The Great BitWig Migration

[Machinesworking]

Very interesting point. If you are right, BW could end up doing quite well in the longer run...

Sure, or at least it will stabilize decently in the next six months, and it's long term stability at least should be possible for the small team they had. IMO they should have chosen to go with a single OS, but that's a big ruckus I'm sure for developers to deal with, and getting financial support out the door would be hard. Man, imagine if they stuck to their guns and made a Linux version only? They could customize an OS that handled windows or Mac VSTs as native, and bullet proofed the whole experience as a turnkey DAW with "authorized" hardware. It wouldn't catch on right away, but they would eventually corner the performance market.

[deva]

But the man's emotional grudge seems distinctly odd.

That is just how he is... I think he is not happy unless he has a good grudge

[deva]

Well that's not true entirely, you think it's a joke, there are plenty of people who think it's great. I'm actually with you on Bitwig for the most part, the lack of ReWire and the lack of controller support for 90% of the controllers out there unless you want to code in Java, and the CPU hit are all things that keep me in Live. To some those things aren't important and for them the features it has that Ableton doesn't are more important. Also, someone brought up Studio One in comparison, and the fact is Bitwig is about as buggy and feature poor as S1 was when it came out, three years after their company was formed. Today of course its better in some ways, but there's a reason you use Logic and I use DP, they have features we like, and why on earth would we want another traditional DAW along with our old school DAWs?
For me or you Bitwig or Studio One are obviously inferior, but that doesn't mean it won't change at some point.

Studio One was also backed up by a sizable company. I remember how many complaints there were about Studio One when it first came out. Now the perception of it is pretty positive.

I've really enjoyed exploring Bitwig. It is a pleasure to create sounds with. The modulation is fluid and invites exploration. Some of the included devices are very useful and with the way you can nest them, also invite creative sound design. I think it would be an enjoyable project to make a soundset just from Bitwig instruments and fx. There is just something fun and flowing about working with it.

And yeah, it is buggy, missing features important to me and I would not want to rely on it solely and have not purchased it... I can still appreciate what it is doing well... It has a lot of promise!

[Machinesworking]

And yeah, it is buggy, missing features important to me and I would not want to rely on it solely and have not purchased it... I can still appreciate what it is doing well... It has a lot of promise!

One of the things that Bitwig really makes painfully obvious is the way ReWire has become old and on it's last legs. They obviously left it out thinking Jack would cover the basics. It's a feature that cripples the Slave DAW makes it pretty useless in certain cases. Like when you start a song in Live for instance and don't want to commit your VST plug ins to audio just yet etc.

[cstump]

And yeah, it is buggy, missing features important to me and I would not want to rely on it solely and have not purchased it... I can still appreciate what it is doing well... It has a lot of promise!

One of the things that Bitwig really makes painfully obvious is the way ReWire has become old and on it's last legs. They obviously left it out thinking Jack would cover the basics. It's a feature that cripples the Slave DAW makes it pretty useless in certain cases. Like when you start a song in Live for instance and don't want to commit your VST plug ins to audio just yet etc.

I had a scuffle with Dom(one of THE developers) in the KVR thread about this during the beta phase, them not supporting Rewire, I thought their argument was pretty arrogant I mean, Rewire IS the current standard for most everything else UNTIL something comes along better. In my opinion it IS NOT JACK, at least not for Windows, I have never gotten the server up and running yet and could never get it to recognize my MIDI interface.

I can see Jack for Linux though where it is the best solution and maybe OSX(not sure as I don't have a MAC) it's just too convoluted an affair on Windows and was a bad choice in my opinion.

note: he did say if there was enough rankering(bitching, demand, asking forcefully, etc.) for it, it may be considered later but that is not a promise that it will be added later.

[eyeknow]

Please. Saying rewire is old and outdated and not important is like saying midi is old outdated and not important.

[TTOZ]

So stop being an unnecessary prick.

Honestly there wasn't a single insult in my post. poking fun at your vitriol? sure. You basically stated your history while excluding the level of anger you exhibit when a DAW fails in some capacity. That's fine, but you're completely missing my main point in bringing it up, you are emotional about DAWs and their shortcomings, as plainly shown in your KVR history. This wasn't done to insult you, (though I'm not that surprised you took it that way), but to explain to people calling you 13 years old that it's more about you being a bit over the top. You also rampaged against Reaper when it came out as well. Absolutely your right, but when you're consistent in your hyper critical posting style, then you shouldn't be surprised when people notice it.

As far as bitshit, i have every right to bag it after all the lunacy that went on around the web about the wait for it and 500 page topics and people ready to "ditch ableton at a moment's notice" and all the constant talk that went on about it.. only for it to be released and the joke be on them. Once again, this is about product, bits and bytes, digital streams, and you guys turn it personal with insults. Oh, I'm 41, and rather intelligent to boot.

