Bitwig Studio 1.2 'mind-blowing free update'

[db120]

A hip hop producer on instagram about two weeks ago by the name of Ski Beatz who uses ableton posted a picture on instagram for about 5 minutes in which he took down, but in the picture was ableton and he said something along the lines of my ableton connect just came through and some big things are coming you have no idea. *not verbatim, but pretty fucking close* I was in class when I saw it so I didn't pay much attention to it and when I thought about it later it was already gone. All I slightly remember, is that the picture was of the piano roll.

so hopefully they are attempting to squash bigwigs hype.

Hmm, awesomeness is very relative. A select group of people think M4L is awesome, but for me its an overly complex solution to a problem that I didn't have. A lot of people thought L9 was awesome, but for me it has been the crashiest and most prone to making crackling noises and the features were mostly bunk.

I will not be holding my breath on Ableton's idea of awesomeness. I predict some 3rd party tie-ins and a way to sound like whatever the big EDM sound is this week, plus a feature everyone wanted but has been half finished and barely works unless you edit a .py file, and edit your XML on the fly.

Live 9 throws actual bluescreens here. I've not seen them for years!

Live 9 turned my Mac's screen blue, or maybe that was the viagra I took to come jerk it on the forum.

[eyeknow]

[beats me]

All discussion about a possible new Live leak is taking place entirely in a Bitwig thread…which at this point are largely being ignored by Live users because they are sick of Bitwig threads.

[Angstrom]

[H20nly]

[jrhillma]

I've got more than I need. I only want a more expressive keyboard with pitch/mod/expression pedal input at the same time, and a breath controller, which has nothing to do with Ableton - apart from non-poly-aftertouch support if I'm not mistaken

I have a Kurz 2500XS sitting here with two single pedals, a double pedal, a volume pedal (great for volume swells in B3 mode) and a breath controller. It's been under cover for about six months now. Ableton records the audio just fine.

I should fire it back up.

[S4racen]

I'm sure plans are afoot, the public beta is no indication of what is being worked on....

Cheers
D

[nilshahn]

hope 9.5 will be a free update. i´m kind of low on coins, giving it all to my kids and their ongoing support for samsung, appple and sony gear

[overground]

I am playing around with Bitwig now since its release and am quite happy with most of it. It´s definitely out of the "giant beta-stage" that was mentioned here before. Some things still need improvement like the sampler which lacks a lot of functionality if you are used to Abletons sampler. But i guess there is more to come at least i am hoping, after reading about sampler vst´s in some forums where i stumbled upon this:
Shortcircuit (make sure you get v1.1.2). Once a very pricey piece of commercial software, this plugin was built by a talented developer who later worked for Ableton and now develops Bitwig Studio.

Bitwig rarely crashed on me, but i think i still would use Live if i were to use it in a live context. As a DAW however Bitwig´s playful devices and way to combine thing has really catched my interest. Push is now fully integrated but i don't have Push and am using a Livid BaseII instead. Generally the scripts are really well thought. I am loving my Akai MPK25 and its no biggy for me, that there is no manual user midi-mapping of the global transport controls, because they are mapped in the Akai…
What i also enjoyed is the personal contact with the Bitwig team, the support is fast and friendly. Because i was an early buyer, i was invited to the 1up party where i could talk to the developers. And this week i got invited to a Bitwig course in Berlin, that takes 1 1/2 hours, for free. These guys have spirit. After talking to some member of the team i also realised why it took them so long to come up with the first release and why they are so fast with updates now. Every single line of code in Bitwig is either written by themselves or open source. All the other companies with exception of the Propellerhead Reason guys (which they admire) are buying big amounts of code to avoid this time consuming coding process. The problem is, if there is some bug they cannot fix it so easy and also it´s more complicated to implement absolutely new things. This is the reason why the decided not to support Mac audio units (it´s a pity since some plugin only come as AU´s) but it´s also the reason why the fire out new features now every two month´s or so…
Since i got Bitwig i did not use Live so often anymore and decided not to make the pricy jump to Live9. One thing that i really miss though is the big community of users sharing tips and tricks since Bitwig is so fresh in the market, but i have the feeling that is about to change

1st post...

You are right. I know how this must look, but if you check you can also see, that am a member of this forum since the day i bought Ableton four years ago. I am not affiliated to Bitwig and am a non-professional hobby user. Here´s my soundcloud profile: https://soundcloud.com/ulrich_ulisses
I never posted anything so far, because i usually found the questions i had already asked and answered.

So i was in the noisy academy yesterday and here are some news: Bitwig 1.2. will go to beta phase soon. The modulation system will probably be introduced end of this year or somewhen next year. It works well but it´s not user friendly from the interface yet, and there has to be some decision made about which elements to introduce in it and which not, because once you decided you are stuck with that.
In upcoming 1.1.6 note/midi receiver devices can also be put in the middle or end of a device chain now meaning you can have an instrument playing midi notes from a clip and receiving additional ones from another track etc.. With 1.2. there will come a better way of managing midi mapping, macros and device parameters. The window for these settings will be bigger and the values can be set in it without going back to the actual devices. So kind of a modulation matrix. So far several projects can be opened in different tabs, but sonn will be active at all times without the need of switching the audio engine between them first.
Video support is planned, but not for 1.2. if i remember correctly.

