Also, i wish to clarify,
When i rather drunkenly said last night that the key is the best of both worlds,
"im reffering to anybody wanting to switch over from live that finds switching over outright troublesome for whatever reason"

There are alot of good things with btwg but i can say the same with cubase, doesnt mean i will switch to it
Without question for me Live is my goto , i use a bit of fl20.8 here and there, "harmour, dragging over bass patches from live etc ,resampling"
, im going off topic, my point is that people said that fl,s workflow was unintuitave and slow, for me btwig is the very same sentiment
"btwg lovers dont go lynching me its just an opinion"

 

Last edited: Apr 15, 2023

Everyone have preference, just like taste, it's something hard to argue with, but something being buggy, unusable and unacceptable is more than preference statement and claims like that better be backed up with more than just bold statement, like this don't work or that, there's fine line in something not working as you expect and something really being buggy, like that automation issues lot off DAW's have problem with and so on.

Some bugs can be replicated and fixed, they are universal to the program, some have no cure, because they are on users end, like the one with audio engine crashing or even taking down whole DAW with it, plugin crashing can't take whole Bitwig down with it, it's just not how they made that solution and it happens to only a handful of user base, so it's mostly whole user system having issues or audio interface drivers acting up, there's so many variables in there.

There's so many combination of components involved, so troubleshooting isn't as easy as saying which Mac model you got and with which version of OS, Windows isn't really system you can just install and forget about it, it needs few tweaks for audio, those components also should be carefully selected, too many people have DPC latency issues, all that needs fixing, than plenty use their audio machine for everything and who even knows what kind of stuff is going on there in background, taking resources, sometimes even browser can suck up your whole RAM and you leave it opened and work on music, even listen to music on same device as your DAW and some of the drivers aren't really up to that, even if they advertise it and it's possible. Than there's whole plugin thing with different protections, sometimes particular one have issues in some DAW, than there's whole warez aspect of it, know that Steinberg even got system where they test Cubase with warez only.

Sure, we don't use the same program the same way, that's also the big one, sometimes particular steps or combination of things act up, even those are sometimes hard to replicate, because it's just sum of all parts involved.

Personally never had audio engine issues, but my machine was just for audio, RME isn't just something that acts up from time to time, same now on M1, I know for sure that if I have problem it's universal and could be replicated by another user, that's what I wanted from the get go, to focus on music and If I have issue, that there is huge possibility it will get solved, because it affects enough people for them to care.

Long story short, sometimes issues may be just on your end and that should be taken into account.

Cheers

 

Last edited: Apr 15, 2023

About audio issues and cpu problems doesn't have relation just with computers but most of time with kind of projects each one does. Bigger projects, usage of plugins that requiere a lot of cpu etc.

But i have a impression sometimes that they just need to finish the daw first, the basic things to focus on that fun things man, i have a impression of a buhch of kids wanting a toy, but they need some musicians, sound engineers on the team also.

 

Yeah, absolutely, when you walk on the edge of your machines capabilities, things start to really become problematic, especially stuff like drivers for audio interface, how well your RAM handles all of it, bottlenecks, swap, every bit than become important and vital, that's often overlooked. When I send project that doesn't use 30% of my resources to my partner, his machine is becoming unusable almost, Bitwig lags and slowly whole his system becomes unresponsive, his machine pretty much having nothing left to operate normally, no headroom.

But, if that all happens when you aren't hitting limits of your system, than it's the DAW, especially if you have really powerful machine that isn't being used that much by program, but program itself have problem with that kind of load inside itself, that's the sign of lousy coding.

Either way one should take that into consideration, especially if it's not universal and others actually work normally in similar conditions.

About demographic of their users, it's safe to say that engineers aren't really huge part of their core base and that they made whole thing to suit particular user base, but agree, it's my comment on the first page, wish to see their take on that aspects too over time, think with this update they really delivered something worthy in whole that area and now let's just hope they will iron all the bugs and focus on new stuff.

 

Last edited: Apr 16, 2023

See that's very strange because I can do it all day long here. I comp a lot too, I'm a singer, and I play instruments, it's part of my workflow.

I use Bitwig 4-8 hours a day without issue, for years.

You can go on to Polarity's YT/twitch/live streams and watch him use Bitwig for hours at a time doing some pretty demanding stuff. It's all working there. (not talking about betas, he also uses those live)

It makes me wonder if some people are testing out Bitwig using the cracked versions that showed up at the sister site. Those are a mess.

There is no way in the world I would use a DAW that is buggy and crappy. I left Logic Pro (used that for like 18 years) and Live for Bitwig and never looked back. I don't have a reason to look back.

I get people have preferences, ways they want to work, traditional methods, functions they need, habits and some may not understand the "Bitwig way" ect but to essentially describe the software as bug-ridden and unusable when there's video evidence and user testimonials of it working is just kinda out there for me.

But whatever. I'm a happy user.

 

Last edited: Apr 16, 2023

i've been trying bitwig for the past weeks and i must say it's really, really cool.
sometimes i get lost in all the fucking panels opening and closing but that's getting used to it.
piano roll: fl > ableton > bitwig
having lots of fun with the Note FXs and all the little devices. but yeah, like other people said, these are good for inspiration, and while yes as arctic said they should be the main selling point (haven't even opened the grid, i want to make music not program), i think they could improve onto the basic features IMHO.
but who knows, i'm just a noob.
cheers (thanks jynx and others for all the feedback)

 

Use Tab, Shift + Tab to toggle between 3 panels, than D, A for rest of most used ones, I even assigned X, C, V for other stuff, go into Settings/Shortcuts and assign anything you think it's worth having at your fingertips.

