It’s not new.
I got my Bitwig licence under the EDU designation, years ago now. I’m not a teacher or student per se, but I do some audio work for the Department Of Neurology at UBC for research purposes (FMRI studies in brain injury and FTD).
Sufficed to say, you do have to qualify for the EDU licence, and Bitwig does check your credentials.
Cheers!
If you have an EDU version and then buy a year update at some point then it become a normal version (so u can resell and so on)
Yes, I pay the same for yearly updates as anyone else.
The EDU licence only applies to the initial purchase of Bitwig Studio.
Cheers!
I’m glad it’s not just me that is struggling with the browser. Never had any problems finding what I was looking for on the old browser but the new one, whilst prettier, is weirdly confusing and inconsistent. It has also been the cause of a fair few crashes here, and I don’t think I’d had a single Bitwig crash until recently. I guess that’s why it’s still in beta.
Hmm, when I saw bitwig say they made updated the browser I was thinking ‘how did they improve on perfection?’. Sounds like they didn’t lol.
Never had any issues (functionality or otherwise) with the browser in v4. In fact, it’s one of the things about the interface I’ve enjoyed the the most. I haven’t tried the beta, but I’m hoping it’s not a big step backwards.
I don’t know if I’ll get used to it but I couldn’t find anything so I went back to 4
I feel it has broken the relationship between devices and presets. For example, I can load up Valhalla Room but then find it ridiculously tough to find the presets I saved before within Bitwig. When you click on a device’s folder icon it defaults to choosing a different device rather than a preset for the device you already have. It used to be the other way round. It’s just weird and counter-intuitive and makes it disproportionately hard / impossible to filter on presets for a particular device.
Strangely, it does work better for Bitwig’s own devices. It’s terrible for third party plug-ins though. It’s inconsistent and frustrating. I’ve spent so much time just trying to figure it out that I’ve barely touched the other new features.
I’m hoping they get terrible feedback and switch back before the official release.
Yeah I find the new browser annoying too - but I want someone to explain why it’s better. They’re not idiots, there must be some advantage I’m not seeing, right? Right?
I don‘t have the beta, not motivated for 5 atm, seem to have lots of bugs and unnecessary changes,
but here they write something about at least making the browser usable again with a right click. I also would hope they don‘t change it but…
Playing with the beta a bit more today and I’m getting to like what they’ve done with the fixed browser on the right of the screen.
However, the problem is that I loved the pop-up browser, clicking on the little + symbols to insert things where I want, and that’s the one they’ve messed up. I pretty much ignored the right-side browser and used the pop-up one all the time. I don’t like being forced to use something a certain way when the same software gave me a lot of freedom before.
I have been a big fan of Bitwig and a user since V1 (although never ‘switched’, I still use Live + PUSH). V5 has been ta bit of a disappointment for me…I think you always expect more for from ‘big number’ updates…I don’t particular care one way or another about the new browser, but I don’t think it needed updating. They dropped soon cool new features, but more of a point update IMHO (or maybe we have just been spoiled with some cool point updates in the past). It didn’t have any attention grabbing feature like the Grid that may have attracted new users and I think V5 will go under the radar for a lot of users. Doesn’t mean Bigwig isn’t great (it already was at V4) and maybe the browser had to be redone to add some new (networking?) feature in the next update…
Personally, for my workflow, the project/track level controls and MSEGs are the biggest adds in many versions for me. But I don’t really care how they number the versions anyway
The MSEG update is HUGE, it literally changes the way I use a daw to help make music.
Yes, the upgrade plan was supposed to remove the ‘big numbers are big news’ aspect, but they have always in the past dropped the big stuff on the big numbers! All users will have different desires (you can please some of the people…) but in my view Bitwig already exceled in its browser and in modulation so would, like to have seen other things added before these were improved (like pitch quantise or ARA integration, midi comping, retrospective record etc)
I always used use ShaperBox 3…I realise however a lot of people were screaming for it so glad its added, its just not a big feature in my eyes…
I’m definitely with you on ARA and Midi comping!
I have shaperbox 3, infiltrator 2 etc., but it is very helpful to do mseg on anything and not be stuck to just what a plugin can do and be able to use it anywhere (like with the sample 
). Although mseg automation lanes like @Passenger_3 said would be a cool addition!
Incredible electronic music was made on an Atari ST in the 1980s. If you find Bitwig limiting or lacking, you’re either fetishizing technology or have absolutely no creative inspiration.