Because it's 9,000 words, and contains 39 full sized screenshots. Also I get no revenue from my blog, it costs me money. I'll give it a try though as I just remembered this site can accept whole pastes with images....ok it kind of just about works, formatting is a bit off.
Review: Bitwig Studio 1.0 vs. Ableton Live 9 Suite
Reviews
In-depth review of Bitwig Studio 1.0, including comparison with Ableton Live 9 Suite
The [r]evolution of the DAW continues...
Bitwig Studio’s revolutionary Arrange View. This shot includes a section of the Launcher (to the left of the timeline) showing two scenes and a mixer panel at the bottom. All images are clickable and will open in new windows.
Bitwig Studio, the new DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), released today, Wednesday 26 March 2014, ticks most of the boxes that have been at the top of Ableton Live users’ wish lists for years…multiple projects open at the same time, layered and multiple-clip editing, Arrange View mixer, chopping audio inside clips, bounce in place, hybrid tracks and many more. The automation and modulation features alone contain many wonders to behold. But the biggest feature of all in my opinion is the chameleon-like Launcher: Bitwig’s revolutionary successor to Ableton’s once-revolutionary Session View.
After four years using Live, including two years running a Live tutorials website, I got the chance to try the Bitwig Studio beta early in January. I've been using it every day since. I won't beat about the bush—Bitwig have blown my mind. Don't expect any sort of fence-sitting here. I'll try and be objective of course, but the message will be loud and clear: the emergence of Bitwig Studio is a major event in DAW evolution. A revolutionary one in fact!
Non-linear and linear sequencing
I’m comparing Bitwig Studio to mainly to Ableton Live for fairly obvious reasons. Bitwig was formed by people who used to work for Ableton, and there are some clear and important similarities between these two DAWs (there are also big differences too). The most important of these similarities is that both Live and Bitwig Studio have a non-linear sequencer, as well as the usual linear one. The only other DAW I know of with a non-linear sequencer is Cakewalk's Sonar, but I've never used it so I can't comment on it. In fact Cakewalk actually had a layout with certain aspects similar to Bitwig's in their DAW called Project 5, but they ceased continuation because the original developer left the company (so I read). Live’s non-linear sequencer is called Session View. It's a loop-based area, designed for sketching out musical ideas before and during the construction of a song, and also for playing live.
Bitwig Studio takes this leap made by Ableton and makes another giant leap with the introduction of the Launcher. The Launcher is like having two versions of Ableton Live's Session View. One version is similar to Session View, with its tracks vertical. The other is rotated 90˚ so the tracks are horizontal, and is inserted into the side of the Arranger timeline. The importance of these similarities and also the differences between the two DAWs cannot be overstated, and will be discussed further in a moment.
Let's start by looking at Bitwig Studio's most important section, which is called Arrange View.
Arrange View
The Launcher in its Arrange View format (tracks horizontal), with a short section of the Timeline visible on the right.
Ableton Live and Bitwig Studio are both built around 'views'. A view is a layout that occupies the whole screen. Live has two views: Arrangement View and Session View. Bitwig Studio has three views—Arrange View, Mix View and Edit View. It may initially come as a surprise to Live users to learn that the Launcher isn’t one of the three views. The reason for this is that the shape-shifting Launcher can be used in Arrange View and Mix View.
Arrange View, showing Audio Editor, Inspector and Browser. Note that the Audio Editor contains multiple clips.
Arrange View can display either the Timeline, or the Launcher, or both side-by-side as shown in the image above. If you have both on view you can drag the divider between them so as to change their relative proportions.
Another shot of Arrange View, showing more of the Timeline, and a song in the early stages of its construction. You can see the Device Panel at the bottom .
The problem with Live's Session View
A non-linear sequencer is essentially a loop player or clip launcher, and is useful for sketching out musical ideas and for playing live. You can launch the loops in whatever combination and whenever you want. It's spontaneous, as opposed to the traditional linear sequencer which plays a pre-arranged structure. You can use a loop player at the start of the production process, to get ideas off the ground. You can use it during the production process, for working on individual parts while the rest of your song plays in the linear sequencer. And you can use it post-production, to play a simplified version of your song live. Live's Session View therefore was a big breakthrough for DAW users.
