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

[H20nly]

nice one condra!!

love the Cubase ending.

[Ryanmf]

Bitwig doesn’t yet seem to have dedicated hardware.

Initial smart-ass response: Well, yeah, it doesn't yet seem to exist.

But I don't want to nitpick, because I see what you're saying, and this actually got me thinking.

That’s a huge plus for Live.

In terms of marketing, absolutely. For people who only have access to brands that get bought by Guitar Center, probably. For people who would really struggle with/otherwise prefer to avoid more than a bit of mapping, maybe, but I can see why they would think the answer would be "probably" or even "definitely."

Unless they're a crazy breakout success, Bitwig wouldn't likely be in a position to strike deals with major hardware manufacturers like Ableton has with Akai and Novation. I don't really see how Bitwig or any other major gear manufacturer would benefit from such a partnership in Bitwig's early going anyway. Maybe, but I don't see it happening regardless.

But could Bitwig work as well with my Maschine controller as it does in Live when paired with a Mackie Controller-based controller mapping? Maybe, maybe not. Would it work well with TouchOSC, Lemur, or Konkreet Performer? It could work great if it had native OSC support. For that matter with native OSC support it could provide some excellent interface experiences. It would pair well with everything Livid has ever done, monomes, WiiMotes, Kinects—lots of things that have interesting uses, but generally require some to a lot more configuration than an APC40 does. Bitwig could have Ableton-like (or better) macro racks, like glitchrock-buddha and I talked about earlier in the thread, or interesting Traktor-like MIDI customization and macros (as I saw someone speculate somewhere, maybe this thread, can't be bothered to check).

It occurs to me that we don't know anything about Bitwig's handling of external hardware devices, or MIDI in general. As others have noted, no info on external effects handling either. I don't suspect that, like Live, Bitwig will ship without MIDI support. So I guess I don't buy into the theory that if it wasn't in today's announcement it won't be in the beta/v1. But it's entirely possible that some of that stuff just isn't finished yet.

We don't know the timeline, or what's on it, and no one has used this software—all of which makes it basically impossible to speculate. Because this is a young company launching a new product, and announcing nerd-cool features like LAN jamming and remote network collaboration on project files, I'm inclined to assume that they would trend towards implementing newer technologies like OSC. I'm inclined to assume they've used products other than Ableton Live and have things they like about them and want to incorporate into their own vision that may result in interesting/useful distinctions from Live. But what they have planned and more importantly what they actually accomplish remains unknown.

So

Is the Live branding on an APC40 a useful marketing tool for Ableton? Of course.
Does the fact that an APC40 works rather well with Live out of the box a benefit for users? Often.
Is an APC40 the best conceivable controller for Live or a comprable clip-centric DAW? It's good, but probably not.
Could Bitwig have features that allow useful connectivity with a wide range of devices, some of which aren't even currently supported by Live? It could. Or it could not. Or it could sort of support them, but not in a way that people like. Or it could have the best MIDI/OSC implementation of any piece of software released to date. Or an infinity of other possibilities.

[pencilrocket]

I want to see Ableton will sue the bitwig for plagiarism and get their fruit of many years' labor of their workers back. Shameless rip off of UI, intruments, ideas, every thing.... I don't see any glimmer of BW's creativity or respect for this plagiarism.

[regretfullySaid]

I'd have to say right now that I'd feel too dirty using it and I like my flow with Live.

[friend_kami]

jeez, this is SO depressing.

i've been looking forward to bitwig thinking that we were going to get some sort of exciting new paradigm for creativity. but look at this, an unceremonious replica of Live. stuck in the audio domain like it is 2001. i mean, they should be embarrassed... it sort of feels like a bunch of angry kids.

just saying:
http://www.bitwig.com/img/announcement_ ... -thumb.png
http://www.bitwig.com/img/announcement_ ... -thumb.png

[puzzlefactory]

jeez, this is SO depressing.

i've been looking forward to bitwig thinking that we were going to get some sort of exciting new paradigm for creativity. but look at this, an unceremonious replica of Live. stuck in the audio domain like it is 2001. i mean, they should be embarrassed... it sort of feels like a bunch of angry kids.

just saying:
http://www.bitwig.com/img/announcement_ ... -thumb.png
http://www.bitwig.com/img/announcement_ ... -thumb.png

Yeah, it's the little differences that do it for me (not that i'm saying the modular system is little, hope they have a detailed manual for that).

