The Great BitWig Migration

[BoddAH]

Live looks like a schematic sheet married to a low level Access database.

I'm actually in the camp that thinks Live looks great. Sure, it doesn't have all the eye candy of other DAWs, but I feel like all the information you need is right here and clearly laid out. (especially in a live scenario)

Live is intentionally and unapologetically minimalistic. It's efficient and straight to the point. Both in its aesthetics and in its workflow. It's always been Ableton's design philosophy and many (including myself) like it precisely for that.

Why name your devices confusing names like EXS24 or RV7000 when you can just name them Sampler or Reverb for convenience?

Why rely on clunky skeuomorphism that will look like shit in a couple of years with higher resolutions and newer rendering techniques when you can have a timeless and easily customisable and resizable interface that presents much more information on much less screen real estate without unnecessary clutter.

Live's interface design is the epitome of usability and intelligent design. You can adjust the colours according to taste and according to your needs (dark venue or bright living room), resize almost everything on the fly. It will work on any resolution from a 1024x768 netbook to a 40" 4k display.

Besides, minimalistic and flat UIs are SO in right now anyway. Haven't you got the memo?

[Machinesworking]

It will work on any resolution from a 1024x768 netbook to a 40" 4k display.

That would be great if it were true. It looks bad on Retina displays and would look even worse on a 4k display.
Hopefully they fix that soon.

Count me as someone who doesn't care what a GUI looks like, as long as it correlates to usability. IMO naming your sampler Sampler doesn't adhere to this.
You're forced to qualify what sampler you're talking about, it alway becomes "Live's Sampler", or "The sampler in Live, Sampler".

Simplicity for simplicities sake reduces usability to a degree. I have the AAS versions of Live Suite's instruments, and they simply have more features, that wouldn't work with Live's 128 parameter limit.

Anyway I don't get conversations about products that aren't out yet? I will be interested in Bitwig and the possibility that it suites me better than Live when I can mess with a demo.

[H20nly]

+1 for Live's GUI here.

i got Live with a MIDI controller. Cubase SX3 was my main DAW at the time. Live's interface is effective and not over-cluttered. the absence of pop out devices keeps things simply in contrast to the unruliness that you experience with too many floating devices in other DAWs.

the only thing that i've ever wished Live had that would float was the mixer. the dual monitor update made this dream come true while still keeping windows from hiding other windows. i'm totally satisfied with that and no amount of orange on black will change my opinion in this regard.

[eyeknow]

For some reason that reminds me of something live doesn't necessarily do to well and that is show/hide 3rd party VST's. ctrl/alt/p is fine for making it go away, but doesn't work to call up the window here. I would like a one button solution that goes both ways*

*I'd love to just not know how to do this and for it so be there.

[mikb]

Nah I like Ableton, invested time and money into it, does everything I need it to do... just wish it didn't look like excel 97 hahaha

I just wish Excel were as good looking as Live is. Skeuomorphism is dead because it sucks.

I care about the sound and how well I can control it. Eye candy gets in the way. I used Logic for 15 years and get way more music from Live per each invested hour.

Music. That's what counts.

[hec]

You realize you just posted some things Bitwig does that Live doesn't four posts after someone else posted some things Live does Bitwig does not do? Bitwig is by that very fact not objectively better, but subjectively better. If you need or want the things Bitwig can do you will subjectively like Bitwig better, not objectively.

To clarify, if Bitwig offered everything that Live currently does, plus the list you mentioned, plus was at least as stable, then you could say it is objectively better.

This is exactly what I wanted to say, but:

1.) I no can word good
2.) I was debating whether a troll post like this is worth the energy

Please learn the difference between objective and subjective. I would also like to hear what you have to say about the things Live does do better as mentioned by the others here. (I'd also like to include that Bitwig doesn't have controller with anywhere near the integration as Push and probably won't for a long time)

P.S. My comment was also a reference to the fact that you chose the Ableton forum for this post.

What the heck are you guys even saying in these post? It's hilarious, there's literally no points made at all, just a bunch of words that don't necessarily make sense together.

The features I'm mentioning are better dude. That's not my opinion. Where is the confusion here? I honestly can't understand your replies but are you seriously saying that layered midi and audio editing is better in Ableton when Ableton doesn't even have it?

Bitwig is for all intensive purposes an Ableton clone. At version 1.0 it's offering 95% of what Ableton has AND the added features that LIVE USERS have been requesting for years. It's made by former ABLETON engineers. It's the same thing but better. That not subjective, there's nothing subjective here, it's basically made by Ableton engineers for Ableton users but it's called Bitwig.

Please clarify the points you're making, I would love to see what I'm missing here.

[cmreal04]

You realize you just posted some things Bitwig does that Live doesn't four posts after someone else posted some things Live does Bitwig does not do? Bitwig is by that very fact not objectively better, but subjectively better. If you need or want the things Bitwig can do you will subjectively like Bitwig better, not objectively.

