Bitwig "Crossgrade" for $206

[hyperdeath666]

https://www.gear4music.com/us/en/Record ... nload/41WR

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, and have never purchased from them before. Still, since Bitwig and the RRP work exceptionally well together, I figured some people might be interested.

[guitfnky]

same deal (I think) on pluginboutique.com. I wasn't really in the market, but it seemed like a good deal, so I bought it. had a couple of hiccups getting started, but once I got that sorted out it seems cool so far. interested in exploring what it's capable of, since I love using Live and it seems the common view is that Bitwig is an improvement on that already great foundation.

[rcbuse]

Oh wow, that's a great deal! Bitwig + RRP is fantastic.

[Jac459]

same deal (I think) on pluginboutique.com. I wasn't really in the market, but it seemed like a good deal, so I bought it. had a couple of hiccups getting started, but once I got that sorted out it seems cool so far. interested in exploring what it's capable of, since I love using Live and it seems the common view is that Bitwig is an improvement on that already great foundation.

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

[rcbuse]

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

I have a few super oddball development VSTs that are completely unstable. I crash them constantly but bitwig's sandboxing lets me use them without worry. And once I dial them in I just bounce to audio and unload them.

[Jac459]

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

I have a few super oddball development VSTs that are completely unstable. I crash them constantly but bitwig's sandboxing lets me use them without worry. And once I dial them in I just bounce to audio and unload them.

Yes, the modern ultra modular architecture of bitwig is really impressive. Its internal conception is awesome and with the absolute latest technologies and patterns. I guess that's one of the reason why they can be on apple, Windows and Linux, get m1 support in a breeze... It is really an awesome product.

And from a creativity standpoint I see a lot of common points with reason. It is not like ableton where I was seating in front of an empty project without inspiration despite the power of this daw. With bitwig, I play with the countless modulations, voices stacking features, or the super fast and practical sound browser and inspiration comes in a fun way.
The best of course is playing with bitwig modulations to modulate my reason RRP favorite synths, it is like they get a second life...

Unfortunately RRP is not compatible with voice stacking yet, it would need to be Clap format...

[Faastwalker]

Tempted by Bitwig. This looks like a great deal. Bitwig Studio 4 is about AUS $550. That deal puts it around AUS $299.

[guitfnky]

same deal (I think) on pluginboutique.com. I wasn't really in the market, but it seemed like a good deal, so I bought it. had a couple of hiccups getting started, but once I got that sorted out it seems cool so far. interested in exploring what it's capable of, since I love using Live and it seems the common view is that Bitwig is an improvement on that already great foundation.

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

getting my hands dirty in it this morning has been pretty fun. so far the only complaint I have has nothing to do with the actual DAW—there’s a ton of good info out there for digging into the cool/sexy stuff, but the tutorials and guidance for the basics is irritatingly scant. had to search various forums just to figure out why the audio I’d recorded was inaudible when playing back (I had to click the Switch Playback to Arranger button in the clip launcher even though I recorded into the arrangement view—seems weird that I have to keep doing that, but I’m probably missing something). really just need to get comfortable with the different conventions in Bitwig. I can see a ton of really useful stuff (like having note and audio receiver devices is so simple and brilliant).

[Jac459]

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

getting my hands dirty in it this morning has been pretty fun. so far the only complaint I have has nothing to do with the actual DAW—there’s a ton of good info out there for digging into the cool/sexy stuff, but the tutorials and guidance for the basics is irritatingly scant. had to search various forums just to figure out why the audio I’d recorded was inaudible when playing back (I had to click the Switch Playback to Arranger button in the clip launcher even though I recorded into the arrangement view—seems weird that I have to keep doing that, but I’m probably missing something). really just need to get comfortable with the different conventions in Bitwig. I can see a ton of really useful stuff (like having note and audio receiver devices is so simple and brilliant).

I don't record a lot of audio but I don't remember having this issue..

I am not using the clip launcher as often as I should I haven't been educated like that.

Have you tried to play with reason by controlling all parameters with bitwig modulators? It is very fun... You can also use xy controllesr to control your rack extensions now...

I never loved reason more than since I am in bitwig...

[cymek74]

You won't be disappointed, bitwig is an everyday pleasure really. The capacity to program your shortcuts, the way it handles your midi controllers, the voice stacking,...
I loved it yesterday when I was in the middle of a mixing and mastering session, my izotope plugin crashed and bitwig was unaffected, just restarted the plugin... I would have lost 1 hour of tedious work with another daw...

getting my hands dirty in it this morning has been pretty fun. so far the only complaint I have has nothing to do with the actual DAW—there’s a ton of good info out there for digging into the cool/sexy stuff, but the tutorials and guidance for the basics is irritatingly scant. had to search various forums just to figure out why the audio I’d recorded was inaudible when playing back (I had to click the Switch Playback to Arranger button in the clip launcher even though I recorded into the arrangement view—seems weird that I have to keep doing that, but I’m probably missing something). really just need to get comfortable with the different conventions in Bitwig. I can see a ton of really useful stuff (like having note and audio receiver devices is so simple and brilliant).

