Bitwig vs Ableton - PDC Test (Video)

[Machinesworking]

Re: Warping- The Complex Mode is pretty good IMO, but I'm not a total purist.

[TTOZ]

Way too anal for me.

Yes, I hear the delay. OK, now you compare a filter in Live against a compressor in Bitwig. Hello? Then you set up a theoretical example in the second vid where you expect to hear no overlap between the filters but you do. OK, I hear it but why would I ever want to do that in the first place?

Guess what....who fecking cares. How about a real musical example where it makes a real difference. Oh, you could always just use low latency plugs where effect isn't so audible. It's easy to pick one with high latency and then bitch about it. How about examples in other DAWs...you do know that Pro Tools had no PDC at all for years yet professionals all over the world used it anyway.

So how does this work in Cubase, Reaper, Reason, Logic, Studio One, Fruity Loops, Acid, Wuzik, etc.?

Tried any hardware processors lately? Wow some of them have dropouts when you switch presets.

Guitars are never perfectly in tune across the neck...after hundreds of years why can't they fix that?

How come stretch tuned pianos sound better than correctly tuned ones?

Life is way too short to worry about this sort of crap.

you joking? pretty much worst ant pdc rant ever. Pro tools had a latency comp plugin and displayed the total value of latency to the precise sample so was still able to be fairly easily manually compensated. Or nudged. You don't seem to know much or you would have known that, and also that any plug in live adds latency, even zero latency plugins add the latency of your audio buffer per instance (excepting factory plugins). So the only real solution is to use only included plugins if one wants their automation to actually strike where it's drawn. Besides reason, all the other hosts you mentioned have more or less perfect compensation ( although FL is a recent addition I believe and not as seamless as the others). Oh and reason doesn't add latency for effects that don't have it to begin with, and there aren't many effects for it that do have latency.

[kb420]

Has Ableton ever addressed the issue? There have been plenty of threads about this problem. I just don't remember anyone from Ableton actually giving us some insight about the issue. Has anyone ever heard Ableton's stance on the problem?

[TTOZ]

Okay. So my main curiosity, as I have no experience with the concepts of PDC.

Is it a type of thing where it is essential for production, but at the same time if you were doing live recordings, would introduce some frustrating latencies?

I just wonder if that is a factor which affects Ableton's decision on how exactly to approach the problem. Would they simply need a check option in the drop down menu to turn PDC implementation off and on? Is one able to flexibly improvise live recording ideas in other DAWs while PDC is correctly being applied?

It doesn't affect live recordings if implemented correctly (unlike bitshit).. yes bitshit has playback automation compensated but other than that, it's pretty much the worst implementation of pdc currently available, second worst only to live. Please demo Cubase to know how it's done correctly (or studio one if your anti dongle) and see how the armed track is not affected unless there is a plugin with latency directly in that track's path.. but in logic, sonar, cubase there is even a way around this.. one button press to disable only effects with latency and in logic's case, only effects with latency in the armed track's direct signal path.. unlike a global disable pdc altogether feature which would cause audible mayhem. Just think how bad bitshit is in this regard..one would have to go and disable each effect individually then re enable.. as a latent effect ANYWHERE in a project affects EVERY track.. it's useless.. the playhead cursor is also out for the entire project by the sum of latent effects, no matter where they are placed. The only advantage bitwig pdc has over live's is that automation is compensated audibly. A big deal I guess, but at the end of the day ableton could do a band aid fix to make live's operate the same way.. my proposal would be that they display the latency that is affected on a certain track with a little nudge parameter in the inspector to nudge automation for affected tracks. it's really not that hard to do, but maybe they want to do it properly from ground up, like cubase etc, and is why it's taking so long. Make no mistake though, bitshit PDC is an absolute shocker when one does any sort of live recording or sample accurate editing and depend on low latency recording or the playhead being in time with the audio. In other words, it's more than obvious since it was designed so similar to live (as well as everything else they have plagiarised), that the bitshit guys are responsible for the nightmare that ableton PDC is today. I blame them entirely. Since they are the only two hosts on the planet in existence that operate this way, who else is to blame? they obviously have no real knowledge or capability to program pdc properly (i.e,. in a non intrusive and intuitive manner) so i am GLAD they left ableton.. maybe some real programmers can come in and FIX the mess those guys left behind. That's the hard truth. I can't even conceive how anyone would abandon live for bitshit when those guys are the ones to blame to begin with.

[yur2die4]

When you say they're the ones to blame, that's just speculation based on the re-occurrence of the same issue, right?

It sounds fun to imagine them being the cause, and them repeating it in their own software, but in all seriousness, just concluding it based on observation is on the verge of cookoo conspiracy theorism.

Aside from that, placing 'blame' is pointless. What is important is to observe distinct strengths, weaknesses, and efforts on behalf of the companies. Which, I'll give you credit for that at least.

[Machinesworking]

We have no idea how Ableton will implement PDC for automation when it comes to armed tracks, because they haven't done it yet.

We have no idea if anyone at Bitwig worked on PDC at all.