 

I don't think the tools we use are separate from the final production, every DAW workflow is different and this informs the final result in some, or many ways. For example, a DAW that is great for arps may encourage us to use more arps and a DAW that isn't steers us away from them.

Ableton is my main DAW but I've used just about all of them - Bitwig being the exception but I'm going to try that next. I almost see them each as a different flavour, good for different types of production. I think that's a good thing, it can break habits leading to different-sounding music.

Music production isn't like learning a craft such as woodwork, where there's a set of tools that everybody uses in the same way, because we have a vast arsenal of different tools and each will have a direct influence on the final result.

I will use anything within Reason.

 

This might be true if you are mostly relying on happy accidents and tools, don't really know what kind of outcome you want, so you experiment until something usable comes along, but someone who knows how to play arp's will play them same way in every DAW, someone who know what he wants will do it even if it's 3 clicks longer than in other DAW, they aren't so different if you know what are you doing and what you want to do.

There are 3rd party plugins that you can incorporate in the DAW you are truly comfortable with, you don't need whole different DAW just because it got arp device, just get 3rd party arp plugin.

 

Arps probably weren't a good example of what I was trying to say. I'm a traditional instrumentalist with guitar as my main instrument, semi-pro for more years than I care to remember (long retired). I understand your approach of knowing exactly what you want and the tools to get you there, that's perfectly valid and I can relate to it. On the other hand I'm ever conscious of the importance of play and creativity, which usually results in new paths trodden, neither better or worse but hopefully different. I only produce music for myself so I'm only interested in the creativity side - if I was working to a deadline I would want the best and fastest tool for the job, of course. But I'm not. I'm just exploring new tools and it has nothing to do with not knowing what I want or the level of my ability, I don't need to rely on happy accidents, it's purely a creative endeavour.

That said, were I to work professionally I would choose the tool I'm most comfortable with and that would be Ableton.

 

The conversion about Bitwig 5 got lost here!

The most controversy thing in Bitwig 5 is the new browser.
I think it needs a bit of polishing in next betas + some time by me for learning the fastest/best way.
The possibility to control project and track parameter via modulators are awesome.
Didn't check the new Clip features yet.
The Comments field in the Info Pane still sucks. Not hideable yet and robs the place of the plugin list.
Still can't disable the preview of notes in piano roll editor globally or via a template.
Still no collab features yet.

 

Understand your point and agree, another approach can spark some new inspiration, whatever works for one, I'm all for it, some DAW's can be used like instruments and inspire further, especially if you can easily do bunch of the things easily, some things little different, especially now in v5 with all this modulator madness, I'm going to test that out too and it will influence my outcome for sure.

When I started with Bitwig, first tried to do everything like that in Logic, find another way to do things, which worked to some extent, by the time I really got into Bitwig's way of doing things, realized I'm just workarounding in Logic without apparent reason and ditched it. Sure, there are stuff that take workarounds in Bitwig too, which are actual features in Logic, but you win some, you lose some, working in both simultaneously seems like waste of time, maybe it isn't if someone is going back and forth with Live and FL, because Bitwig can open their projects, but firing up Logic just to save few clicks seems like lost cause.

See too many folks jumping around DAW's expecting wonders to happen in one or another, but pretty much as I see it, you are going to get frustrated at one point in any of them, stick to one that doesn't feel like work and suck it up when you need to workaround, same as with your wife, it have quirks too, some other might seem interesting on first look and get you excited, but she will get you even more frustrated when you really get to know her.

Learning one DAW takes time, mastering one DAW even more, it's not bad idea to try another one from time to time, get some new inspiration, but I doubt all that doesn't come at cost of losing too much time messing around and in the end of the day, you will need to finish things in one anyways.

But if it sparks new inspiration, than it's not lost cause, I'm not against that, just don't be there for grass is greener and it will be all okay, that's my whole point of writing, see people switching, getting frustrated, expecting wonders, dreaming of perfect DAW, dunno, sometimes it's just one too much relying on DAW, on features that replace ones actual skills, like half of those piano roll features for composing, why being so dependent on that, instead of patching your own skills in that area, in the end of the day, it will make things easier and less frustrating.

Hope you get my point and I'm sorry If I sounded rude or anything, just don't want people who clearly have some patching to do (not thinking about you obviously) use excuses to procrastinate with DAW's out of all things, buy new instrument, learn new instrument, watch some tutorial, maybe new plugin, there are other ways too, new DAW isn't going to magically solve all those problems without bringing new ones, sadly, but if it actually bring something new to the table, than amazing, go for it, inspiration is strange thing.

 

Last edited: Apr 17, 2023

I didn't think you were being rude. Sometimes I think I should master one DAW too but I also feel that music technology generally is constantly evolving and it's an elusive target. Having used several DAWs I'm comfortable with trying new ones, I think it's worthwhile, if only to see which company is making strides forwards. A long time ago I wrestled with Reason, before it had audio and although it was frustrating I was forced to work only with synths for the first time and that constraint actually helped. Really, we have too much choice, too many tools. Like an F1 mechanic rolling up in a motorhome with 15 tool chests to fix a leaking tap. There's also lots of snake oil and it's hard to know which of the 250 compressor plugins are the best, or are they all largely the same? Maybe just sticking with the bigger brands is the answer.

 

Yeah it's pretty neat. Kick2 is pretty cool and cheap too, but if you want to go beyond that and already have BWS you're set.

 

This is really cool, probably can't replace Kick 2 entirely for people who are into precise tweaking, but it replaces plugins like KickR or Bazzism for sure.