Well that's not true entirely, you think it's a joke, there are plenty of people who think it's great. I'm actually with you on Bitwig for the most part, the lack of ReWire and the lack of controller support for 90% of the controllers out there unless you want to code in Java, and the CPU hit are all things that keep me in Live. To some those things aren't important and for them the features it has that Ableton doesn't are more important. Also, someone brought up Studio One in comparison, and the fact is Bitwig is about as buggy and feature poor as S1 was when it came out, three years after their company was formed. Today of course its better in some ways, but there's a reason you use Logic and I use DP, they have features we like, and why on earth would we want another traditional DAW along with our old school DAWs?
For me or you Bitwig or Studio One are obviously inferior, but that doesn't mean it won't change at some point.

I have to completely disagree with you about the built in plug ins, especially the synth, that thing is way better than the striped down AAS plug ins in Suite, which I have no use for owning the complete AAS bundle, and far superior to the complete lack of a synth in Live Standard. That alone gives Bitwig a huge plus, but like you I don't use many built in plug ins anyway.

I agree with you that the anticipation for Bitwig was retarded. The announcement of Bitwig Studio however did come at the same time that probably the buggiest release of Live came out, when Max 4 Live was integrated into Live 8. This is user error, I only upgrade to a new version of any software I use if I'm not doing any critical work and have no live shows coming up etc. So yeah a lot of Live users that were angry about 8 thought that Bitwig would be The Second Coming™, and of course a 1.0 release could never live up to that hype level.

Here's the kicker though, the one thing I think Bitwig have over Ableton big time is they're attempting to do everything in house so far. Live has sample libraries, Max 4 Live, the AAS instruments, other plug in instruments, licensed pitch/time algorithms etc. There's a lot of code in Live that is made by other programmers. They're all clever people for sure, but there's definitely more room for bugs in their model than Bitwigs. Mostly Bitwig stretch themselves with the three OS thing, but eventually it's very possible that their in house approach makes for long term stability that could be compared to the OS wars and one of the main talking points, that OSX running on dedicated hardware is less likely to have issues than Windows running on anything. Just like Microsoft though, Ableton have a lot of money and a bigger staff of people who do all they can to make it all run smoothly. I'm more of an impartial observer, and I will totally hound you if in a year Bitwig release ReWire, get a handle on CPU, offer a cross grade, and you start using it.

Honestly there is no chance i will ever use it. I never use the clip launch feature nor in live, so it would have to be the worlds best DAW and leapfrog logic by a certain magnitude for it to even be considered.

Sure i have bitched about software in the past.. And even logic. If i have invested 20 years of my life into something and they start going in what i think is a backwards direction, I am allowed to vent (and to apple as well, believe me) This is why i use Logic 9 still for most stuff, but X is almost there now. But Logic 9, a 5 year old host, in MY opinion is so far ahead of bitwig it's quite remarkable. (actually, i think Logic 7 was also WAY ahead of bitwig). Ok, Logic 4, to be fair, Maybe bitwig is a bit more contemporary than Logic 3, but that's about it.

I didn't take it as an insult, just you being an ass for no reason. When re reading your post, was exactly what you were doing. The only way that can be taken was that you were trying to discredit my opinion and bring up unnecessary history without talking about it in actual context. As far as Reaper, of course I made fun of it, because it once again is raved about by a lunatic fanbase (in some cases) and that's exactly why i expected so much. It's powerful no doubt, just not for me, not when it came out, and not now. In fact, i think it just gets worse and worse. It's a monstrosity of a mess. (imo).

I made my list with bitwig, and i am already almost at 1 thousand things that would need to change for me to find it usable.I don't think there is any chance of that happening. I stopped adding to the list as every time i try to do something normal, and it can't do it, it just leads to frustration. At least 100 of the things on the list are midi editor requests.

I apologise to anyone who thought my rant was OTT but it was no more OTT than some of the fanbois and hype. It really is all in fun. I would never do this at KVR in the bitwig forum, only here because i presumed ableton wouldn't care about their supposed main "competitor" being ragged on.

(FWIW, i would take live with it's single lane midi editing and PDC issues ANY day over bitwig, but i do want ableton to fix PDC and think there really is no excuse for them not doing so).

