The Great BitWig Migration

[re:dream]

Ahh ok.. I still think not allowing people to fully test drive the software and actually try to make some music with it (no save and export) is disappointing. And it's a missed opportunity for them too.

So you are seriously suggesting that they should let you have a fully functional DAW that they have invested millions of Euros in developing, for free?

[eyeknow]

If they have invested millions, then I'd call it EPIC fail unless live just completely doesn't develop anymore and bitwig is off the charts.

Let's review:

More than two YEARS ago, bitwig had a working "beta" that they released to a select group. Remember the reviews? Things like unfinished and "not ready" were said. Fast forward, they have had all this time to polish it and make it relevant considering the competition. It's really not.

Now that doesn't mean they won't develop the shit out of it and catch up, but considering the timeline, it's kinda hard to conceive.

Best of luck to 'em. But even though it's early, it's not the live killer SOME were hoping for.

[c33]

Ahh ok.. I still think not allowing people to fully test drive the software and actually try to make some music with it (no save and export) is disappointing. And it's a missed opportunity for them too.

So you are seriously suggesting that they should let you have a fully functional DAW that they have invested millions of Euros in developing, for free?

what? A fully functional trial period of 15-30 days is fairly standard. And considering how long some have been waiting for Bitwig, I think it's a reasonable request (not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure they said the demo would be fully functional).

[njh]

(not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure they said the demo would be fully functional).

The fact that you are pretty sure eh?

[eyeknow]

I'm seriously suggesting that the demo could at least be 10 day fully functioning.

[Machinesworking]

If they have invested millions, then I'd call it EPIC fail unless live just completely doesn't develop anymore and bitwig is off the charts.

Let's review:

More than two YEARS ago, bitwig had a working "beta" that they released to a select group. Remember the reviews? Things like unfinished and "not ready" were said. Fast forward, they have had all this time to polish it and make it relevant considering the competition. It's really not.

Now that doesn't mean they won't develop the shit out of it and catch up, but considering the timeline, it's kinda hard to conceive.

Best of luck to 'em. But even though it's early, it's not the live killer SOME were hoping for.

I don't know about Live killer, but your timeline is pretty rough. Since Bitwig was announced Ableton has gone from Live 8 to 9.
With that in mind, I think they did a pretty good job.


The demo is OK, I don't think I'll switch but I will continue to look into it. Mostly the fact that it doesn't ReWire, do AU, or at the moment recognize my Remote SL are all minuses. The LFO is pretty cool though, and the way things are assigned reminds me of MachFive 3, which is ultra sweet when it comes to routing. The Polysynth kills, have hardly played with it, but it's instantly impressive unlike most of Suite.
That said, Live has/had a quicker learning curve for me, this is less intuitive than Live IMO, not a total negative as long as the trade off is depth, we'll see.

[c33]

(not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure they said the demo would be fully functional).

The fact that you are pretty sure eh?

Ohh burn. Not a fact, no, but I thought i remembered it being said. maybe they didn't.

Part of learning a DAW and finding out if it's a good fit for you is building a project over the course of multiple sessions. But if this is how they want to demo it..whatever! I'm not interested in learning another piece of software right now anyway.

[Tagor]

my sis is a newbee into daws and after try out live for a month
yesternight she sneaked into bitwig - i would not download
it but after i got my hands on the demo on her laptop
i can say its feels very "livish" - i could not find the session-mode
and it was annoying need to doubleclick to set notes - but if you know
live you know half the way of bitwig - but maybe its like just like it
is with programms - picture-edting software is alike also today.....

[Dewi32]

I tried Bitwig yesterday morning. My Initial thoughts was that I was dissapointed and it was over hyped. It was crashing a lot (better with the 0.2 update) and it was missing some bread and butter functions like grouping or folder packing. I also found bits of the GUI to be too big and required a lot of horizontal scrolling when in device mode. I gave up after about 1.5hrs!

I decided to give it another shot later on last night. this time having looked up as many shortcuts as I could. With the shortcuts memorized, the GUI IS better than Live, I actually started enjoying it more when i realized how snappy and quick it actually was, removing clutter from the GUI via shortcuts is so much more streamlined than live.

Although I like the GUI I find the mixer window to be a bit "fisher price" I don't find the faders that easy to read even when they are huge. I also think they need to be adjustable in width, they are too fat!

One major gripe is Bitwig's lack of mixing and mastering tools, especially analysis. I know it's early days but its as if they want you to go outside of Bitwig to do your final mixdown or something!

I stopped using my over expensive Live Suite 9 a while back in favour of Studio One 2. I was wondering if Bitwig would be some sort of middle ground between the two. I can tell you, Session mode aside - Neither of them currently TOUCHES Studio One 2.6 in terms of a All in One DAW. I just wish Presonus would give us some MIDI FX!


I'll be keeping an eye on bitwig as it matures though, hopefully it will Push ableton to add features that their customers are asking for with a bit more urgency too.

[Samuel L. Jizzle]

it will Push ableton to add features that their customers are asking for with a bit more urgency too.

Let's hope they skip beta-testing altogether in future, and just release pure PRODUCT.

[Samuel L. Jizzle]

Everybody hates beta.

[kb420]

Everybody hates beta.

Not everybody. Some people love beta so much that they will pay $399 to be a part of the public Bitwig beta.

[Samuel L. Jizzle]

Everybody hates beta.

Not everybody. Some people love beta so much that they will pay $399 to be a part of the public Bitwig beta.

Just downloaded the demo—verdict: unusable. The output is heavily distorted for no logical reason. Nothing works. The 1.0.2 Installer installs 1.0.1. Sloppy to total Crap.

[tone61]

In 1.02 the splash screen shows version 1.01, but About box shows 1.02.
That distortion may disappear if you use larger audio buffer size.

[Samuel L. Jizzle]

I used the default one—256, which works perfectly in Live. Just tried again at 32. Still distorted as hell.

On a 2012 MacBook 13" Retina with @2.9GHz, so that's not the issue.