It’s small for sure. I have it hooked up to an external monitor so I’m my plan is to set up projects ahead of time at home and then hopefully just plug and play at a show.
1 Like
Too new to this to know what drama you guys are talking about but I just looked up “spectral” in Bitwig and wow omg you can split parts of a sound and apply different effects to different harmonics! Sounds amazing!!
7 Likes
iOS has some really fun options, but Bitwig is basically impossible to beat in terms of connectivity and possibilities for a live setup (even on a small screen from the steamdeck). Drambo is a close second, but iOS is definitely not ideal and often just feels gimmicky to me. I mess around with my ipad in my live setups but find myself barely using it compared to my Elektron boxes.
One of my personal fave setups is using bitwig as the main sequencer, and my ipad with drambo as a “faux octatrack” midi mapped to a Launchcontrol XL. Incredibly versatile setup. Experiment and try out new things that work for you.
4 Likes
That’s wild. And yeah, I’m not enjoying the iOS setup. Plus my battery is draining when using the camera connection kit??
So yeah steam deck connected to my steam deck dock so I can power it and plug-in the Midicake.
Going to spend some time getting to know bitwig, thanks for your feedback.
Edit/
Uh oh I’m having a lot of fun.
1 Like
I’ve been using BW for a few years and I still end up switching back to Ableton for certain things.
I’m always instantly reminded how much I prefer BWs overall interface and UI with a few tiny (but huge) exceptions.
Ableton just feels nicer for me to record external audio (which is primarily what I do.) It’s hard to explain. The waveform just looks nicer, it’s easier to crop the region of sound I liked from a longer jam and “Crop to selection,” stuff like that.
Also simpler is really great for just dragging a random synth sampler or drum break and getting something interesting quick.
BWs sampler does some cooler things IMO but it fails for me when I just want some stupid quick slices.
I’ve tried TAL DRUM and Renoise Redux (I’m also a renoise / tracker user) but they just don’t scratch that itch of simpler. Anyone else ever find a good 3rd party slicer for BW?
1 Like
I dont know why but I have no clue what im doing with Drambo. I can run it on my macbook too and got it a year ago.
So you can use it like an octatrack? Is that a template you downloaded or what?
To keep it on topic, another thing I forgot to mention I love about bitwig is all the free grid templates. They have stuff that replicates paid M4L plugins like Flexgroove for example. I know Drambo is similar in that regard.
2 Likes
Yes you want Serato Sample. That is a better sampler than Simpler and it autochops like how you just described.
Serato plus BW Sampler is the best combo I have had in any DAW.
Unrelated but a cool tip in Bitwg. The Humanize in it is so easy to dial in, since you can dial it in by ms. Something I like doing is putting it on all my tracks and setting the timing to 2-4ms. This simulates an old drum machine/MPC so well. Just instantly adds feel. You can do it to kicks too and it just loosens everything up just a bit.
5 Likes
Word. I will have to try it out.
1 Like
is it possible to take the slices from serato and easily move them into bigwigs sampler for modulation and mangling? Lack of any sort of export I was aware of in serato stopped me from trying it a while ago.
I would love if this was possible (with a relatively easy workflow), as lazy chopping is my favorite sampling method.
Im not sure why Id do that honestly. If you want to do it that way, then you can just use BW sampler and right click it and it will transient chop to a drum rack for you.
In Serato I keep the chops in that sampler and just put a sequencer in front of it and go to town.
In Bitwig I can modulate any plugin so I can just map to attack and release in serato.
1 Like
Ah I see, I want to do all sorts of crazy stuff to the slices so it doesn’t work for me if there is no export. The only thing bitwigs sampler sucks at is chopping, which is unfortunate. Just doing transients is like a 5 stars out of 10 lol. I think it is high on the list of things on bitwish though, so hopefully not too many updates till it is improved.
1 Like
Ah yeah, I love transient chop the most so that works for me. Just comes up with crazy ideas. I use serato for lazy chopping, tuning and vocals and stuff. A lot of times I just chop manually with no sampler and then I can drag those chop in wherever.
Ill loop a bar and just scroll and look for little things in the sample, chop what I like and throw into a drum rack or just do it all on the timeline.
2 Likes
(Sorry for the off topic response but I would like to clarify some things)
Drambo has the same A/B fader feature you can use with P-locks, so it can basically be used as a “faux octatrack” as I like to call it. I don’t think there are templates publicly available for it though, but it’s not hard to make. That’s the beauty of Drambo, you can make it as easy or complex as you want. I haven’t even come close to its limits (if it even has those).
Again though, while Drambo is very impressive, it will never be the same as an actual physical box. There’s always this feeling of iOS being slightly gimmicky and kinda cumbersome for serious audio setups with all the idiotic dongles and adapters. So in the end, I always grab my Elektron boxes for my sets.
EDIT: After some digging I did find a really insane Octatrack Template made by a Drambo guru at patchstorage.com. I included the link for anyone interested because it’s a very cool project and is way better than what I had. DrambOctaTrack Collection | Patchstorage
3 Likes
I had exactly this challenge of finding BItwigs sampler great if you already have samples, but not so great if you want to take a whole song and chop out some bits and have fun experimenting.
I have also settled on the Serato Bitwig combo. You also get the advantage of “Pitch and Time” which is one of the best sounding shifting algorithms IMO.
It’s not perfect, but it’s given me a lot of fun on the sample flipping challenges.
4 Likes
This Steamdeck with Bitwig could be a nice portable DAW solution…
Curious if there are other solutions (with Bitwig)? Maybe even without screen to just act as a device or whatever?
Just piling on top of what everyone else said: modulations, modulations are just TOO easy to do in Bitwig.
I feel like I’m in a modular that looks like a DAW, I actually do integrate all of it with my hardware + modular (have an ES-9 in the rack for that) and it’s absurd how easy it is to just play around and experiment with modulations. The easiness of adding modulations to any device, then adding a Note/FX Grid to develop a bigger patch that uses the same modulations from the other device, it’s just so expansive that inspires me to just play around, something that I suffered a lot in Ableton Live having to “translate” the way I was thinking (much more hardware-centric) to how it’s done in the DAW, Bitwig has completely freed me up from that, I can think in same concepts and apply them both to my modular and to the DAW without extra effort.
BW 5 and the project-level modulations just added yet another great feature to that, it’s like a Performance Mode for the whole DAW, which can even interact with my hardware and the MIDI mappings, it’s actually absurd, haha.
7 Likes
Hey all, anyone have a resource for good written tutorials?
I’m on a flight and can’t pull up video tutorials right now, but text should be fine.
Edit/ starting with the user guide pdf 
I don’t know where you’re flying but the Bitwig user guide is lengthy and well written. Should keep you busy for many hours.
I’m not aware of other written tutorials. Again, with such comprehensive and well written official guide, it’s no wonder that everyone else is focusing on videos showing how things work.
1 Like
Is anyone up for meeting in Köln just because of Bitwig? See Bitwig meeting in Cologne? - Bitwig Forum - KVR Audio
If you prefer, you can contact me privately here.