Meanwhile at Bitwig Studio.. Part 2. The revenge.

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Jac459
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11 Oct 2022

We have been talking at length about a strange move from Bitwig to create a paid extension despite of their upgrade plan.
I was not personally shocked but to be fair I think I was the only one on earth and to say it backfired is an understatement.

Bitwig just announced that the extension is now ... free and part of the upgrade plan.

It is awesome because the extension they are proposing is a spectral toolset which is awesome (a bit like the grain spectral feature or to some extent IRIS from Izotope).

Another occasion to try this superb DAW working like a charm with RRP.
Bitwig and RRP fanboy...

olive6741
Posts: 294
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11 Oct 2022

I wasn't THAT shocked as well: and I bought the add-on this morning. Now I received an email saying they will refund or extend the upgrade plan to convenience for each user that bought the add-on... I should have wait a day or so :D . Anyway, it is good news ! Quite unexpected.

Jac459
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11 Oct 2022

olive6741 wrote:
11 Oct 2022
I wasn't THAT shocked as well: and I bought the add-on this morning. Now I received an email saying they will refund or extend the upgrade plan to convenience for each user that bought the add-on... I should have wait a day or so :D . Anyway, it is good news ! Quite unexpected.
Well we are 2. Bought it last week and got unstuck on one of my song thanks to the amazing creative power of these things !
Bitwig and RRP fanboy...

avasopht
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11 Oct 2022

Free marketing.

Brilliant!!!

Chi-Individual
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11 Oct 2022

Besides the grid what would be the selling points if someone wanted to try Bitwig?

Also, what are some of the shortcomings?

I’m a lifelong Reason user.

Jac459
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11 Oct 2022

Don't get me started on that... :D :D

Simply put, from an architecture/development stand-point it is in my view the most innovative and modern DAW.
What does it mean for a musician ? A lot:
1 - You get the market innovations lightning fast (VST3, M1 native, full MPE support and they are the inventor of CLAP).
2 - Everything is modular... to an extend beyond even Reason. Example, every instruments accept "modulators" that are in fact little plugins that can modulate anything.... anywhere. You can put many types of LFO to anything, ADSR to anything, even to existing plugins you own. You don't need anymore to rely on your synth ADSR or LFOs, Bitwig makes it super easy to grab any parameter of your VST synth and play with it in a way beyond imagination.
2b - The modulators can even go to the ... audio frequency. So basically you take a DC offset component. You had an LFO to modulate the DC Offset and you accelerate the LFO until ... you can hear it. This shows you how crazy modular it is. You can even have LFO FM modulating other LFOs...
3 - Again because of its architecture... Bitwig basically never crash... If a plugin crash, it crashes gracefully in it's own space and is restarted. Same for the audio engine, if it crashes, you just restart it.
4 - it works wonderfully with the RRP. Bitwig has a kind of modern, pure design which gives its own inspiration. Reason has its playful, colorful design that is so different that it brings another kind of inspiration.
5 - Moving from Reason to Bitwig is very very easy. The feature that you expect to be somewhere is ... where you expect it to be.
6 - The Help system is brillant and greatly improve the learning curves.
7 - it has a huge set of instruments, players and effects that are awesome.
8 - it is updated very often with new feature so you always end-up playing with something new.
9 - It has a voice stacking feature that allows to create a kind of unison where you control EVERY parameter for every voice (works for the bitwig instruments and the CLAP plugins).
10 - It connects very well and easily with your midi keyboard. The way you integrate is very elegant and straightforward .

I certainly forget things, but to me the main point that I love is the modulation system. It is just awesome to control your sound.


That being said, I don't pretend Bitwig is the best DAW in the world, I don't know all the DAW and I only make a specific genre of music. I guess everybody has its own needs. But if you like to play with sound, transform it, modulate it in an intuitive and easy way, you will find yourself smiling stupidly in front of your screen while playing with bitwig.

Last point, there are excellent musicians using bitwig and posting very good training content on YT:
- Venus Theory: very good content in particular for beginners
- Polarity: Excellent and very pedagogic.
- Taches: Super duper crazy content, quite advanced, and sometimes hard to follow but really really creative in the way he shape sounds.
Bitwig and RRP fanboy...

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jam-s
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11 Oct 2022

Now that's proper damage control before courts force them to it.

Chi-Individual
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11 Oct 2022

Jac459 wrote:
11 Oct 2022

7 - it has a huge set of instruments, players and effects that are awesome.

Last point, there are excellent musicians using bitwig and posting very good training content on YT:
- Venus Theory: very good content in particular for beginners
- Polarity: Excellent and very pedagogic.
- Taches: Super duper crazy content, quite advanced, and sometimes hard to follow but really really creative in the way he shape sounds.
I already follow VT , State Azure and Polarity. One thing that I’ve noticed from most content creators, and some have even said it, that besides the grid, no one uses the built in instruments and some have said they leave a lot to be desired. I know the price is high compared to other DAWs but I haven’t seen anyone create a full track with just built in instruments. How would you compare them to what you get from Reason? I know Reason gives more than most DAWs but is it a far leap?