Oh, i am glad you like bitwig's on board devices, but once again the fact they are "everything in house" is why it's a turn off for me. Even propellerheads had to give eventually and realised they needed external help because they were closed off from the world. This is what bitwig is doing, and this is the majority of the reason of my attitude towards them, because they are so "our way or the highway" and so "big for their boots" for a tiny company one point o release. Terrible beta testing, i have NEVER seen a program with THAT many bugs, no way, not even logic. The lack of rewire is just arrogance. Why not have it. What would it have hurt? Why be the ONLY mac and win DAW that doesn't? Are they so incapable they couldn't code the mac and win ones with it and omit it from the linux code? This is what I mean, the devs attitude, in that they expect everyone to stay in their crappy little closed world of bitwig and bitwig only. Please do not even talk to me about jack at this stage, unless you have a PHD, and can explain to me in exact steps how to get logic synced up with bitwig, with logic as the master, and bitwig time stretching loops in preview to logic's project, in tempo and perfect sync.
Something i do every day with live, and even with reason, i can launch live and then reason, and audition anything in live alongside my reason project, once again in flawless time.

[TTOZ]

that was a bit over the top, I apologize, TTOZ

not a problem at all.

[TTOZ]

And yeah, it is buggy, missing features important to me and I would not want to rely on it solely and have not purchased it... I can still appreciate what it is doing well... It has a lot of promise!

One of the things that Bitwig really makes painfully obvious is the way ReWire has become old and on it's last legs. They obviously left it out thinking Jack would cover the basics. It's a feature that cripples the Slave DAW makes it pretty useless in certain cases. Like when you start a song in Live for instance and don't want to commit your VST plug ins to audio just yet etc.

rewire is absolutely brilliant. It allows full midi, transport sync and 64 audio I/IO between apps with 100% sample accurate sync that can be controlled from either the host or master. I can slave reason to logic, but set my loop points and control playback and midi from reason. Rewire has only ONE flaw, and that is that it needs multicore support. I am sure it will get to that, just as they updated the protocols for better midi control and 64 bits.

[TTOZ]

…i got SICK, and was confined and PARALYSED, and could not sit in front of a midi keyboard…

Were you also unable to post on internet forums?

Is there any chance of a relapse?

Unfortunately yes, i will need surgery and will be out of action for a year at least after that, but i will still be able to make music on my laptop with reason. Thanks kindly for your concern, but i really did NOT mean to bring that up, but after "machinesworkinghard"'s post, i suddenly felt this need to justify why i was host swapping back then, and that was the reason (no pun intended). Cheers. I probably shouldn't have said anything, so please forget I did, as i didn't want this to be about me at all. Sorry about that.

[Machinesworking]

Honestly there is no chance i will ever use it. I never use the clip launch feature nor in live, so it would have to be the worlds best DAW and leapfrog logic by a certain magnitude for it to even be considered.

Not at said as an attack, but why the hell use Live if you don't use the clip launching? Logic has great time stretching, better MIDI, key commands, faster GUI, SysEx, MIDI Editor, better automation, way lighter on CPU etc. and you've used it forever? I like live a lot, mostly for looping clips, period. makes coming up with songs from no ideas in my head easy. If all I ever did in Live was in the Arrangement View I would never use it. This isn't an insult to Live, it's a testimony to how well Session View works!

i have NEVER seen a program with THAT many bugs, no way, not even logic.

Logic 7.0 was a bug ridden mess for me until almost two years after it came out, way worse than Bitwig 1.0 on my system, with unrepeatable bugs, just a frustrating train wreck. Cured me of the notion that Logic was golden for sure. I would say that DP is that way for me now, but I'm smart about it and skipped DP6 which many people said was as bad as Live 8 early on or Logic 7.0.

The lack of rewire is just arrogance. Why not have it. What would it have hurt? Why be the ONLY mac and win DAW that doesn't? Are they so incapable they couldn't code the mac and win ones with it and omit it from the linux code? This is what I mean, the devs attitude, in that they expect everyone to stay in their crappy little closed world of bitwig and bitwig only. Please do not even talk to me about jack at this stage, unless you have a PHD, and can explain to me in exact steps how to get logic synced up with bitwig, with logic as the master, and bitwig time stretching loops in preview to logic's project, in tempo and perfect sync.
Something i do every day with live, and even with reason, i can launch live and then reason, and audition anything in live alongside my reason project, once again in flawless time.

rewire is absolutely brilliant. It allows full midi, transport sync and 64 audio I/IO between apps with 100% sample accurate sync that can be controlled from either the host or master. I can slave reason to logic, but set my loop points and control playback and midi from reason. Rewire has only ONE flaw, and that is that it needs multicore support. I am sure it will get to that, just as they updated the protocols for better midi control and 64 bits.