However Session View came with a price. There are two problems in fact. The first problem with Session View is that it's a separate view to Arrangement View—you can’t see them both at the same time (unless you have two monitors). The second problem is that the tracks in Session View are vertical, and in Arrangement they are horizontal, so it’s not so easy to relate the two to each other.
This creates a dichotomy, or more accurately a dilemma, for the producer. You feel like you have to choose which view to work in, or at least be mainly working in. People talk about getting ‘bogged down’ in Session View for 'too long', before finally ‘going over’ to Arrange View, as if it was a prison escape.
The problem solved
In Bitwig Studio however, these problems are both solved, and solved brilliantly. Bitwig Studio has not one, but two loop players. They are both called the Launcher. Actually they are the same thing in different guises. One can be inserted into Arrange View, and one into Mix View.
The version of the Launcher which can be slotted into Mix View has its tracks arranged vertically. When this is done you have something similar to Live's Session View. This is a good format when mainly mixing or playing live.
The other version of the Launcher appears in Arrange View. The tracks in this version are arranged horizontally, the same as the timeline tracks, so it slots into to the Arranger Panel seamlessly. This makes the Launcher and the Timeline not only visible in the same window, but arranged in the same orientation.
This is the ideal environment for working out initial ideas, constructing a song, and working on specific parts in loop form while the rest of the song plays.
Working with the Launcher and Arranger Timeline together is therefore much easier than doing the equivalent in Ableton Live. The Launcher becomes an extension of the Timeline itself. The importance of this feature cannot be overstated.
Let's look at the other features now—there are many more gigantic features here that will blow your mind, so hang on tight!
Stay on the scene(s)
A collection of clips that play simultaneously in loop form in Live's Session View or Bitwig's Launcher is called a Scene. You can drag a scene into the Arranger timeline in Bitwig Studio, as you can in Live. In Bitwig Studio however you can also select any combination of clips playing in the Launcher, and drag them into the Arranger, and any combination of clips in the Arranger can be dragged into the Launcher to create a scene. This is not possible in Live, as in Live you can only select blocks of time. The one thing Bitwig Studio doesn't have at the moment in terms of scenes is a 'capture and insert scene' feature, but it's easy to replicate that by duplicating the scene with most clips playing and dragging a few clips in and out.
Arrange View Mixer
Another very cool feature in Bitwig's Arrange View is that you can have a proper mixer panel at the bottom if you want. This is like a smaller version of Mix View, and is a feature many Live users have wanted for years for Ableton's Arrangement View. You can see it in the image at the top of the page, but to save you scrolling, here's a smaller one. This one shows the devices as well. There is a separate Device Panel of course, but you can see them listed in the mixer, and you can also move them around and duplicate them and so on in here.
Bitwig Studio's smaller Mixer Panel.
GUI-candy
Comparing Bitwig Studio (left) and Ableton Live's browsers in one screen-shot. The writing in Bitwig Studio's is clearly easier to read. It also tells you how many files there are in each folder (this applies to searches as well), which is enormously useful. You can also see here that there is a lot of wasted space in Live's browser. Apologies for the fact that my screenshots are not as sharp as the originals.
Bitwig Studio looks great, and yet is highly functional. It’s slightly less minimal than Ableton Live in appearance—just enough to create eye candy, but still simple enough to keep the minimalists happy, and keep functionality foremost.
The deviations from the absolute minimum, though, are subtle, few and small. In fact I think Ableton actually took minimalism too far, even for functionality. The coloured icons in Bitwig Studio’s browser for instance (see image above) are very functional—it's much easier to differentiate between them than with the plain ones in Live.
