Bitwig Studio

[mateo]

I don’t have my computer hooked up the modular right now, so I can’t double check if it’s correct, but my default settings when I load the device is Manual mode with a Range of 10.0 and Root Key of 60. I believe these were the values I needed it to work properly.

[Vessel]

this is what I’ve found also

[naxuu]

I had this exact same problem with Bitwig and ES-8 and didn’t have the patience to properly troubleshoot it. Glad the fix is simple, thanks all.

[naxuu]

Years on, growing in popularity, and with Bitwig 3 about to add full-featured modular building blocks, I’m still not aware of any Bitwig controller script for Monome grids. I’m picturing something multi-functional, covering one or more of:

1. basic mixing when in mixer mode (such as: 16 track volume/solo/mute, one track per grids column)
2. basic note sequencing when in piano roll mode
3. basic clip launching/triggering when in clip launcher mode
4. parameter control for individual instrument/effect/etc tracks when they’re selected (this can be something simple like a fader per grids column for the 8 macros and 8 default parameters)

DrivenByMoss has a script for OSC support that can be used. He also made some youtube tutorials for using OSC with Bitwig. It’s possible his well-received Push 1/2 scripts would have some (or a lot of?) reusable code since both devices are grids. I only have experience with using this excellent MIDI Fighter Twister script, but it handles a lot of the functionality I’ve listed out above, so might also be useful to look at.

I’d love to sit down and make this happen myself over a week or two, but looking at all my family/work obligations, realistically it ain’t gonna happen. So I’m passing this wishlist on to someone who might be able to tackle it!

[n9n9n9]

I have tried to switch to Bitwig for several months now – I’ve been using Ableton since 1.5 and as my primary DAW since 3. I like the idea of Bitwig and I have been doing a lot of MPE work and, well, doing that in Live right now is difficult difficult lemon difficult.

Two things to know about Bitwig:

• there is no feedback allowed (mostly) – I do a lot of sending sends to themselves and the like in my looper workflow. You cannot do this in Bitwig. There are feedback protections in place. It does have feedback loops where you can host plugins in the Bitwig built delay plugin and audio receiver plugins, and that is cool, but old school mixer feedback and the things that you can do with that are mostly disabled.
• MIDI control is not simple in many cases, def more weird and quasi broken than in Live. In Ableton you hook up a midi control box, click a couple buttons and you can assign knobs to parameters as you would like. This is not the case in Bitwig. You must have an extension, most relative knob modes are poorly supported, etc. The Bitwig hosted control scripts pages and the work in them is abandoned and most of the control scripts (BCR2000, for instance) are incomplete and don’t do what you want them to do (i.e. I want this knob here to control this parameter.) The forums are full of frustrated people and it feels like a lot of folks have given up.

Because of these issues I think I’m ready to sell my license. The amount of frustration that the software has caused has exceeded my tolerance for fiddliness.

[OHEXOH]

I just want to chime back in to talk about how a lot of the issues I had with Bitwig seem to have been fixed since I last updated the software. I was in contact with them and some of the issues I had have been addressed which is awesome. Of course, I’m sure my voice was a small drop in the ocean, but it really feels like the team at Bitwig listen. Super awesome.

So why have I renewed my license and back on the Bitwig bus?

I use the main arranger a lot. Being able to group multiple tracks, chop and re-arrange a song’s structure is liberating. But previously chopping arranger clips would not add fades onto the chop points resulting in lots of zero-crossing clicks. This is now fixed.

Pinch and zoom on a mac trackpad for fast zooming. Fixed.

The UI is a lot faster. Significantly faster. It no longer feels like I’m wrestling with zooming in and out.

Now when I restart after a shutting all my gear down I no longer have to re-set up my audio card. It’s just working.

I did go back to Ableton for about a year, upgrading to Live 10. Which was familiar and filled with it’s own quirks. But moving back to Bitwig 3 and everything just feels way more open and flexible.

Nice!

And of course The Grid… which surprisingly, I’ve not yet even used - I’m just enjoying the rest of the DAW again.

OH/

[n9n9n9]

I have also given Bitwig another chance. I like the v3 features quite a lot and have found workarounds for most of my problems. Additionally I found some controller scripts that allow for simple bi-directional MIDI control from my knob boxes like Ableton allows.

The more time I spend with it the more that I like it. I use MPE a lot, so it being properly supported is really nice. And the modulation system, which I thought I didn’t have much use for has turned out to be really useful for subtle and simple things.

I am not contemplating selling my Ableton License, which is something since, as I said, it has been my primary audio workhorse since v1.5 came out (2002, maybe?)

