Bitwig natively can’t trigger clips with program changes coming in from Elektron boxes.
I used the Driven By Moss extension a while ago to play around with it, though, and that allows you to set up a template where when you change the pattern on your Elektron box, it’ll trigger the clip group you’ve set it up for. It took a bit of fiddling to get set up, but it’s doable for some one not versed in coding.
In the end, I couldn’t get around latency issues with it, so I gave up on it. Maybe others have had better luck than me.
Picked up a cheap license on KVR to head back to Bitwig motherland…
Had a nice time with Ableton and probably published at least 200 sketches with it. However the amount of M4L devices I had , the slow loading times, bland visuals, lack of hybrid tracks and just overall clunkiness was a good enough excuse to change ship with Bitwig 6 coming.
The M4L devices were a double-edged sword as I had some beauties (Kentaro, Fors , Videosync) but they just started to clog everything up.
Decided to just lean in and purge some VST’s too - things that annoy me, or I never use. Somethings I can resell, but others will just disappear into the abyss. On the other hand the plugins that do survive the purge are treated to a much greater experience; sandboxing, endless modulation and less overhead. They feel as though they are a natural extension, rather than something bolted on as an afterthought
…embedded video workflow for producing music alongside with picture in one same mainframe host is the last big point to miss in bitwig…and as said already, i think, they know and will deliver on that pretty much next to come…
apart from that, sure, since ableton can’t provide sandboxing for 3rd party plugins without ripping apart their whole core code first, that clunkyness and crashes from time to time, u have to deal with sometimes in ableton, is here to stay…
while speaking of 3rd. party plugins…when i was going back itb for bitwig, i also bought heaps of all sorts of plugins…only to realize slowly but surely, vast majority of them became obsolete, since there was always also a smooth way to get it done with the options bitwig has to offer anyways…
last 3rd party plugins i really have in use are cableguys shaperbox and snapback, xln’s xo and life, a little bit of ott, brainworx’ true peak limiter and here and there a little help from unfiltered audio fx stuff…but that’s about it…
and when it comes to max for live creations, grid covers it all, when it comes to all sorts of modular sound creations…and since ess’ fors creations are not bound to max for live only anymore, there’s no need for me, to ever look back again…
the sandboxing point is underrated. it’s not just a stability feature - it actually changes how you think about plugins because you stop being scared of them crashing your session. that fear is real in Live and it makes you conservative about what you load.
the Grid reducing the plugin dependency thing is something i find genuinely interesting from a dev angle too. been tinkering with DSP stuff solo for a while - building simple things in JUCE just to understand how they work from the inside - and looking at how the Grid is designed, it’s clearly built by people who understand that the “plumbing” between modules matters as much as the modules themselves. the way it handles modulation at the audio rate level is the kind of thing you only really appreciate when you’ve tried to implement it yourself and realised how tricky it is to get right without artifacts.
Bitwig Studio 6 will be released on March 11, 2026. As always, this upgrade is free to all customers with an active Upgrade Plan (as of August 27, 2025).
Humble attempt to recreate tidal cycles and @kindohm music style (if you don’t know him, check out his youtube channel, his music is crazy good) in the Grid with S/H generative sequencers
…was a big hi five day for the bitwig team, when hawtin started using their program and was willing to feature it officially for nothing but his sheer and pure fascination of it…
and when it comes to the pioneers of all future coding from back in the days, ni’s most timeless innovations still remain to this day, also gamechangers…reaktor, kontakt and of course good oooold traktor…
and hey…only 9 days left for the official 6 release…
It’s been a long time coming out of beta but I think it’s a significant upgrade in terms of workflow features. I’m not sure I will use all of it but I quite like the general interface changes, colours, new layout and shortcuts etc. I think it looks really nice and I’ve been able to adjust the colours/brightness to something that I like a lot.
I was just watching Polarity’s livestream from a few hours ago and it’s the usual goldmine of tips and tricks for sound design, particularly given that I’m back trying to produce Drum and Bass. So it’s the usual lesson that you can do a HUGE amount of deep sound design and mixing using only Bitwig devices, but also that I need to get the keyboard shortcut muscle memory so I can move as fast as he does. It clearly works wonders to move quickly and generate a lot of ideas, bounce to audio, try things out fast rather than getting bogged down in every little detail.
Personally I get very frustrated if I get stuck or confused with navigation and getting around the interface. I recently took some time to setup my coding IDE with shortcuts I like and it makes a huge difference to speed and reducing friction.
Polarity is one of the most advanced Bitwig youtubers, he goes VERY deep but there should be some beginner stuff in there as well. If you want to see what’s possible with Bitwig only (or 99%) then watch some of this full track production videos. It’s mostly focused on Drum and Bass and Ambient, but it’s chock full of Bitwig tips about sound design, how to use the Grid, how to do generative stuff etc. Not sure if that’s your cup of tea but it’s amazing what’s possible.
I found the other guy recently, he’s got some great stuff as well.
