I also monitor my hardware synth via the bitwig output and combine with vst drums etc. I am able to keep them in sync though. It took some experimentation to get it working. I think the main factors are: Sample rate 48kHz, block size 256, recording offset -2048 samples, disable “override driver timing”. My modular is clocked by an erm multi-clock which I sync to bitwig via an audio pulse track. I need to timeshift that audio track by -22.2ms. Then I just need to make sure that I dont introduce any extra latency from vsts, so I’m careful what I use while tracking. For example I’m typically tracking 5 or 6 stereo channels which each have a fabfilter proQ, and dmg audio track compressor and limiter on them. This is ok at approx 0.5 ms, but if I were to add something like a multiband compressor or multi band limiter or eq with oversampling, then I would start to hear the kind of issue that you described.
Oh, and I forgot to mention… I do have to direct monitor my guitar through my hardware mixer before it hits bitwig because it just feels wrong when latency is more than about 10ms. Which means I have to nudge the recorded audio track afterwards.
…kind of intresting to read such a totally opposite experience…
sure u really had it under ur hands and even “killed” ur license…?
how long did those 3 or 4 times u “tried” it last each…?
as u might feel, i hardly doubt, we’re talking about the same thing here…
and if not, what’s ur daw sugar instead…?
but maybe, a truu modular daw and synthworkstation is just not ur thing…
wonder why u did not give the trial version a first shot before spending money on it…
Yep, id previously bought it when 4 came out and managed to get a refund, a few goes with the demo under different email addresses and then recently I picked it up again. I tried to offload it on ebay and KVR to no avail, it felt like a millstone around my neck having it sat there unused and unloved, so I asked them to just delete my account and licence as per GDPR.
Renoise is my DAW of choice, but only as the DAW of least compromise. I am probably going to get into hardware next.
I don’t appreciate the inference that I’m a liar either, I have no axe to grind or agenda to push, just wanted to share my views and experiences.
i spent lot’s of money on pro tools and attached avid interface in the early 90ies…then i was happy with logic as a frontend for that hw throughout the end of that decade, still beating all windows pentium 400 machines with my “outdated” first mac running 33mhz…then, with century break, ableton was my thing for a decade, then all hw only, recorded by logic through metric halo was my thing for another decade but since three years, i’m back in the box and bitwig is just THE one and only shit, getting rid of more and more hw instruments again so that too many option paralysis won’t come for me…
so, good luck on this everlasting sonic journey ur about to dive in…may the force of patience and fun be with u…
all i can say…the last three people i told in person to just download the bitwig trial version bought it within the next few days…
if ur too young to remember the days when shimmer reverbs were the next hot shit u can’t know the too many good reasons why there is no such thing in bitwig to find, since within a few clicks u can just create ur very own shimmer reverb with ease and full sonic satisfaction…and the same goes for EVERYTHING ELSE u can think of in all sorts of sonic terretory…if u can imagine it, u can do it…simple as that…
but hey, if there would be no bitwig, renoise would be my sonic weapon of choice these days, too…
don’t get fooled and don’t get lost out there…always keep in mind…they all just cook with water…
and if any tool is suggesting any other way, something’s off…
Bitwig is pretty advanced. By that I just mean you really have to know what you want in your productions, have a style and goal in mind and the experience to know how to get there. Its funny to read that it needs hardware integration when its one of the best DAWs for plugging in and mapping. It doesn’t have a Push interface but its so easy to set up controllers with it that it doesn’t matter to me. I have a keyboard for pads and keys, TR6s for faders and fighter twister for knobs all connected and it’s fast AF to work. Sometimes I just use one device, which is no problem.
The synths and FX are actually great, you just have to understand that the entire software is built for modulation. If you just want to drop in a synth or FX, you can do that. The Delay and reverb are better to me than abletons and the synths are crazy good. The trick is that they are built for fast modulation, and that is where the magic really happens with these plugins. It takes seconds to map all kinds of modulators to the parameters and that is where things come alive a lot faster than other DAWs.
Then you add in the project macros and its super easy to arrange in it’s session view, drag the arrangement out, map different tacks paramters to macro knobs and you have an evolving arrangement in no time. There is nothing faster in my experience. But I am all about speed, efficiency and ability to quickly add all kinds of depth to sounds and build an arrangement with modvement. That is not for everyone, but for house and techno it is really important. I think the key is that I have been working with Ableton for a very long time and I know what I want when I bring audio into the DAW already.
