I think you might be putting 2+2 together and making 5.
The new version is a massive update and is really exceptional. I imagine they just have a lot of stuff to do.
It does suck they aren’t prioritising U-He. There is also an annoying bug with all Roland plugins that’s needed fixing for ages.
In the time I’ve been using Bitwig it’s really noticeable that it’s now talked about with the other big players. Hardware and VST manufacturers mention Bitwig as one of the supported DAWs where as it would not be mentioned in the past so they seem to be getting mindshare.
isnt it good to have a ‘protracted’ (though i dont think theres an industry defined period of time for beta’s to be in development) … beta testing period …perhaps each fix had ‘paired code review’ , thorough test plans , soak testing , regression and multiple fixes … as is typical close to release.
can you imagine the response to a company releasing a product that is barely functioning , basic features missing , basic features totally broken , some still broken for a key release like bitwig 6… at least it was known it was in beta before the official 6.0 with ongoing point fixes coming .
basically - i dont think thorough beta testing, multiple itterations of fixes before a final release , is a bad thing … at least the customers know what they’re dealing with . isnt it obvious why its taking a while when there are release notes (and i presume a list of known issues ) … it stands to reason if there are continued known issues that it needs more work . … it basically self explanitory.
i’m also not aware of any agreed ‘world wide time expectation’ on manual releases… where is it written that its 1 month, 2 months, six months ?.. ideally it should be close to release of a big update but its been mentioned that theyre reworking it… surely that was a useful bit of comms from the team… its likely to be a substantial amount of work to rework a manual from the ground up. if its a team of limited resources i’d expect they focused on the release before moving to work on the manual .
ive no idea about clap3 though i’m going to guess theres someone out there complaining that the beta process for Zebra 3 was protracted and was ‘unexplained’ too…the notes i saw online indicated it still has a lot of issues. (curve editor issues, mouse cursor bugs in ableton etc)
anyway… its all just conjecture … which is what forums are full of … it can be handy to ‘vent’ … i do it far too often myself…
when i first experienced bitwigs F1 realtime manual for each little aspect there is, while working further along, i saw nothing but the future of manuals…
let’s face it…the days of printed manuals are counted and the real need for dedicated pdf’s for manuals is also coming to an end…at least if a software is next level in overall code concept as bitwig is…
besides the fact, it’s a tiny team and writing a manual is a hell of an xtra job, somebody needs to actually DO…
even with toplevel inside out knowledge, it means weeks of work…especially if ur latest mainupdate jump has to cover so many new ways to approach countless next level workflows…
and since i’ve never had any issues with any third party plugin, vst or clap, and now hear about trouble with roland plugins that persist since ages, the problem is defenitly nowhere to find on bitwigs side…
plugins made by roland…???..maybe, they don’t like sandboxing…
if i crash…i want ALL to crash with me…
…hmmmm…u seem pretty pre opinionated on something u actually have not tried yet…download the trial version and see for urself…there will be, of course also a ready to print full on classic manual, soon enough, no further worries and doubts needed, really…maybeeee, once u just used bitwigs next level on board manual for a first time and expeience it for real and for urself, u might gonna drop ur oldschool opinion…it’s really next level…and one of bitwigs many unique selling points so far…
I strongly disagree. Proper Hardware that costs actual money needs a detailed printed manual.
So does certain powerful software. Although with software, I’m fine with something I can read on the screen.
However, I do agree with you in the specific case of Bitwig. The interactive contextual F1 help system does remove any necessity for documenting the plugins in a PDF. That would ne redundant.
I would welcome a more general Manual that explains the concepts and intentions of Bitwigs various views and its layout overall. Because I find ut very confusing. The Bitwig 5 manual didn’t do a good job at clearing things up. Navigating Bitwigs UI is tedious enough already without having to use the mouse way too much. So explaining those things would at least clarify why…
Can’t speak to Mac, but on PC (Win 11) I’m having very frequent issues with audio glitching/stuttering and the audio device (RME UCX II) becoming unavailable. Ran through some Windows MIDI Stack troubleshooting with help from Pete Brown at Microsoft to verify that isn’t the problem. Have reported to Bitwig and sent them a video of one occurrence, but so far they’ve said “looks like your CPU is maxed out” and offered nothing more. This was on a session that had several external hardware device inputs and almost no plugins running. Issues.
