Ableton Forum

I just think people are grossly overestimating how popular this bitwig thing is going to be.

Who are their customers? People who are dissatisfied enough with Live, that they will make the switch to a copycat program, that also happens available for linux.

The Logic producer is not about to use this program. Nor is the Pro-tools guy. And even though these two folk may own an ableton license, does that mean they want to just throw a few hundred bucks on bitwig? Come on.. What economy are we living in. How is a 1.0 copy, with hardly any new, unique, groundbreaking, or even standard features, going to survive, when their target market is, "people who have a problem with Live."


That's ridiculous. How has, "people who have a problem with pro-tools, worked for Reaper?" It worked well for about 3 years. The Reaper fanaticism which has since quieted down.



There are several things keeping Cubuendo, Logic, Pro-Tools, and Sonar, in the top four of DAWs. Audio and score editing. Mixers that are as precise as you wouldn't know, if you've never used them. Built in fx, that now rival the quality of any of the after market devs.


What happens when Live 9 comes out, and puts it a lot closer to Pro-Tools, Sonar, Cubuendo and Logic. Ableton Live is really getting there, and bitwig is at 1.0.. With a target market of, "people who have had it, with Ableton."

Bad business model, imo.

^ bingo!

It's impossible to make predictions on things like this. Anything can happen.
In business it's not always as simple as looking at the facts as you see them and then predicting the logical outcome.Because you can never see all the facts, and the outcome is usually completely illogical.

All I know is that's a pretty creditable version one, even if it's a bit weirdly close to Ableton Live and seems to be aiming at the exact same market.

I'm not predicting anything. The world doesn't work that way.

Linear Phase wrote:A couple of more things.



Aside from a few neat bells and whistles.. dual monitor support. really nice midi, the ability to open multiple documents, clip automation and scenes in both arranger and mix view... I'm having trouble seeing serious features.

Oh, & Multi-user music production over the internet ( coming features )

"Multiple users can compose music on the same document from different locations. Bitwig Studio keeps everything in sync." ( Share on steroids )

Oh + The future modular system....& LAN jamming.....

Besides these attractive features, Bitwig is giving us Nothing to get excited about!!

Did anyone mention the roads & sanitation ?

Agreed. There's bound to be some people who find it a good fit. Between classic daws like cubendo, sonar, pt, reaper, logic, samplitude, there's already a ton of similarities with those, each with their own nuances and strengths and weaknesses, yet each have their own fans. I'm more concerned if 9 will be a "holy fuck they actually took it to another level and also followed up with age old requests" or something closer to "meh, all the years they've had sales and sold things along the way don't exactly equal up to what I expected but I guess it could be worse, at least there are alternatives..."

It'd be neat if something happened with both of them soon though. Realistically, within the next few months.
How about introducing something big in a beta? Curves even, or noticeable workflow improvements, or a word from Abes about the dilly, yo.

Linear Phase wrote:I just think people are grossly overestimating how popular this bitwig thing is going to be.

Who are their customers? People who are dissatisfied enough with Live, that they will make the switch to a copycat program, that also happens available for linux.

The Logic producer is not about to use this program. Nor is the Pro-tools guy. And even though these two folk may own an ableton license, does that mean they want to just throw a few hundred bucks on bitwig? Come on.. What economy are we living in. How is a 1.0 copy, with hardly any new, unique, groundbreaking, or even standard features, going to survive, when their target market is, "people who have a problem with Live."


That's ridiculous. How has, "people who have a problem with pro-tools, worked for Reaper?" It worked well for about 3 years. The Reaper fanaticism which has since quieted down.



There are several things keeping Cubuendo, Logic, Pro-Tools, and Sonar, in the top four of DAWs. Audio and score editing. Mixers that are as precise as you wouldn't know, if you've never used them. Built in fx, that now rival the quality of any of the after market devs.


What happens when Live 9 comes out, and puts it a lot closer to Pro-Tools, Sonar, Cubuendo and Logic. Ableton Live is really getting there, and bitwig is at 1.0.. With a target market of, "people who have had it, with Ableton."

Bad business model, imo.

Probably the most logical thing I've heard in all the threads.

If bitiwg would have come out during the live 8 problems then I think it would have had a better chance at selling a bunch of copies right off the bat. Besides the folks who will buy and try everything and a few other folks I doubt that many people will jump at it. The question is will folks who have been saving up for ableton and ehar about bitwig decide to do.

The only advantage that bitwig has is that get to redesign "Live" from the ground up. I can't wait to give the beta a try but at this point my cash is being saved more cymbals from the crazy Russian and another one of the late great Roberto's pie's.

We'll have to see, but I have a feeling that they are preparing people for not alot of beta invite's due to the way they were talking in the vid.

Linear Phase wrote:I just think people are grossly overestimating how popular this bitwig thing is going to be...Who are their customers?

Any one who finds that toolset attractive. Seriously. Just because the interface is similar to Live doesn't mean it won't have it's own charms. And it may not start off trying to be a live performance DAW at all. I mean it seams as though it is trying to appeal to users who are doing less traditional things with their DAW. Online collaboration, modularity, flexible midi/audio routing and things like this. It seems to me that the area of the market that is still coming up with new ideas are the folks developing Usine, Audio Mulch, Bidule, Max, MuLab and Ohm Studio. If you ask me, BWS is probably looking grab a piece of that market by providing a somewhat familiar interface with functionality that the Abe's have either overlooked or decided not to implement as of yet.

