finally... BITWIG STUDIO! beta 'soon'...

[Scaper7]

http://youtu.be/0phA3t9qHNw

[Machinesworking]

I doubt it, because they are billing Bitwig Studio as a tool suitable for "Music Production, Performance and DJing"... so they seem to have taken away the exact same vision for their own product as the one they were previously being employed to help on. They've not just taken the ideas, innovation and most of the Ableton GUI - they've taken the entire vision with them and set up shop a short way along the street...

Personally I suspect this is a very human story that has little to do with trying something different, and everything to do with personality conflict and people wanting more of the limelight. I see nothing here in terms of different vision or strategy to suggest that there is a legitimate basis for rejecting Ableton and going their own way.

Well maybe the Bitwig guys were arguing in favor of a complete rewrite to implement record in Session View clips and a Linux version? I remember being told by someone from Ableton on these forums that to get LFO's to automate everything in Live it would take an almost complete rewrite. In fact a lot of the ideas in Bitwig Studio seem like things that either were user requests for years that were too deep level to implement or ideas that Ableton seem religiously opposed to, like dual monitor support. That one always has struck me as a question of aesthetics more than anything else. The head guys at Ableton don't like floating windows, and consciously I think have ignored that feature request in favor of this aesthetic. That a conflict in vision occurs which leads to it becoming personal of course can happen.

The guys at the head of Emagic Logic split off from Steinberg Cubase to compete directly against them, and again we see this with Studio One and Steinberg. From what I can tell though, people didn't immediately accuse Logic and Studio One of being cheap knock offs or unoriginal, but accepted that the basic concepts of object oriented editing, piano roll plus event MIDI editors, dedicated audio editors and audio tracks holding slots for VSTs etc. as a universal commonality. Even though it's common for one company to implement say freeze tracks and have every other company copy them, we get a different pattern of behavior with live, in that Live is considered so unique that anybody copying (even if they were members of the team that came up with the idea in this case) is going to be suspect.

Apple took huge ideas from Xerox and Microsoft took ideas from Apple. The whole computer universe is a mass of concept theft if you look at it that way. People have mentioned that Opcode Studio Vision had clips and a grid well before Ableton were around, so even the most obvious original idea of Ableton's is simply an evolution from the surrounding pool. Live has for years now been unchallenged in the area of clip/loop firing and on that line I'm not unhappy that they now have a challenger.
I'm personally going to hold my critique of Bitwig until I get a chance to mess around with it. I'm ruthless this way, if it's more stable and offers features I think Live will never have, I'll buy it and see if it wins my respect the way Ableton Live has.

[headquest]

Well maybe the Bitwig guys were arguing in favor of a complete rewrite to implement record in Session View clips and a Linux version? I remember being told by someone from Ableton on these forums that to get LFO's to automate everything in Live it would take an almost complete rewrite. In fact a lot of the ideas in Bitwig Studio seem like things that either were user requests for years that were too deep level to implement or ideas that Ableton seem religiously opposed to, like dual monitor support. That one always has struck me as a question of aesthetics more than anything else. The head guys at Ableton don't like floating windows, and consciously I think have ignored that feature request in favor of this aesthetic. That a conflict in vision occurs which leads to it becoming personal of course can happen.

Sure, and this is one reason why I will certainly be trying out Bitwig Studio at the earliest chance, and signed up months ago to be kept informed of their work, and to beta test. Admittedly, I thought they would come up with something more *distinctive* ... but I'll definitely still be interested to see what they have done.

There are aspects of the Bitwig Studio - clear from the screenshots - that I love, and would be excited to see in Live 9. Similarly though, I think it is only realistic to expect that there will be significant features I use from day to day that won#t make it into version 1.0. So it's really a question of "wait and see" as far as I am concerned. I'm not going to join in the hype, and with products like Reaper and Studio One it has only been too clear that a vesion 1.0 may well show great potential, but won't replace the software I use in my work overnight

But those that want to be totally hyped and think this will immediately replace Live for them... well good luck to you (whether you respect my opinion or not!) and I hope you aren't too disappointed. There's obviouly a good chance we'll meet again on the Bitwig forum someday

[Machinesworking]

This is perfectly fine reasoning but the bottom line for me is that not everyone (myself certainly included) has the same attitude toward a multi-DAW approach to song production as you do. The "go buy another DAW for that stuff" attitude just presume a multi-DAW workflow works for everybody. And while I know a lot of people can work that way, I simply despise working that way. Thus, I absolutely want Live to function as a full featured DAW in addition to having the special tools it has performance wise. I think it's almost there; the notable missing part for my needs is an actual native sample editor and offline fx processing.