Super-sharp detail
Bitwig Studio’s GUI looks sharper—clearer on fine detail. It's definitely easier for me to read. I’ve had a very serious eye condition for many years, which makes my eyes light-sensitive (so I struggle with contrast) and rubbish at seeing fine detail. However since starting using Bitwig Studio, I’ve actually been able to increase my screen resolution and decrease the zoom, so everything is smaller and therefore I can get a lot more on the screen. I couldn’t do this with Live. When using Live I used the lowest screen resolution to make things bigger and also had Live magnified by 20%. It’s not as sharp when you use a lower resolution, which is a trade-off obviously, but I needed the size. With Bitwig Studio I have more than twice as much on the screen, but I can still see it all clearly (even more clearly in fact). I never used to like dark skins with Live, and it was one thing I was worried about before I tried Bitwig Studio, but they have got the contrast just right, and after using it I actually love it!
Note editing in Bitwig Studio (left) and Ableton Live. Click the pic to zoom. Again this is one screenshot, and so is an exact comparison, although my screenshots are never quite as sharp as the real thing (sorry, blame Apple).
The clips in Bitwig Studio are still plain colours, but they have subtle shading, and are (in my opinion) nicer colours. And that little change makes all the difference, you actually want to look at it. The colours of the tracks' colour stripes are continued into the clips by default (of course you can change all this) into the Note Editor, and even into the velocity and other expressions at the bottom, giving practical as well as aesthetic benefits. Bitwig Studio assigns every new track with a colour (Live does not, though you can do it manually) which applies to things like clips, until you change them.
For example, suppose you have an orange track, with orange clips set by default. If you change one of the clips to yellow, and then change the track to pink, the yellow clip will stay yellow, but the orange ones will change to pink. This is very well thought out. Audio clips also take on the track colour initially, when you drag them in. In Live they are assigned random colours for some reason (probably random). Another nice touch is that the clip names in Bitwig Studio change from dark grey to off-white when the clip gets darker due to being selected.
I used to be a fan of custom skins for Live, but that was mainly just because I couldn't use the factory ones for reasons I hinted at above, mainly to do with contrast. However Bitwig’s has been great for me as is. Just having one skin keeps things very simple. We can refer to what colours indicate, and we all sing from the same hymn sheet.
Multiple monitor views
Bitwig Studio has five dual and triple monitor views. Don't tell me, you've got four monitors!
Speed, reliability and timing
Bitwig Studio seems very quick and solid. Like Live, it does carry out indexing, which means it memorizes all the stuff you tell it to (your samples etc.) to save time when searching, but unlike Live it takes almost no time to do this. I barely noticed my initial indexing, where Bitwig memorized 40,000 samples etc., I think it took something like five minutes. I tend to leave it for a minute after each time I load it, just to make sure it's finished its update. You can see it happening, so you know when it's done. In Live 9, initial indexing took about an hour or two for me, but for some people it took a lot longer (days were even reported). Also, as you will read below in the analysis of the browser, Bitwig Studio doesn't need to index as much stuff as Live, because it can browse your computer directly.
In terms of CPU use I don't think it's really possible to say definitively that Bitwig Studio uses less than Live, but it certainly doesn't seem to use any more. They've performed about the same in the tests I've done. New software always assumes people have recent hardware, so that's not a bad result. I remember when I first moved to Live 8 from Reason 2—I had to buy a new computer! And the one I have now is only Core 2 Duo, so most recent computers will do better.
I don't seem to get the audio pops and crackles I got regularly in Live.
Not once in several months beta testing have I had the Mac users’ dreaded spinning wheel of death (indicating unresponsiveness) while using Bitwig Studio. Personally I had a lot of these annoying pauses in Live every time I used it. Some lasted for a couple of seconds, others up to 10-30 seconds. I think they happened several times whenever I used Live, and sometimes happened so much I couldn't get anything done.
Bitwig Studio also has a special system to isolate a plugin crash, so a VST crashing can’t crash Bitwig Studio itself.
With regards to the much talked about subject (by Live users) of Plugin Delay Compensation (PDC), Bitwig have stated that there is no problem with this in Bitwig Studio. I did a test on automation and that passed ok. Automation is not delay compensated in Live, so it can sound early, and there can be problems with tempo-sync. Both these points are covered briefly in the Live manual.