Just having a similar paradigm won't guarantee success. Project 5 was similar but now it's gone. BWS could expand on what's at the core of Live and cover areas that are not easy for the Abe's to do because of the architecture of what's already in place.

Personally I hope they do well. And I hope they give the Abe's a run for their money. This is purely selfish on my part though.

price point will be a big factor, if its 1/2 the price of Live (which imo is 2x too expensive)... could make it very interesting for alot of people

You know what would be the biggest selling point to me with Bitwig?
A rational and well thought out user experience, with global key commands, an intuitive mouse-able interface, and depth.
With the two DAWs I use now I get these what feel like board room voted upon compromises in UI, Live has no wheel support for sliders etc. in probably an attempt to make sure nothing goes haywire live etc. There are still huge areas of navigation that are all click drag mouse moves etc. etc. With DP7 it's menus all over the place in seeming leftover areas so as not to shock the old timers, and fonts that are tiny as fuck.....

I seriously would consider Bitwig if the interface experience is customizable, intuitive and brutally fast. I had a brief period in Logic between 5 and 7 when I had it geared up but it was never intuitive and Apple screwed up my setup....

Live doesn't get out of the way for me when I realize how much mousing I do in Live compared to other DAWs for one, and DP is abstract in it's own way. A great well thought out user experience that doesn't just cater to the uninitiated person who's never used a music program or that hasn't been around so long it has multiple built in quirks that are mind boggling would make me think about it more than some great "new never before seen" feature.

simmerdown wrote:price point will be a big factor, if its 1/2 the price of Live (which imo is 2x too expensive)... could make it very interesting for alot of people

Cheap things have a nasty habit of breaking, or being unusable; I've got a long list of music software, and hardware to back that up; too long to write and explain each one; how it broke, or why its unusable.

Machinesworking wrote:A great well thought out user experience that doesn't just cater to the uninitiated person who's never used a music program or that hasn't been around so long it has multiple built in quirks that are mind boggling would make me think about it more than some great "new never before seen" feature.

Cakewalk just did this, with there redesign of Sonar. You should check it out if you are on PC. There are having a huge sale. Last week I bought the Producer X1. The redesign of Sonar makes the program so fast. Even though the program is basically a version 9 or 10, its brand spanking new... Its got all the features of a mature daw, with the workflow of something designed last year.

Interesting about Sonar, on a Mac though, since the stone age.

Plus, while I'm grousing a bit about DP and Live, IMO from what I've seen of Sonar it's not possible that it's so radically changed from earlier versions that it's not just as quirky as DP. Taking a look at a screenshot right away one of my least favorite Live elements is there, the tree/folder hierarchy for plug ins. Like the pics on the tracks though, one of my favorite Logic things is pics on the main arrangement pages.

Machinesworking wrote:Interesting about Sonar, on a Mac though, since the stone age.

Plus, while I'm grousing a bit about DP and Live, IMO from what I've seen of Sonar it's not possible that it's so radically changed from earlier versions that it's not just as quirky as DP. Taking a look at a screenshot right away one of my least favorite Live elements is there, the tree/folder hierarchy for plug ins. Like the pics on the tracks though, one of my favorite Logic things is pics on the main arrangement pages.

Well.. In that respect you are correct. Sonar is still a version 9 of a program. But it seems like, "you can't win either way," obviously, it takes these companies years, upon years, to get these extensive feature sets.

Btw, the Sonar menus, "pop up," like a slick web page. With proper drop down menus. Are you able to tell that from the screenshot? In Ableton Live for eg, you have to click on the folders, and get to your plugins... Can be tedious... In Sonar, the folder clicking is done for you, and you get pop-up menus... Slick as all get out, imo...

So.. I disagree that your least favorite Live element is in Sonar...

Cheers Mate

I like how Sonar X1 copies the multi-docking functionality from Vegas...
it's a very useful thing...
unfortunately.. I've never really liked any product cakewalk made..
imo...they suffer from a severe lack of style...and a bad case of the underdog complex

3dot... wrote:I like how Sonar X1 copies the multi-docking functionality from Vegas...
it's a very useful thing...

Sonar also borrows from Ableton Live, with something called, "matrix view," which is basically a docked setup, type of sampling scenario where your audio is laid out like scenes and clips. This type of, "inspirational," feature developing, I don't have a problem with.

The fact that Bitwig seems to be a nearly exact copy, is a little troubling to me. Because to music producers, the daws are like, "musical instruments." Well, musical instruments, are better when they are unique, and you can always tell a copy..

3dot... wrote: unfortunately.. I've never really liked any product cakewalk made..
imo...they suffer from a severe lack of style...and a bad case of the underdog complex

Not sure what to say about this.. um, I've been using Rapture since 2007. I spent a little while as a Mac Person. Now I'm back on PC. Cakewalk's having a sale.. Five year Rapture User.. Sonar seemed pretty logical. I like a lot!

Different people, different tastes? Cakewalk ---> Definitely the underdog!

yeah..
what I meant was all this borrowing features = an underdog usually tries to copy the big boys..
quite sad if you consider that cakewalk is one of the veterans of this market..
don't get me wrong .. I think cakewalk does the job...right ?
it's a matter of taste like you said..different strokes and all that..

about BW.. we'll see how it "feels"..
I can relate to the 'angry employees thinking they can make it better' vibe...
I reserve the critique till after I have the beta for a couple of days...