig offers me already in audio…

a coop with a developer that is already doing it might be a good move…
and sure, cycliing74, mother of all max msp does a great job in ableton…
but that’s not the bitwig way…so teaming up with touchdesigner better be an inbetween solution…

i keep on dreaming/hoping/waiting for a bitwig version in which i can play with all the wigs on all the bits, wether it’s content for the ear or content for the eye…grid is grid…and only THAT is all tomorrows parties…

3 Likes
#1853

Well, the more I think of it, the more this sort of thing might be where I need to go. Have an old friend who uses Touch Designer and I’ve always wanted to learn it. This may end up being technology charting my path once again. Anybody on here use TD?
Edit: Awe cool! TD is free until I make money with it! Wow.

2 Likes
#1854

I had the same thought, now that I have a decent computer and there’s bitwig integration it seems like the perfect time to learn TD. Maybe we should start a thread for us noobs…

1 Like