Audio can be looped in its raw state in Bitwig Studio, so the timing appears to be impeccable (Live cannot loop raw audio).
Mix View and the Mixer Panel
Bitwig Studio’s Mix View, with the optional Launcher in it’s vertical layout
The Mix View, as I mentioned in the description of the Launcher, is similar to Live’s Session View. At least it is when the Launcher is on view in it, and it’s eminently suitable for mix-downs, mastering, and playing Live. The tracks in Mix View are arranged in vertical columns, just like a hardware mixing console. The Launcher can be hidden if you want—if you're a Live user (soon to be ex-Live user) you won't be using it as much in this view now that you have it in Arrange View.
It’s important to understand that there is a Mix View and a Mixer Panel, an Edit View and Edit Panel, and an Arranger View and Arranger Panel. The views, as mentioned earlier, take up the whole screen. The panels are smaller, though they can be resized by dragging the top edge. Only the Arranger Panel is tied to it’s view, in the sense that it only appears in that view. The others can appear in different views, for example the Detail Editor can appear in the Arrange and Mix views.
The smaller Mixer Panel, one of four Secondary Panels available at the bottom of Arrange View in Bitwig Studio. The others are the Device Panel, the Detail Editor Panel and the Automation Panel. In total Bitwig Studio has ten different panels, but some take on more than one format.
In Arrange View you can have a Mixer Panel at the bottom. The tracks in the Mixer Panel stay vertical. This is the only way you could incorporate it at the bottom of Arrange View, and of course there isn’t room at the side of the timeline as you already have the Launcher there (or available there). However you can do certain mixing functions without either Mix View or even the Mixer Panel. You can adjust different tracks' sends in the Device Panel of the relevant Effects (return) track, which is a really cool feature (see the image further down the page), and you can adjust tracks' levels in the track headers.
Devices can be viewed and accessed directly from the mixer, without calling up the device panel first. This is similar to Live
’s ‘device slots’ options feature which is not officially implemented.
Edit View and Detail Editor Panels
Edit View is the third view, and is a full-sized version of the Detail Editor Panel. It can also have automation and per-note automation. You don’t need to switch to this view to edit, as you can use an Editor Panel at the bottom of Arrange View (or Mix View) if you want. But you get a lot more room here, without having to drag the top of the panel up. So if your notes are over a couple of octaves, or you want a lot of room to edit everything, this the the place to do it. Basically it's quicker than dragging the top of the Editor panel.
Full-sized Edit View in Bitwig Studio
Detail Editor Panel, showing the Audio Editor
Note editing and Note Expressions
There are three kinds of smart snap, which work very well. I don't think we'll see the barrage of complaints that followed the introduction of smart snapping in Live 9, although to be fair I never found it difficult. They're toggled with easy shortcuts, as is the adaptive grid and grid width. For example the adaptive/fixed grid is toggled with [SLASH]. Fixed grid width is made narrower and wider with [COMMA] and [PERIOD]. The three snaps are toggled with [SHIFT] + [COMMA], [SHIFT] + [PERIOD], [SHIFT] + [SLASH]. Note that all four keys used are next to each other, so you can do these very easily. You can move notes and extend their length incrementally or in grid sized jumps, using arrow key shortcuts, and you can change the selection area in a similar way.
Bitwig Studio offers several kinds of Note Expressions. These are Velocity Gain, Pan and Timbre. These are edited at the bottom, where Live users will be used to seeing velocity. In the image of the Edit View you can see it in the middle, above the automation. You can also edit micro-pitch here. Micro-pitch uses Bitwig's per-note modulation, and works with Bitwig instruments but not VSTs.