But for the people that like to mess around, you have the Grid which is super deep and also very advanced. I think that is what makes Bitwig more advanced, it really is for people that have a firm grasp on hardware already and understand modular.
Really matters what kind of music you make. For jungle and chopping breaks it is amazing, I love Renoise. Bitwig is a totally different thing. It really makes more sense if you come at it from a hardware user perspective.
I make Techno/House adjacent music. I think it’s because I’m a control freak, Renoise can modulate just as well as Bitwig but the difference is that you can be extremely specific with it too. When dragging the modulator arrow in Bitwig the inspector just shows a range of applied modulation between 0 and 1/-1 whereas in Renoise with the modulator and say the Hydra device, you can be very specific about the range of modulation applied as one quick example.
Bitwig beats Renoise in a lot of areas, but speed and specificity are not the areas it beats Renoise in.
No flaming intended, or acted upon IMO. Sharing experiences and benefits of alternatives is all, the workflow is very Elektron-esque as well. I’ll duck out now lest I am accused of anything else.
fwiw as an Ableton > Bitwig switcher, I actually think the Drivenbymoss controller script for Push is a lot better than using Push with Ableton in many ways, mostly because of the way Bitwig handles mapping parameters to macros/“remote controls” vs Ableton. I found it endlessly frustrating that you couldn’t just take a device/VST in Ableton, map some controls into banks of 8, name those controls, then have them displayed the way you wanted on the Push; that’s before you get to the arcane way Ableton makes VST parameters accessible anyway. Bitwig just does it the sane way, and it kinda does things ‘the sane way’ for every little thing that wound me up about Ableton. Always a big leap to switch DAW though, not to be taken lightly.
I see how that’s better, but to be honest, I don’t use VSTs. I see Live as an « all-inclusive groovebox » and stick to stock devices, which are mostly very well supported.
Yeah Ableton stock devices are great, and they work really well with Push - had a kind of harebrained scheme to use Push 3 standalone and Bitwig together, but got defeated by sync issues in the end. I’m not a heavy VST user myself, but the setup I described has been pretty essential to me for setting up ‘instrument definition’ devices a la Cirklon/Hapax which have all the CCs mapped for my hardware, controllable from the Push in nice banks of controls. Max4Live extending functionality is a real plus of Ableton, but I feel like too much stuff like that that’s essential to my use case has been offloaded onto the Max developer base, and I found that long term I couldn’t rely on those things to remain supported/functional. I miss Wavetable though
Don’t underestimate Bitwig’s wavetable oscillator inside the Grid. And the power of the Grid in general.
I’ve been spending the last few weeks almost exclusively playing around in the Grid and I really think it’s something special. Many of the YT videos on Bitwig focus on complex subjects or how to make massive generative patches etc. That stuff is great and I enjoy it, but I think it doesn’t get enough credit as a more “straightforward” sound design environment.
It’s so quick and easy to drop in a couple of oscillators, a filter, an envelope etc and build very simple patches that sound great. I would especially encourage people to explore the Phase-1 oscillator along with the shaper modules, you can get some very thick/rich/insert-adjective sounds going in no time without going overboard on the patching.
I also realised that the new curve stuff (basically multi-segment envelopes, oscillators and LFOs) are an absolute dream for complex sound design. I’ve been doing DIY DnB drum synthesis and you can be very precise with making your own drums with transient/body/noise components with very precise envelopes, adding distorting and saturation to some parts and not others etc.
I also made some absolutely filthy bass sounds with a couple of oscillators, a bit of FM and some shaping/distortion.
I’m probably preaching to the choir but I’ve realised I can do 90% or more of what is possible in many “premium” VSTs like Pigments, Phase Plant etc with the Grid modules, plus there’s no excess bloat, just the bits I need and nothing else.
I abuse the Chebyshev shaper/distortion/filtering module far too much. The slightest movement of the dial creates such wildly different results. Love it!
It’s nothing special, I basically followed some tutorials about DnB drums from scratch and took it from there. It’s still a work in progress and when I A/B it with tracks I like it sounds pretty weedy but you have to start somewhere, right?!
I’ll attach a drum machine preset. I’m on version 5-point-something, I hope this works for you.