That is where we differ I suppose. Live IMO has suffered for years under the weight of it's user base demanding that it be a 'full featured' DAW, and when compared to old DAWs with 20+ years of code it never will be able to compete on "full features". There are things that Live simply cannot do, and it will take time and resources to make Live capable of doing what DP and Cubase do blindfolded. The race is fixed on that side and every feature request for SysEx and better MIDI in general etc. better Arrangement tools, all of that, every last bit of it takes resources away from improving Live as a performance tool. I don't state that lightly, what we have now is what Ableton and the user base all say they don't want, we have bloat, we have features that other DAWs have that can only be implemented clumsily in Max For Live, to do certain tasks requires a total immersion in Ableton's and Cycling 74's workflow concepts, plus deeper signal workflow knowledge etc. so the intuitive side is starting to slip away.
On top of that we have simple, straightforward ideas like program change messages reassigning controller keyboards and hardware to whole banks of instruments and FX implemented beautifully in Kore and Mainstage, and entirely missing in Live. So where is the live performance part? well at this point it's in features that Live has had since v1 pretty much. What we have instead is a bunch of controllers that essentially house buttons, and the ability to create tools in a graphic programming environment, that again, is entirely at odds with the intuitive approach.

I use other DAWs because they simply do the linear sequencer and mixing environment thing better. I use Live because it's still one of the better tools for live performance, but IMO not for long, at some point someone is going to realize that they can give basic sequencing and mixing tools and throw in every great idea for performing music into one well thought out program that every DAW owner will buy into. That was Live at one point.

[Ryanmf]

Well maybe the Bitwig guys were arguing in favor of a complete rewrite to implement record in Session View clips and a Linux version? I remember being told by someone from Ableton on these forums that to get LFO's to automate everything in Live it would take an almost complete rewrite. In fact a lot of the ideas in Bitwig Studio seem like things that either were user requests for years that were too deep level to implement or ideas that Ableton seem religiously opposed to, like dual monitor support. That one always has struck me as a question of aesthetics more than anything else. The head guys at Ableton don't like floating windows, and consciously I think have ignored that feature request in favor of this aesthetic. That a conflict in vision occurs which leads to it becoming personal of course can happen.

The guys at the head of Emagic Logic split off from Steinberg Cubase to compete directly against them, and again we see this with Studio One and Steinberg. From what I can tell though, people didn't immediately accuse Logic and Studio One of being cheap knock offs or unoriginal, but accepted that the basic concepts of object oriented editing, piano roll plus event MIDI editors, dedicated audio editors and audio tracks holding slots for VSTs etc. as a universal commonality. Even though it's common for one company to implement say freeze tracks and have every other company copy them, we get a different pattern of behavior with live, in that Live is considered so unique that anybody copying (even if they were members of the team that came up with the idea in this case) is going to be suspect.

Apple took huge ideas from Xerox and Microsoft took ideas from Apple. The whole computer universe is a mass of concept theft if you look at it that way. People have mentioned that Opcode Studio Vision had clips and a grid well before Ableton were around, so even the most obvious original idea of Ableton's is simply an evolution from the surrounding pool. Live has for years now been unchallenged in the area of clip/loop firing and on that line I'm not unhappy that they now have a challenger.
I'm personally going to hold my critique of Bitwig until I get a chance to mess around with it. I'm ruthless this way, if it's more stable and offers features I think Live will never have, I'll buy it and see if it wins my respect the way Ableton Live has.

There are aspects of the Bitwig Studio - clear from the screenshots - that I love, and would be excited to see in Live 9. Similarly though, I think it is only realistic to expect that there will be significant features I use from day to day that won#t make it into version 1.0. So it's really a question of "wait and see" as far as I am concerned.

Totally reasonable. I've argued against the position that we have sufficient information at this point to conclude that Bitwig Studio is purely derivative, brings nothing new to the table, and as a consequence shouldn't exist. I contend that we can't know 1 or 2 yet, and that 3 is insane; Customers are better off with the mere existence of both, even if it turns out that Live remains a superior tool. Nevertheless I agree with 100% of what you stated here.

(whether you respect my opinion or not!)

I'm actually glad you read it both ways, as I did mean it at the time, but need to remind myself to be less of an asshole on the internet sometimes. With a clearer understanding of your thoughts I'm doubly glad to have taken it back.

[HeadrickProductions]

but won't replace the software I use in my work overnight

But those that want to be totally hyped and think this will immediately replace Live for them... well good luck to you (whether you respect my opinion or not!) and I hope you aren't too disappointed. There's obviouly a good chance we'll meet again on the Bitwig forum someday

WEll put. I think there are going to be features that are missing that will make it very hard to live without.

Also I've gotten really use to my apc 40, lp, hypercontrol,bridge, it's going to be a while before it could replace.