…try more shortcuts…define ur own shortcuts…use shortcut “control RETURN” to shortcut directly to the all shortcuts shortlist…
but basically, i feel u…i know how esay it is to get lost in bitwig…but it’s not the overall gui interface itself that is too complex…quite the opposite…it’s sooo hypermodular and hyperflexible…
it’s nothing but a sheer option paralysis that leaves u overwhelmed right from the get go…
the fear of a blank project was never more real…
but also, never that easy to overcome and just get something going, at the same time…
diggin’ a little deeper into the use of shortcuts can morph u into a frequent fly over…
It’s not the complexity. But I fail to see a coherence.
Examples:
Why is editing a clip in the arrangement view not the same as editing said clip in the editor view?
Polysynth for example, is really small on high res Laptop displays. Resizing it is not possible. What do I get when I click it’s detail view? Huge displays of several waveforms.
We have 2 (TWO) browser windows, but NO Keyboard Shortcut to simply open either of them and start searching.
Especially the last one is baffling. I did define Alt-O to focus the search field. But depending on what is focused, I have to type that key kombo multiple times. And sometimes it still doesn’t work, so I have to pick up the mouse anyway. That’s not a workflow. That’s just ‘work’, because nothing is flowing…
Edit: This is why I completely understand the absence of a manual. Not even the devs could come up with a coherent description of the UI’s concept, much less with actual documentation.
But having said that: It is still a great DAW and I don’t regret spending money on the producer license.
Yes, I’m very opinionated about complex software coming with complete documentation. Sue me?
Edit: You are incorrect in assuming that I haven’t tried it. I’ve been using Bitwig for years. BWS 5 has a manual (albeit a poor one). I also need manuals for the other DAWs I use regularly. I’m funny like that.
… Ah, agood to hear others saw this too I also experienced 6.04 being unstable on my M1.
Basically randomly crashing, though in large enough intervals that it wasn’t a workflow breaker for me.
Good news is 6.0.5 is out for a few days now, and the issue seems resolved.
(Version log indicates that fix was the main change, actually.)
(Not enough to deter me from using the previews, fwiw, but if it hadn’t been fixed somewhat timely I gues it might have been…)
i would also say there are some others things that add to the tediousness of using Bitwig, mainly the visuals and layout of the UI itself. sometimes i feel like i’m diving too far into submenus for something, and other times i feel like there are things that would be much better off within a submenu… additionally the UI, at least personally speaking, has a weird amount of visual noise, clutter, and inconsistencies especially in larger projects that just makes it a bit more difficult to navigate and scan over as quickly as i would like to.
ableton has a much better interface but i couldn’t live without all of the nice stuff bitwig has like the grid, modulators, sequencing features, etc etc etc… also linux support lol
Yeah. Although this happens to me in any DAW after a certain amount of channels. Especially if I open the project after a week or so. But that happens no matter what DAW. It even happens with DAW-less Projekts that span multiple hardware devices.
Presume many here like me have their entire Bitwig Projects / Libraries / Files on a external or network drive?
Anyhow - I notice the Extensions folder appears to have to remain on the main computer drive? Is this correct and by design? I had a 30 min troubleshoot trying to get my Rotocontrol working on a new fresh Mac install linking the extension file on my USB drive. All my links are correct for the folder options pointing to my external drive however it seems Bitwig only sees my Extensions in the Documents > Bitwig > Extensions folder of my main drive.
I notice you can’t change the location in Bitwig Settings like you can do for Projects / Controller Scripts etc
Not big deal but its kind of nice to have everything in one place - I am guessing there is a system reason for it being this way rather then Bitwig neglecting this folder? Unless of course its just me!
…it’s been one of the main rules since day one of ALL daws…
u BETTER have the program itself and ALL it’s factory content in one same place on ur internal main drive…
while ur projects and their individually involved recordings/settings etc. can be stored anywhere…and u always better have that TWICE…
including one saved version externally…!
if not, anything can go south…
and just for the record…when it comes to daws, i’ve seen and used pretty much all the usual suspects over the years, more than three decades and stopped counting…and what can i say… bitwigs gui, it’s overall concept, it’s variety of options and it’s various ways of workflows, is the easiest, slickest and smartest to grasp EVER…
meanwhile, eversince this bedroom producer age got started, there are always people that are happy to complain…
I also experienced 6.04 being unstable on my M1.