Groove3 has a good course for exactly this, Bitwig 4 Explained. You can subscribe/unsubscribe for a month for £12.99, goes through a lot of the basic nitty-gritty stuff, and a month is easily enough time to work through it even at a snail's pace or if you're time limited.

[freshkidblaze]

I've been in bitwig since Saturday night, I'm buying the crossgrade before the day is over. It feels so much like reason but more efficient. Using the rack with it is absolute fun. Is there a way to normalize audio?

[guitfnky]

getting my hands dirty in it this morning has been pretty fun. so far the only complaint I have has nothing to do with the actual DAW—there’s a ton of good info out there for digging into the cool/sexy stuff, but the tutorials and guidance for the basics is irritatingly scant. had to search various forums just to figure out why the audio I’d recorded was inaudible when playing back (I had to click the Switch Playback to Arranger button in the clip launcher even though I recorded into the arrangement view—seems weird that I have to keep doing that, but I’m probably missing something). really just need to get comfortable with the different conventions in Bitwig. I can see a ton of really useful stuff (like having note and audio receiver devices is so simple and brilliant).

Groove3 has a good course for exactly this, Bitwig 4 Explained. You can subscribe/unsubscribe for a month for £12.99, goes through a lot of the basic nitty-gritty stuff, and a month is easily enough time to work through it even at a snail's pace or if you're time limited.

oh that’s awesome, thanks for the tip! definitely gonna check it out.

[Jac459]

I've been in bitwig since Saturday night, I'm buying the crossgrade before the day is over. It feels so much like reason but more efficient. Using the rack with it is absolute fun. Is there a way to normalize audio?

I don't think you can actually. You can adjust gain in the inspector view on the left but not normalize.

[Jac459]

On top of the DAW itself, there are 2 other awesome features in bitwig.
One is the audio grid. The audio grid is a fully modular environment allowing you to create your own synths and FX. Everybody seems to considere it awesome but of course, when you got the reason rack, you already got a beyond awesome modular environment so I didn't explore much.
The other feature is... The note grid which is the equivalent for midi. To create your own complex players. Likewise it is very complete and powerful but I am so in love and confortable with reason players, I didn't explore much.

[elMisse]

I got into Bitwig really fast! It's really good and has many features I had already quit hoping for in Reason. Really good modulating capabilities and loads of pleasant surprises.

Crappiest thing for me is the lack of a good groove pool/mixer. You only have your clip-level global groove, and midieditor-level individual adjusting.

[littlejam]

hello,

all this Bitwig talk lately has me interested
mostly for the MPE support and the instruments (approx 90 (would like to verify))

edit: found this on the Bitwig page:
it looks like only 13 instruments
(unless you can use MPE with the other devices)

https://www.bitwig.com/feature-list/


reaper is MPE supportive but reaper doesn't contain instruments
i would have to purchase MPE vsts

i am curious as to anymore shortcomings to Bitwig

i am looking for more information about the sound quality of Bitwig instruments using MPE techniques please

cheers and eat well,

j

[crimsonwarlock]

i would have to purchase MPE vsts

...or download a few free instruments that support MPE. Surge has you covered

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io

[Jac459]

i would have to purchase MPE vsts

i am curious as to anymore shortcomings to Bitwig

i am looking for more information about the sound quality of Bitwig instruments using MPE techniques please

cheers and eat well,

j

Surge has you indeed, very much covered (Surge that was by the way developed by ... the creator of bitwig).
But more modern you can go to Vital, which is absolutely MPE compatible and work great with Bitwig.

Also in the "best seller" synths, Serum is of course MPE, as well as Novum or Pigments.

About the 13 instruments, actually, I would balance a bit positively and negatively the count. A few of these instruments are in fact super super simple, you have e-cow, e-kick, e-hat, e-...clap... They do the job, but you can't compare them to an Europa or a grain or even a subtractor... The organ, FM4 are ok, good sounding instruments, polysynth is to me very good, nearer to a reason flagship synth like europa or grain...

On the other way, there is polymer.
We need to talk about Polymer. Polymer is not one synth. It is not a flagship synth, it is the beast of all beasts of the synths.
It is a full modular environment and way beyond (it is a wrapper for the grid). Comparing it to complex-1 from RS would be an insult. Even comparing it to Khz PhasePlant. You have so many effects, filters, oscillators, grains, tables, samples that you can put into it, and then all the power of the modulators of bitwig, then the voice stacking...
The only VST that compare to it is ... the RRP. If you count all synths of Reason, then yes, it goes beyond polymer on some aspects... But at this level of power we (or at least definitely I) are the limiting factor.

Finally for the limiting factors of Bitwig. I am sure there are and I am sure some DAWs are better on some parts.
I know for example that it only has audio comping and not midi comping yet (contrary to ableton).

Where I think Bitwig really shine is integration with midi devices, sound controls (the modulators, the modulators, the modulators!), excellent piano roll, very good mixer, excellent integration with VSTs, super fast releases of new features and of course the grid which exist to create your own instruments, your own effects, and the note grid to create your own players.