To clarify, if Bitwig offered everything that Live currently does, plus the list you mentioned, plus was at least as stable, then you could say it is objectively better.

This is exactly what I wanted to say, but:

1.) I no can word good
2.) I was debating whether a troll post like this is worth the energy

Please learn the difference between objective and subjective. I would also like to hear what you have to say about the things Live does do better as mentioned by the others here. (I'd also like to include that Bitwig doesn't have controller with anywhere near the integration as Push and probably won't for a long time)

P.S. My comment was also a reference to the fact that you chose the Ableton forum for this post.

What the heck are you guys even saying in these post? It's hilarious, there's literally no points made at all, just a bunch of words that don't necessarily make sense together.

The features I'm mentioning are better dude. That's not my opinion. Where is the confusion here? I honestly can't understand your replies but are you seriously saying that layered midi and audio editing is better in Ableton when Ableton doesn't even have it?

Bitwig is for all intensive purposes an Ableton clone. At version 1.0 it's offering 95% of what Ableton has AND the added features that LIVE USERS have been requesting for years. It's made by former ABLETON engineers. It's the same thing but better. That not subjective, there's nothing subjective here, it's basically made by Ableton engineers for Ableton users but it's called Bitwig.

Please clarify the points you're making, I would love to see what I'm missing here.

Did you have an opportunity to beta test?

[H20nly]

hint:

subjective = based on opinion
objective = NOT based on opinion

[TheNobleNemesis]

Sure Bitwig makes plenty of nice-looking claims but this does not account for the fact that :

A. Live has been over a decade in the making, and Bitwig is just getting started - meaning that likely there will be massive amounts of buggy features, tech issues, and instability.

B. Bitwig is a knock-off with a bunch of shiny new features, but Ableton is an original, with largely optimized functionality, tried and true technology.

Honestly, I don't feel a need to fix what isn't broken.

Long live Live.

[Angstrom]

Todays conundrum: What's better

One program which doesnt work right?
Or, two programs which don't work right?

[Timbeaux]

Todays conundrum: What's better

One program which doesnt work right?
Or, two programs which don't work right?

Is 1/2 better then 2/2? I would say 2/2.

[TheNobleNemesis]

Is keeping $400~ better than not keeping $400~? I would think so.

[Timbeaux]

if the euro/$ went more and more up i would buy it for 400$. awww, i forgot, bitwig is a german company...

[UncleAge]

A. Live has been over a decade in the making, and Bitwig is just getting started - meaning that likely there will be massive amounts of buggy features, tech issues, and instability.

Not necessarily. When Studio One hit it didn't have a massive amounts of bugs and instability. Bitwig will deifnitely have some corners that need smoothing no doubt, but so does every major release of Live.

The core group of devs at Bitwig are experienced and have been coding a daw for probably close to a decade as well. I hope they learned some lessons along the way and avoid the pitfalls that Ableton ran into when they couldn't implement some of our popular request due to having to rewrite the code.

From a selfish standpoint I hope BitWig succeeds. If they make a strong competitor to Live and keep it competitively priced then things will improve on both sides of the fence. That's a win for me in my book. The other side of that coin is that they will have to provide something I need that I can't get from the Abe's for me to jump ship. Awesome cpu performance would be a good start.

Also, I don't understand the negativity towards BitWig. I haven't heard, seen or read any unpropmted(is that a word) remarks from any of Ableton's employees about BitWig. Have you? I don't believe Ableton needs defending from anyone here. They have a large user base and they have carved a part of the market for themselves against Reason, FLS, PT, Cubase, Logic and the rest.

I don't think Ableton fears Bitwig. I think the company they don't want competition from is Native Instruments. That's the elephant in the room. Mashine is ridiculously close to being a standalone DAW. They have the hardware, instruments, effects and sounds/samples to fill in the gaps or sweeten the pot. And they have saturation into almost every DAW market except for Reason. They have long since been able to attract talent and I would guess they have pockets as deep as Ableton's if not deeper.

[BoddAH]

Also, I don't understand the negativity towards BitWig.

From a moral standpoint. Leaving your company to found a new one with the intention of creating a clone of the flagship product is pretty much a dick move. Especially when you make sure you gathered intellectual property and company assets before leaving (difficult to prove but incredibly tempting) or, at the very least, precious experience with this exact type of project.

From a pragmatic standpoint however I hope BitWig succeeds. If it's a solid piece of software it will either give Ableton a run for its money, forcing them to improve Live and add new and tasty features for existing users or it is actually even better than Live. In that case it's a classic case of the King is dead, long live the King and any serious producer will gladly switch if it's an obvious improvement.

The worst case scenario is if BitWig turns out to be shit and flops. Live will continue having a monopoly on performance-based DAWs and be able to be as lazy and greedy as they want.