Jac459
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11 Oct 2022

Chi-Individual wrote:
11 Oct 2022
Jac459 wrote:
11 Oct 2022

7 - it has a huge set of instruments, players and effects that are awesome.

Last point, there are excellent musicians using bitwig and posting very good training content on YT:
- Venus Theory: very good content in particular for beginners
- Polarity: Excellent and very pedagogic.
- Taches: Super duper crazy content, quite advanced, and sometimes hard to follow but really really creative in the way he shape sounds.
I already follow VT , State Azure and Polarity. One thing that I’ve noticed from most content creators, and some have even said it, that besides the grid, no one uses the built in instruments and some have said they leave a lot to be desired. I know the price is high compared to other DAWs but I haven’t seen anyone create a full track with just built in instruments. How would you compare them to what you get from Reason? I know Reason gives more than most DAWs but is it a far leap?
Well to be honest I love Reason instruments and I find them very easy to play with.
Some like Friktion or Grain are also very very powerful and in my view unmatched.

But as for the Bitwig instruments, I actually use them more and more and for a very good reason:
they fully use the super powerful modular architecture of Bitwig.
- They are fully MPE (so you control individually each pitch curve of each note even in a chord).
- They have this voice stacking witch is tough to explain but let's say it is unison in big big steroids (and no other synths have that except the CLAP compatibles ones).
- They are super easy to browse in (a big big quality that you also find in reason and that I love).

So to answer your question, I think in pure power, Bitwig synths are as good if not better than Reason. Polymer is basically a grid hidden in a synth. It is a full modular environment and it has all the feature I mentioned. Plus, it has a lot and a lot of presets. So you really can play and get top top notch sounds. Other synths are very good too.

What they lack versus Reason is personality (this is my very personal view). When I go to reason, I know exactly what to use for what type of sound, every synths have their own features, design and specialty. I find them creative in a different way.

That's why I was saying RRP complement very well bitwig. If I want to tweak and explore sound, I feel Bitwig is crazy. It has so many ways to modulate and transform a sound, you can play infinitely. If I know already well the kind of sound and noise playground I want, I will go to Reason naturally because I will chose the specific synth bringing me there.

It is the same for the effects. You can do much much much more things in bitwig than say Alligator if you want to shop a sound and gate it in a fun way. But alligator's limitation bring you in a domain that is somewhat fun to get.
That's why it is very nice to have both...

I could continue with the players, note grid from bitwig is way more powerful. But the players of RS are more specialized and fun to play with.

I found the video where a guy is playing with DC offset to make a song with LFOs and ADSR and no synth (you can hear at minute 2.45). It is as useless as awesome but it gives you an idea of the power of bitwig.
Bitwig and RRP fanboy...

EdGrip
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Joined: 03 Jun 2016

11 Oct 2022

Bitwig is a close relative of Ableton, so if you like Ableton you'll like Bitwig. Bitwig is a much smaller company, but innovating the most of any DAW at the moment. Bitwig is Ableton but with the CV paradigm of Reason, only much better.

Bitwig has quite a few advantages over Ableton, especially if you like sound design and studio-as-an-instrument type play.

While you can do some of these things in Ableton Suite, using Max For Live, it's not as simple or integrated as Bitwig. For instance: if you set an LFO device modulating a parameter in Ableton, you no longer have access to that parameter for tweaking. It belongs to the LFO device now. Etc.

Ableton has the Push 2 controller, so it's arguably still the best DAW-as-an-instrument solution. There are maps for controlling Bitwig with Push 2, but I don't know how successful they are.

If you REALLY want to go down the rabbit hole, Max For Live, and full Max, are very deep indeed. More like programming than sound design. There are lots of interesting and fun and weird Max For Live devices available from third party developers.

"If Bitwig is so great, why did you buy Ableton Suite, ED???"

Well, for one thing I was excited to play with Push 2. I still love that controller.
For another, when I made the decision, the Grid was still not part of Bitwig (though it was on the roadmap), and so Bitwig was much more like an alternative Ableton.

If I were making the decision now, I might well go for Bitwig. But I do love Ableton Suite.

EDIT: The above comparison assumes Ableton Suite, which in my view is "proper" Ableton Live. Comparing Bitwig to Ableton Standard is no comparison at all - Bitwig wins, hands down.

avasopht
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11 Oct 2022

AFAIK Bitwig's Push integration is pretty complete, as is their Maschine integration!

Chi-Individual
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11 Oct 2022

The one feature that I just wished RS would give us that Bitwig has is a view of the channel strip in the left option. Even if it was a key command to toggle from the browser to the channel strip I’d love that. That is such a cool QOL feat of Bitwig.

Truthfully, I wish they’d implement the whole channel strip into the rack channels so you can mix in the rack without ever having to leave it. But one can dream.

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bxbrkrz
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11 Oct 2022

I am not a Bitwig user, but am glad this situation has been resolved. It should be seen as a win for us all :thumbup: :thumbs_up:

Now if Bitwig wants to expand how they want to sell their product in the future, more power to them too, as long as they don't use the same comm/marketing team.
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