[Jet]

I am not contemplating selling my Ableton License,

“Now”, not “not”?

[Andrew_Sblendorio]

Anyone have any reactions to the Grid in the beta version that’s out now? I haven’t been able to spend much time with it yet, nor have I had any ideas that need to go beyond the built in synths.

[zfigz]

i had been using Live since vers 4, but within the last year or so, i jumped ship to Bitwig (just before Live 10 dropped) and i’ve been really enjoying it especially for recording/modulating hardware.

no eurorack here, but all my sound sources are hardware and the fact that i don’t have to use the plugin that the makers of the MultiClock provide is pretty awesome…i just use the clock generator that’s native to BW.

anyhoo, i highly recommend Bitwig especially with vers 3 right around the corner.

[mateo]

vers 3 is out! and the sale is on for a couple of days longer…

[RMBLRX]

I’ve found a fairly interesting use case for the grid in processing my 4track recordings:

[Andrew_Sblendorio]

Nice looking patch! Would love to hear a sound example.

[RMBLRX]

Sure, but bear in mind that I’m eternally an amateur. So I’ve basically used it to broaden the sound of recordings made or otherwise played back on my 424mkIII by running its discrete outputs for each of the four cassette tracks (prefade), piping them through that patch, and then mixing its output back again in parallel with the original stereo mix from the 424 kind of filling in at a lower level. Here’s two newer tracks in which I’ve used this technique:

What I’ve been using it for more lately is in remastering my old 4track cassette recordings.

[mateo]

Finally gotten around to playing with the grid. So far I’m enjoying it, but the selection of modules is a bit slim; I found myself looking for a parametric eq, or effects other than delays and distortions. The two features I’d most like to see, though, would be the ability to group blocks into reusable modules (Reaktor style) and the ability to add FX slots, and drop in external effects within patches.

What are other people’s thoughts?

[RMBLRX]

I do agree it’s pretty slim, though I can appreciate the rudimentary nature of it, considering the rest of Bitwig is still essentially modular. My biggest gripe is the lack of discrete outputs from a grid instance, though I’m generally more irritated by the lack of ability to pipe more than four mono (or two stereo) tracks into VST plugins.

In fact, the main reason I personally don’t mind the minimal selection of grid modules is because I often bridge Bitwig with VCV Rack, but only being able to pipe over four of the eight available outputs of VCV’s audio module (and requiring some fiddling to break that into four mono channels) is certainly irritating.

[franwilder]

It’s impressive. The inline/live help documentation, how it’s animated, I think it’s going to open the idea of modular to more users.

I am already a Bitwig user and their entire “modular” approach is great.

The fact that I can use the sampler as a “osc” in the grid is rad. I agree that more/simple I/O would be awesome. Since this is 1.0 of the grid, I look forward to see it evolve.

[Starthief]

I’m demoing Bitwig 3 as a possible replacement for using Maschine standalone. Overall I think it has potential, but I’m confused about recording audio with it.

In Maschine, my workflow is to set up various “groups” and “sounds” (channels) with hardware inputs, effects plugins etc. When it’s time to record, I add a new group, switch to “sampling” and record “Internal Master / Stereo”.

I figured out a way to do that in Bitwig – create an audio channel, set its input to Master, disable monitoring, arm recording, and hit Play in the Arrange window.

But one other thing I do in Maschine sometimes is use short MIDI loops (like one bar, or a few notes, or even just a single note to force a software synth to drone) and then control the mix level or interrupt the gates manually in the modular. Maschine can then record linearly for any amount of time (not predetermined) while the loop keeps repeating forever at its normal length.

Is there a way to do that in Bitwig?

[franwilder]

@Starthief I think I know a way to do this. Didn’t find anything online explaining how to loop something in the timeline but record more than just one time through the loop. (Also, I’d love to hear more about this and your other Maschine workflows if you feel like sharing. I also use Maschine/Bitwig)

1. Create at least one instrument and AUDIO track.
2. Add midi to instrument track.
3. Set loop region and turn on looping.
4. Make the audio input for AUDIO track the output of your instrument track.

1. Open Clip Launcher
2. Record Enable
3. Hit record on clip.

This will record everything from that track into this clip for as long as you let the loop play and of course you can edit the midi, effects, instrument and any audio from that track will get recorded. You could use the Master as the input for the AUDIO track and record that.

I hope this is what you wanted to do. Forgive me if I went over the obvious stuff. Just wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anything out in case it was helpful.

[Starthief]

Thanks, the Clip Launcher is what I was missing. That works. I would say it’s not the most intuitive thing, but then my method in Maschine is a little bit of a circumvention of the normal usage too