Why I'm leaving Live for Bitwig.

[older_fart]

I don't intend to start a flame war. This is obviously a subjective matter and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I've been a strong and consistent user of Live for about 10+ years, so I know it and love it. But alas, I'm also a Linux user. It's my OS of choice, I use it at home, I use it at work, everyday, most of the day. I setup my Linux system with a low latency kernel, and with the help of jackd I'm able to run Live properly, with low latency and in a usable form for live playing and recording too. But there is always the little things. Constant xruns (and the corresponding cracks) that happen because wineasio is an intermediate layer, GUI issues that I've already incorporated in muscle memory to bypass every time they glitch, crashes that render my copy unusable and have to reinstall... I know there are other options out there for Linux integration (e.g. POL) but the fact of the matter is that not having a native Live Linux version presents constant, low-intensity issues all the time that I've only sucked up because I didn't have any options. Linux users are a small bunch but very vocal. It has been constantly growing as a legit third way OS, and many many of the opensource tools that companies like Live use and then extend come from the open source world (for example PureData --> MaxMSP). I'm sure the Ableton Live management must have a strong economic reasoning as to why neglecting a native Linux version is a sound long-term business strategy, but now I have an option that provides a native Linux audio suite with the Ableton flavor (unlike many of the amazing native linux solutions). My beloved Live, farewell, I love you.

\venting over

[mmorgan]

Good luck.

[Machinesworking]

That's cool I guess. I would love to get off the OSX/Windows train, but for me third party plug ins are what it's all about, attempting to get all NI, PSP, Arturia, U-He, Fabfilter, SoundToys etc. plug ins running in Linux with their various authorization schemes sounds like a nightmare.
If I ever decide to simplify Linux and Bitwig sounds like a great choice though.

Plus Bitwigs lack of interest in SysEx, reWire, or any sort of synching to other DAWs has me perplexed a lot more than Abletons lack of interest in Linux.

[beats me]

I don’t know if that was venting. You have a very niche need and Ableton has enough to work on with the 2 most popular OSes without adding a third rail.

[Angstrom]

If I was Mr Ableton and looking at the potential market capitalisation of something like a Linux DAW I'd be asking questions like "how much money could we possibly make compared to the same effort invested in the platforms where we currently dominate?"
And ..."what percentage of all DAW users might consider using Linux?"
And... "if we DO dominate this Linux DAW market after investing in a new codebase will new high spending customers flock to the platform?"
And I'd ask "what would existing Mac/Pc users get from this investment?"
And "would many established Mac/Pc users shift platforms, considering they have an established ecosystem of AU and VST installs?"
And "would them moving platforms benefit Ableton at all in any way whatsoever?"

In short, there's no way I'd develop a commercial product for Linux. But that's because I like money.

[Machinesworking]

I would say though Bitwig is more suited to being on Linux, especially if they fully develop their modular system in v2.

The thing is though I think Bitwig are dropping the ball in terms of being a live performance DAW, which along with Linux could easily be a selling point.
It's not like DAW issues go away because Linux is magic, but a set of authorized laptops for Bitwig live and they could have a thing, but again it would have to be a whole new direction for them.

[beats me]

If I was Mr Ableton and looking at the potential market capitalisation of something like a Linux DAW I'd be asking questions like "how much money could we possibly make compared to the same effort invested in the platforms where we currently dominate?"
And ..."what percentage of all DAW users might consider using Linux?"
And... "if we DO dominate this Linux DAW market after investing in a new codebase will new high spending customers flock to the platform?"
And I'd ask "what would existing Mac/Pc users get from this investment?"
And "would many established Mac/Pc users shift platforms, considering they have an established ecosystem of AU and VST installs?"
And "would them moving platforms benefit Ableton at all in any way whatsoever?"

In short, there's no way I'd develop a commercial product for Linux. But that's because I like money.

It would probably be more profitable to spend the time and money on a watered down iOS version priced in the $20 - $40 range. Toss in the gateway affect of new users to the desktop version because they were blown away by the iOS version.

And Link. The benefits of using Live's session view on an iPad in another DAW or DJ software.

[Donnie]

Seems like a legit reason to make the switch

[BoddAH]

Your point is valid and in your case leaving the Live ecosystem is probably the best solution.

That being said, I think it is unlikely that Ableton will ever support Linux. Too much legacy stuff made only for OS X and Windows and no real reason to add support (financial or otherwise). Especially now that a solid and similar alternative to Live, built from the ground up for Linux, exists with Bitwig.

That being said. Good luck.

[regretfullySaid]

I think Bitwig succeeded in having a niche market sustainable enough for them to not jave to think about being the 'Apple'of daws. They can stay small but comfortable. Do you really hear about them unless you're using it?

[H20nly]

It's not like DAW issues go away because Linux is magic, but a set of authorized laptops for Bitwig live and they could have a thing, but again it would have to be a whole new direction for them.

well, that's safe to assume... but no one really knows since you can hardly get shit that runs on Linux

[Machinesworking]

It's not like DAW issues go away because Linux is magic, but a set of authorized laptops for Bitwig live and they could have a thing, but again it would have to be a whole new direction for them.

well, that's safe to assume... but no one really knows since you can hardly get shit that runs on Linux

There's a few companies that sold OEM "DAW" machines for Windows. If Bitwig were to do that with a few choice PC's and Linux they could corner the "I hate OSX and Windows" market for sure. Add in more dedication to performance oriented features and they could peak interest, like they have with the multi touch Surface support they do.

It's just riffing, but as audio programmers interested in Linux obviously, they could corner that market by making it "easy".

[Angstrom]

I have pondered why Bitwig may have supported Linux in the first place. Of course there's the "obvious" answer of "it's a very good OS" especially to coders - with attractive attributes such as stability, openness, customisation. But as a company delivering to a clientbase it's easy to see why a knowable walled garden OSX is actually preferable. So, I can see why coders like Linux, but not a business. For a business those attributes could mean endless support requests for minimal return.


My current thinking is that Bitwig didn't simply follow their coder noses into the crack den of Linux, in fact it was a sensible test case. They've written the core app to be OS independent, with a slim layer of GUI written in Java. Sure, they released onto Linux, but my guess is that's not the end-game, it's merely a test-case for any eventual distribution into other networks. They wrote it so as to avoid issues with OS dependancies they'd encountered before and to ensure they have a stable core which could potentially be rolled out onto any platform. EG: cloud based, or on your TV, or on a tablet OS.

That's my best guess. It's not a very educated one though.

[Machinesworking]

^^^^ I think there's truth to that, I think there's a market for Linux based DAWs, and Bitwig knew that as far as support calls are concerned Linux is the easiest OS to tell the end user that the problem is the operator. The OS of nerds means that you're expected to fix your own issues. So debug first in Linux then port to Windows and OSX. Just a wild guess, but I would assume a stripped down version of Linux, then the Windows/OSX ports, then any troubleshooting on Ubuntu.

[channelite]

As a Live user who switched to Bitwig, then tried Bitwig on Linux, it was a challenge to get it to work properly. Though Bitwig does work now, just Bitwig, no plugins. It was a fun experiment, my PC has three OSs, W10, W7 and Linux Lite 3.4. When I want Live, I boot into W7. Linux Lite is blazing fast since it's a minimal OS that's meant for older hardware. My PC is a 7 year old AMD Phenom 2 955 with 12GB of ram and 2 SSDs. Live is more stable than Bitwig, but Bitwig has more features in my opinion.