Consolidated as it's the same issue. ReWire was brilliant. Honestly I never use it. I work about 50/50 in Live and DP8 and export MIDI and Audio between the two. I fucking cannot stand that ReWire only allows one host to deal with MIDI externally, and host plug ins. I don't want to commit to audio every time I think, "this would be so much easier in DP at this point", so for me it's only about 5% of the time that ReWire is the solution. Basically when I'm working in DP and want to use Live's time stretching on a bit of audio.That's not even useful to me anymore as I have Melodyne so..

Here's the clincher. In the PPC days there was a program called MIDI Pipe, that allowed you to sync two DAWs to a single transport, this along with IAC in the Audio MIDI Set Up in OSX, Jack or Soundflower and you had rewire with both DAWs hosting plug ins and sending MIDI etc. It's entirely possible in OSX at least to do a ReWire that wasn't arbitrarily crippled for 400mhz. computers from 2000. The only reason this hasn't happened is because rewire isn't open source, it's owned outright by a DAW that now hosts it's own format of plug in and does not care to spend resources on a standard they developed for their non plug in hosting at the time DAW. There is no impetus for them to fix it, and they never will. It is effectively dead.

Where I think Bitwig is making a huge mistake is that they aren't offering to help develop Jack into a full fledged Rewire replacement. They do that, and everyone loves them, because on OSX anyway that wouldn't require any rewire engine type driver, it would just require harnessing the technologies already there.

[deva]

Oh, i am glad you like bitwig's on board devices, but once again the fact they are "everything in house" is why it's a turn off for me.

If they were 'everything in house' as you claim, they would not support VST's...

[deva]

Honestly there is no chance i will ever use it. I never use the clip launch feature nor in live, so it would have to be the worlds best DAW and leapfrog logic by a certain magnitude for it to even be considered.

Not at said as an attack, but why the hell use Live if you don't use the clip launching? Logic has great time stretching, better MIDI, key commands, faster GUI, SysEx, MIDI Editor, better automation, way lighter on CPU etc. and you've used it forever? I like live a lot, mostly for looping clips, period. makes coming up with songs from no ideas in my head easy. If all I ever did in Live was in the Arrangement View I would never use it. This isn't an insult to Live, it's a testimony to how well Session View works!

Good points... though Live is also quite capable for its Racks and flexible routing and modulation...

[deva]

ReWire was brilliant. Honestly I never use it. I work about 50/50 in Live and DP8 and export MIDI and Audio between the two. I fucking cannot stand that ReWire only allows one host to deal with MIDI externally, and host plug ins. I don't want to commit to audio every time I think, "this would be so much easier in DP at this point", so for me it's only about 5% of the time that ReWire is the solution. Basically when I'm working in DP and want to use Live's time stretching on a bit of audio.That's not even useful to me anymore as I have Melodyne so..

Here's the clincher. In the PPC days there was a program called MIDI Pipe, that allowed you to sync two DAWs to a single transport, this along with IAC in the Audio MIDI Set Up in OSX, Jack or Soundflower and you had rewire with both DAWs hosting plug ins and sending MIDI etc. It's entirely possible in OSX at least to do a ReWire that wasn't arbitrarily crippled for 400mhz. computers from 2000. The only reason this hasn't happened is because rewire isn't open source, it's owned outright by a DAW that now hosts it's own format of plug in and does not care to spend resources on a standard they developed for their non plug in hosting at the time DAW. There is no impetus for them to fix it, and they never will. It is effectively dead.

Where I think Bitwig is making a huge mistake is that they aren't offering to help develop Jack into a full fledged Rewire replacement. They do that, and everyone loves them, because on OSX anyway that wouldn't require any rewire engine type driver, it would just require harnessing the technologies already there.

I would guess you are right about rewire being effectively dead now that they have their own plugin format.

It might be too soon to say that Bitwig is not planning to support Jack development. I have no inside info on the subject, but it may well be on their to-do list, especially considering their Linux support. Obviously they have their hands full atm.

[Machinesworking]

Good points... though Live is also quite capable for its Racks and flexible routing and modulation...

Haven't used Logic since v8, but DP8 does all that since forever. The LFO issue in Live was never an issue in DP because everything can be MIDI learned and ran through LFO style MIDI and track automation curves written out with a pencil tool etc.
The main thing that Live does that's by far different than DP is Clips, looping, clip launching. Plus it's mostly seamless audio while things are running all other DAWs hiccup a lot more than Live does there.

I would guess you are right about rewire being effectively dead now that they have their own plugin format.

It might be too soon to say that Bitwig is not planning to support Jack development. I have no inside info on the subject, but it may well be on their to-do list, especially considering their Linux support. Obviously they have their hands full atm.

Well they have announced all kinds of future development, but there's no indication of any sort of working on helping out a new standard to develop, if they are and being mum about it, that's a public relations mistake of epic proportions, so I completely doubt they are.