[TomViolenz]

I am playing around with Bitwig now since its release and am quite happy with most of it. It´s definitely out of the "giant beta-stage" that was mentioned here before. Some things still need improvement like the sampler which lacks a lot of functionality if you are used to Abletons sampler. But i guess there is more to come at least i am hoping, after reading about sampler vst´s in some forums where i stumbled upon this:
Shortcircuit (make sure you get v1.1.2). Once a very pricey piece of commercial software, this plugin was built by a talented developer who later worked for Ableton and now develops Bitwig Studio.

Bitwig rarely crashed on me, but i think i still would use Live if i were to use it in a live context. As a DAW however Bitwig´s playful devices and way to combine thing has really catched my interest. Push is now fully integrated but i don't have Push and am using a Livid BaseII instead. Generally the scripts are really well thought. I am loving my Akai MPK25 and its no biggy for me, that there is no manual user midi-mapping of the global transport controls, because they are mapped in the Akai…
What i also enjoyed is the personal contact with the Bitwig team, the support is fast and friendly. Because i was an early buyer, i was invited to the 1up party where i could talk to the developers. And this week i got invited to a Bitwig course in Berlin, that takes 1 1/2 hours, for free. These guys have spirit. After talking to some member of the team i also realised why it took them so long to come up with the first release and why they are so fast with updates now. Every single line of code in Bitwig is either written by themselves or open source. All the other companies with exception of the Propellerhead Reason guys (which they admire) are buying big amounts of code to avoid this time consuming coding process. The problem is, if there is some bug they cannot fix it so easy and also it´s more complicated to implement absolutely new things. This is the reason why the decided not to support Mac audio units (it´s a pity since some plugin only come as AU´s) but it´s also the reason why the fire out new features now every two month´s or so…
Since i got Bitwig i did not use Live so often anymore and decided not to make the pricy jump to Live9. One thing that i really miss though is the big community of users sharing tips and tricks since Bitwig is so fresh in the market, but i have the feeling that is about to change

1st post...

You are right. I know how this must look, but if you check you can also see, that am a member of this forum since the day i bought Ableton four years ago. I am not affiliated to Bitwig and am a non-professional hobby user. Here´s my soundcloud profile: https://soundcloud.com/ulrich_ulisses
I never posted anything so far, because i usually found the questions i had already asked and answered.

So i was in the noisy academy yesterday and here are some news: Bitwig 1.2. will go to beta phase soon. The modulation system will probably be introduced end of this year or somewhen next year. It works well but it´s not user friendly from the interface yet, and there has to be some decision made about which elements to introduce in it and which not, because once you decided you are stuck with that.
In upcoming 1.1.6 note/midi receiver devices can also be put in the middle or end of a device chain now meaning you can have an instrument playing midi notes from a clip and receiving additional ones from another track etc.. With 1.2. there will come a better way of managing midi mapping, macros and device parameters. The window for these settings will be bigger and the values can be set in it without going back to the actual devices. So kind of a modulation matrix. So far several projects can be opened in different tabs, but sonn will be active at all times without the need of switching the audio engine between them first.
Video support is planned, but not for 1.2. if i remember correctly.

Don't worry, I valued your informative post.
I think Bitwig is shaping up nicely and I will continue to watch how it develops.

Personally I'm already way too invested in Live to switch. Bitwig has quite a few things I would like in Live, but it has still too many things not that Live has, that I actually need!

[overground]

I am using both. I also invested once in Live suite 8 and Ableton still has a lot more content, like the session drums sampled synth, Latin Percussion etc.
I just like the micro editing a lot and the ability to use both my screens to the fullest, but as i already mentioned. In a live situation i would not use it so far because there are still some bugs you could stumble upon.

[re:dream]

hope 9.5 will be a free update. i´m kind of low on coins, giving it all to my kids and their ongoing support for samsung, appple and sony gear

Is that a Max for Live device on your back?

[TomViolenz]

^

[stringtapper]

Bitwig is having a one year anniversary sale at $299 and if you own any U-He plug-ins they also have a coupon code that will bring that price down to $249.

So I pulled the trigger on that since it's even cheaper than the educational discount.

Mostly I'm looking to the future when they implement the modular system but figured I'd get in at a good price.

Plus you get either Bazille or ACE free as well if you buy Bitwig before April 7th, so you're getting over $500 of software for half the price.

Anyway. I'll never stop using Live because I'm just so familiar with it and it's the most comfortable environment for making weird noises. Plus Max for Live is indispensable for me.

But I'm looking forward to playing around with the note expression feature and some of the routing and mapping features while I'm waiting for the modular system to arrive.

I'm still not in love with the GUI compared to Live (or even Logic).

[Machinesworking]

Yeah the U-He endorsement is a strong incentive.

My basic reason for ditching Logic for Digital Performer was Logic's enclosed environment in terms of how it seemed at the time to add some empty space to the beginning of files, and sometimes even at the same tempos audio files had a hard time translating to Live. DP tended toward a bit better when moving a long from one to the other. Bitwig also has a closed environment approach, no ReWire means it's less useful to me than Live.

Kind of a drag because I think they get many many things really right, the modulation in Bitwig is really very cool for instance.