We don't even know if Bitwig is currently done fixing bugs in their PDC. They recently fixed a bug in the automation etc.

basically it's too early to be hateful at this point, maybe in a year when Bitwig haven't fixed PDC for armed tracks and/or Ableton haven't fixed PDC. In any case this is an obvious win for Bitwig VS Ableton, VS Cubase etc. is a different story.

[Tarekith]

Has Ableton ever addressed the issue? There have been plenty of threads about this problem. I just don't remember anyone from Ableton actually giving us some insight about the issue. Has anyone ever heard Ableton's stance on the problem?

They've discussed here a few times in the past, mainly to properly explain the issue because some people were not understanding it and blowing it out of proportion. They haven't discussed timelines, but they're definitely aware of it.

[yudhisthira]

Way too anal for me.
Guess what....who fecking cares. How about a real musical example where it makes a real difference. Oh, you could always just use

everyone does. These plugins are for music this is a REAL musical example, do you want me to stick to certain plugins cos you cant figure the rest of them out?

Guitars are never perfectly in tune across the neck...after hundreds of years why can't they fix that?

yes they have. its called ralph novak's fanned fret. just one more thing your not clued in about. keep it simple stupid and stick with cheap guitars that a factory pumps out 1000s of a day and then yes, you will never hear about that.

and it is not hundreds of years, were not talking about f*'*ing lutes here, or some distant ancestor of the guitar. the intonation was completely different with a shorter neck.

MORE like 90 years. shorter time than it takes ableton to fix PDC.

Way too anal for me.

so you would prefer just a little bit?

[yudhisthira]

Has Ableton ever addressed the issue? There have been plenty of threads about this problem. I just don't remember anyone from Ableton actually giving us some insight about the issue. Has anyone ever heard Ableton's stance on the problem?

nothing but push updates and fixes, thats what they need to sell they need to make a return on this investment.

the software is bloated, old codebase.. this is not an easy fix obviously. more like re-write ableton and they would rather sell push.

[kb420]

Has Ableton ever addressed the issue? There have been plenty of threads about this problem. I just don't remember anyone from Ableton actually giving us some insight about the issue. Has anyone ever heard Ableton's stance on the problem?

nothing but push updates and fixes, thats what they need to sell they need to make a return on this investment.

the software is bloated, old codebase.. this is not an easy fix obviously. more like re-write ableton and they would rather sell push.

I'm hoping that it's not a complete rewrite just because I think they will be more inclined to do it if it isn't. A lot of users thought that automation in session view would require a complete rewrite, but it didn't.

[Machinesworking]

I'm hoping that it's not a complete rewrite just because I think they will be more inclined to do it if it isn't. A lot of users thought that automation in session view would require a complete rewrite, but it didn't.

Exactly, we're just guessing we haven't looked at their code and probably 99.99% wouldn't know what the fuck we were looking at if we did... but yeah we have a lot of opinions about it!
One thing though, Bitwig getting it mostly right from the start should heat the flames on this, which is good. So all that are hating the fact there are too many dammed Bitwig threads here and probably in the future, well this might be the only positive thing.

[nemoy]

look,
if you use ableton live as a live performance tool,
(which it actually was once), PDC is just not that relevant

If you can't handle that, use some other DAW.
As all of you PDC-nazis stated over and over again:
Every othe DAW has PDC. if that's the
one and only most important thing for you,
use one of them.

simple.

[jlgrimes]

Has Ableton ever addressed the issue? There have been plenty of threads about this problem. I just don't remember anyone from Ableton actually giving us some insight about the issue. Has anyone ever heard Ableton's stance on the problem?

nothing but push updates and fixes, thats what they need to sell they need to make a return on this investment.

the software is bloated, old codebase.. this is not an easy fix obviously. more like re-write ableton and they would rather sell push.

I'm hoping that it's not a complete rewrite just because I think they will be more inclined to do it if it isn't. A lot of users thought that automation in session view would require a complete rewrite, but it didn't.

You never know. SessionView automation was most likely a very big overhaul. They chose it around the time to do 64 bit.

It might have also been a more necessary feature than PDC and they chose to implement it first. It could also be that they might have been thinking ahead a little and don't have as much to work on as we thought.

[yudhisthira]

look,
if you use ableton live as a live performance tool,
(which it actually was once), PDC is just not that relevant

OK it was once, 5 years ago. now its just a bloated DAW trying to compete with everything else.

Well heres why i care. music is hugely about TIME or TIMING. i want my daw to take care of TIMING whether i use low latency/high latency plugins and whatever i order i use them in.

If ableton tries to tell me to not bother about it, or forget using certain plugs in a certain order - then FUCK YOU

but im only feelin this cold, higher than thou "we'll fix & sell push all we want stop telling us what to do"

whoever like the GUI i suspect also likes minimal techno...."shudder" ouch!

[kb420]

look,
if you use ableton live as a live performance tool,
(which it actually was once), PDC is just not that relevant

If you can't handle that, use some other DAW.
As all of you PDC-nazis stated over and over again:
Every othe DAW has PDC. if that's the
one and only most important thing for you,
use one of them.

simple.

So I guess you are saying that as Live users, we should never point out flaws in the program in the hopes that they may get fixed and lead to future development.

Maybe this forum is turning in to a Sonar forum after all.