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? 
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…
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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I don’t really care about those YT guys, but I am F’n blown away by how good this DAW is. And I am an Ableton fanboy. Seriously considering selling my Suite license in a few months once I port over all my remaining projects to BW. It’s that good, at least for me.
And I had BW 4 years ago. Made a track on it, but went back to Ableton. At the time, BW was not so feature rich, but now it has so much more depth to it with v5 (and probably before that, i dont know). Plus many times it knows what I want to do and just does it, so I am already flying around on it.
Just crazy impressive. I think there is still a case to be made for owning both Ableton and BW, but thats a lot of cash and hard drive space. Ill be interested in what Ableton brings to the table in the upcoming year or so.
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what do you prefer about bitwig?
curious ableton user here 
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…this might be a sticker, but it was originally posted at the peak of bw’s back then well deserved shitstorm week…and even somebody like ben jordan overestimates himself sometimes, claiming and blaiming a small companies ceo for not responding to him, while they had to face their very first obvious mistake and missjudgement at their hands…
and we all know how that story ended…they faced and acknolledged “it”…and turned back to their general promise and stick to that ever since again…
so, i’d say, it’s time for a ben jordan to unstick that post…he also knows what a shitstorm feels like…so this is no real thing anymore and especially not fair, as u mentioned, u happy to see him using bw “again”…i’d say he just forgot about that post of him, still sticking out there somewhere…
let’s move on…
and also i, like pretty much everybody else, was pretty furious that spectral week…
as u can see somewhere in here…but u have to scroll up to last years long gone business…
my yearly upgrade plan to bw continues and remains one of the best investments in sonic tools i ever made…
and i’m stating this with the confidence of more than 3 decades in the game…
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way better modulation interface (+ the global modulations are crazy good), the grid is very easy to get started in and is very powerful + more inviting than max/pure data, better stock instruments/fx. agree that it’s very easy to start flying around coming from ableton
i think i grew tired of ableton over the years, and am just generally uninspired by the interface. even with all the new stuff - having so much more fun in bitwig and renoise these days
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Modulations over modulations over modulations… If you want, you can easily do without drawing automations, you just modulate. If you know your way around, it’s faster and more fun.
Modulation is the new automation.
Modulation is the new sexy.
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Shiiiiiit. Besides this is insane withing bitwig as standalone. I an thinking a template for dt/dn overbridge connecting the dots.
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Good answers above me, the modulation is a huge one. It’s more like an instrument where I can grab any FX or try crazy modulations on impulse because its so fast and easy to map them.
Also editing audio and MIDI just works faster and easier for me. The program never crashes, so if a plugin is causing problems it will tell me instead of having to guess with ableton.
It’s super fast to map knobs to it as well. everything is just intuiitive so if I think “I wonder how to do this”, I just try it and it works. I also like how fast it is to map shortcuts. So for examp,e, to mute midi notes in abelton I press 0. I missed that, so I just changed that in one second in BW and moved on.
BW doesn’t have a hardware controller like Push, but I have 3 controllers mapped to it and they work flawlessly so I don’t really mind.
Also it works better with hardware since it slaves so well to external clock…I could go on, but I really like it.
Ableton rules for warping audio, but I got around that by using Serato Sample as my 2nd sampler. The BW sampler is amazing. But it’s more like Sampler and not Simpler in ableton. Serato is a more pwerful version of Simpler so I have best of both worlds that way.
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Currently working on a live setup with mostly no hardware. Looking for advice.
I have a Midicake Arp that will do most sequencing/playing and a Shik N32B for parameter control.
My options for sound are an iPad Pro with synth apps, or Steam Deck with bitwig.
For laughs, I’m really considering using the steam deck.
The iOS synths sound great, and I haven’t explored what bitwig has to offer yet.
Curious what I should be aware of with this kind of setup and how I can mitigate issues like hanging midi notes and other issues I may not be aware of. Just getting started with this setup, really.
Thanks all!
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How is it, using Bitwig with a Steam Deck ? Can you really use it or is it all small and clunky ?