I wonder if I can slave bitwig to Live

It would be great if they realized they should make a fully functional slave version. One think i really wish live was. I hate slave it to tools because it is so crippled

[Machinesworking]

Sure, and this is one reason why I will certainly be trying out Bitwig Studio at the earliest chance, and signed up months ago to be kept informed of their work, and to beta test. Admittedly, I thought they would come up with something more *distinctive* ... but I'll definitely still be interested to see what they have done.

There are aspects of the Bitwig Studio - clear from the screenshots - that I love, and would be excited to see in Live 9. Similarly though, I think it is only realistic to expect that there will be significant features I use from day to day that won#t make it into version 1.0. So it's really a question of "wait and see" as far as I am concerned. I'm not going to join in the hype, and with products like Reaper and Studio One it has only been too clear that a vesion 1.0 may well show great potential, but won't replace the software I use in my work overnight

But those that want to be totally hyped and think this will immediately replace Live for them... well good luck to you (whether you respect my opinion or not!) and I hope you aren't too disappointed. There's obviouly a good chance we'll meet again on the Bitwig forum someday

I guess the main thing I'm excited about is that Ableton now have someone playing in their "pool" so to speak. Since Project 5 failed, and Mainstage is geared only toward the backing tracks plus live instrument switching concept, Live has had no competition in the performance area. What I fear is both getting more and more competitive about the DAW part and forgetting the performance instrument part. It would seem that Live might have the upper hand there, and hopefully future versions unlike lately concentrate on the performance part of Live.

I seriously think that Propellerheads ReWire needs the biggest competition. If there was a way to rewire in Mainstage to Live without Live losing both the VSTi's and Max For Live, then I don't think anybody could compete with that for performance.

[HeadrickProductions]

I seriously think that Propellerheads ReWire needs the biggest competition. If there was a way to rewire in Mainstage to Live without Live losing both the VSTi's and Max For Live, then I don't think anybody could compete with that for performance.

You lose MFL while in rewire!

[kitekrazy]

BTW it looks awful.

Competitors were saying the same thing to Ableton when they released Live 1.0

This bitwig is so close to Live... It is bot exciting and embarrassing... is there a case of plagiarism here? but I guess you could say the same thing for Cubase, Logic, and their alikes..

From what I understand (if this hasn't been mentioned yet), Bitwig is made up of former Ableton developers.

[kitekrazy]

As any coder will tell you, the code goes much faster -- and the quality is much higher -- the second time you write something from scratch I could totally see three serious have-no-life coders writing this from the ground up in three years if they'd already written a similar app in the past. At the low level that DAWs operate at, there are *huge* learning curves to get over in terms of multithreading, timing issues, sync, dealing with 3 gazillion different audio devices, etc. If they've already got that bit out of the way, and can sit down on day one with a good architecture design that they *know* will work, that probably saves them a man year or two...

Exactly right. And this is why I also hope Ableton have been able to take the time to rewrite the Live code, something which is likely even less work in that case as the devices are all built.

I know of another DAW developer that said to release their product to 64 bit would take a complete rewrite. That puts them in the crossroad when their 32 bit app is selling well.

[headquest]

There's a thread on the Propellerhead User Forum where somebody who claims to have discussed Rewire with Bitwig says they are probably abandoning it because they couldn't get it working right. I think that's a curious choice, and a pity if it's actually true. This being the internet there's no way to really be sure of course

And yes - I second the view that Ableton really should sort out their own rewire implementation to make sure that VST plugs/etc work in rewire slave mode. When I broached this with them they seemed assured that such a thing is impossible, but programmes including P5, Acid, Reaper and FL Studio all demonstrate that VST plugs can work in rewire slave programmes in principal. So guys, if you're reading this ... there's more than a few of us who would like you to get that working right in Live please

[Machinesworking]

And yes - I second the view that Ableton really should sort out their own rewire implementation to make sure that VST plugs/etc work in rewire slave mode. When I broached this with them they seemed assured that such a thing is impossible, but programmes including P5, Acid, Reaper and FL Studio all demonstrate that VST plugs can work in rewire slave programmes in principal. So guys, if you're reading this ... there's more than a few of us who would like you to get that working right in Live please

If you can set up in OSX it's internal MIDI routing AIC and Soundflower from Cycling 74 to route audio, plus a stand alone MIDI Clock to sync tempo, if you can do that and have it all work, you can bundle them together into a package. The code is working on Windows obviously as all the DAWs you mentioned are PC only, and it works in OSX, just not as a package. It's a mystery to me. I would easily buy it at $50 if it was available, so I don't get why no developer hasn't done it?

Propellerheads could do it, call it rewire 2 and sell it. I think they don't do it simply because they think people would be opposed to paying for a "pro" version, which I think is wrong.

[headquest]

Interesting... surprised that Propellerhead don't just do this (free).

[fx23]

woa
this looks like the perferct long awaited thing, a REWRITE of Live.

[stringtapper]

The stuff that won't be in version 1.0 is the most interesting stuff to me.