Dual screen is a big plus, as is Lan connection (currently i hook 2 computers using VSL Ensemble Pro and it would be nice to be able to do it with a DAW instead) and this may sound silly but after years of using Logic i just can't get used to having the track info on the right of the screen, having it over on the left is actually a big boon for me too...

[pencilrocket]

Modular system has been there for long time. Synthedit, Synthmaker, Reaktor, Max/MSP. Nothing special.

[Jeroen]

Placidus Schelbert
CEO/Geschäftsführer, sales, marketing, finance

geschaftsfurher ....?

common guys .... this is a hoax. this site will disappear in days and turn into live9. my bet

[mholloway]

Placidus Schelbert
CEO/Geschäftsführer, sales, marketing, finance

geschaftsfurher ....?

common guys .... this is a hoax. this site will disappear in days and turn into live9. my bet

Some of you guys here are seriously out of touch with reality.

[ollyb303]

I think it looks cool. Not über keen on the GUI, but I'll certainly demo it. First time in 10 years I've seen another program that interests me at all!

[8O]

Placidus Schelbert
CEO/Geschäftsführer, sales, marketing, finance

geschaftsfurher ....?

common guys .... this is a hoax. this site will disappear in days and turn into live9. my bet

Some of you guys here are seriously out of touch with reality.

Jeroen's on the money:

In 1973, Atari secretly spawned a "competitor" called Kee Games, headed by Nolan's next door neighbor Joe Keenan, to circumvent pinball distributors' insistence on exclusive distribution deals; both Atari and Kee could market (virtually) the same game to different distributors, with each getting an "exclusive" deal. Though Kee's relationship to Atari was discovered in 1974, Joe Keenan did such a good job managing the subsidiary that he was promoted to president of Atari that same year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

That penguin logo's gonna turn into an Atari logo as soon as the veil is dropped...

[Jeroen]

My guess: the deal with c77 caused some serious commercial issues for live. So bitwig will be their escape. Live is dead, long live live!

[esky]

...yeah...and the driving force behind all that is the CIA...

Come on guys...its a DAW, nothing special, just another tool like so many others before...and nobody has ever heard a single tone out of it...

[headquest]

re. the GUI.

To me it looks just like:

Fisher-Price "My First Live".

And I say again:


+ Video support
+ Rewire support
+ AU support
+ MIDI effects
+ Groove quantise/extraction
+ Unlimited audio/MIDI tracks, instruments and effects
+ More than 3 aux send slots
+ "Gapless audio" engine on the fly
+ Launch Modes
+ Freeze
+ Automatic plugin delay compensation, and track delay settings
+ Cross fades
+ Per track export
+ External instrument/effect use
+ Awesome library for the instruments, including loads of third party content (commercial and free)
+ flexible routing between tracks
+ Easy key mapping and MIDI controller mapping
+ Support for popular MIDI controllers
+ designated award-winning third party hardware
+ Max4Live

... these are all things that so far as we know Bitwig Studio does not/cannot offer in version 1.0.

[mholloway]

Jeroen's on the money:

In 1973, Atari secretly spawned a "competitor" called Kee Games, headed by Nolan's next door neighbor Joe Keenan, to circumvent pinball distributors' insistence on exclusive distribution deals; both Atari and Kee could market (virtually) the same game to different distributors, with each getting an "exclusive" deal. Though Kee's relationship to Atari was discovered in 1974, Joe Keenan did such a good job managing the subsidiary that he was promoted to president of Atari that same year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari

That penguin logo's gonna turn into an Atari logo as soon as the veil is dropped...

What the hell is that supposed to prove?

I'll say it again: some of you guys here are seriously out of touch with reality.

But for fun, let's entertain your notion for a moment: yeah, they decided Operator should just disappear. And that Sampler should have it's functionality apparently reduced, not improved. And that Drum Racks should be made far more basic and called "drum machine." And that the vast majority of Live's native FX should be dropped (beat repeat? grain delay? filter delay? looper? a dozen more I'm forgetting?) because you know, LIve 8 users won't mind if half their shit won't even open in Live 9. And best of all, they decided Max4Live should be deleted, to be re-introduced with a future update. Uh-huh.

I'll say it one last time: you guys are seriously out of touch with reality. Bitwig has been presenting themselves and teasers on this product for months and months. Wake up.

-M