Shortcuts, workflow and the Commander window
I’m a big fan of shortcuts, especially short ones! Ableton have shortcuts for many things, but I was never happy about being expected to use three keys for frequently used things like the mixer and so on. Bitwig provide single-key shortcuts for a lot of things. For example the Mixer Panel shortcut is simply [M]. [TAB] takes you from from Arranger to Mix View, and [SHIFT] + [TAB] takes you to Edit View. At any time you can click [CTRL] + [ENTER] to get the Commander Window, which contains a list of all the shortcuts available to you at that particular time. You can immediately start typing to search the Commander (no need to click first), and then use [DOWN ARROW] and then [ENTER] to select one of the results, without having to take your hands off the keyboard.
Scrolling and zooming are easy. On this website you'll find loads of ways to do both (including some extra non-manual tricks for Mac users).
Clip and Track Editing Modes
The editors have two editing modes in the Arranger: Clip Editing Mode and Track Editing Mode. These apply in the Detail Editor (Note and Audio Editors), the Automation Editor, and Edit View. Track Mode means you are editing the whole track, whereas in Clip Mode just edits a clip. Obviously in the Launcher there is only Clip Mode.
Track Mode enables you to edit multiple clips in a track at the same time, as shown in the image below. This can be very useful, for example when working on transitions or just comparing clips.
Multiple clips can be seen simultaneously in the editors in Bitwig Studio when in Track Mode.
Having two modes to choose from means you can edit automation in either mode in the editor. If you want the automation to repeat when a clip is repeated, you can turn on Clip Mode while you duplicate it. You can then switch to Track Mode to edit several clips together. Clip Mode enables Relative Automation to be used in Arrange View.
It's important to understand the difference between these two modes, it's pretty much a new concept for Live users, and they will be referred to again in this review and throughout the tutorials.
Layered editing
Another mega-feature of Bitwig Studio is Layered Editing mode. You can edit several different tracks or clips at the same time, superimposed on each other like sheets of tracing paper, except that you can edit the sheets underneath! And you can combine Layered Editing and the Track Editing mode described above, so as to edit multiple clips in multiple tracks!!
Layered note editing of multiple clips in Bitwig Studio. It's better than X-ray vision.
Either audio or notes can be edited this way. In note editing, the notes are actually superimposed on top of one another in their respective track or clip’s colours. You can choose to edit one or the other, or several at the same time. You can lock ones that are just there for reference, and they become feint as well as uneditable, as shown here. In this image the green notes are locked, and so are dimmed. You can't edit notes and audio in the same view, but you can have a background of a different kind (note or audio) which is for reference only, as shown here. When doing layered editing of audio tracks the format is different, as shown below. You see all the clips, but not superimposed as that would get too messy.
Layered note editing of multiple audio tracks, and multiple clips per track (Track Mode), in Bitwig Studio.
Per-note automation
Per-note automation is another Bitwig feature that may be new to you. It means you can edit one one of several notes that are played at the same time. So for example you can edit notes in a chord differently. There are several parameters you can edit like this.
Chopping audio within clips
Here are two features that were always top of my wish list for Live—chopping audio inside clips, and assigning a groove to their start points.
In Bitwig Studio you can of course chop up audio in Arrange View, adding as many different sources as you want within one track. All DAWs allow this, as far as I know. But in Bitwig Studio you can slice and dice audio, including multiple audio sources, within a clip in the Launcher, while still retaining audio format. You can also do the same in Arranger clips. Personally I find chopping audio easier than Slice to Midi, as it's a lot easier to visualize what a chunk sounds like when you can see the wave. Plus, you can mess with parameters like stretch and so on. The possibilities for remixes for example are quite different from anything you could imagine with Slice to Midi.
Drum loop chopped up, and bits of a piano loop inserted within a clip. Yet another huge feature not possible in Live (or any other DAW to my knowledge). You can also apply a groove to the start point of each chunk, just like you take for granted with notes.
In Live, this ability to chop audio is something you can’t do in Session View—you have to go over to Arrange View. If you're not a Live user, remember that Arrange View means a completely separate view, with a completely different orientation. There is Slice To MIDI for audio in Session View, but that isn’t the same thing at all (you can do that in Bitwig Studio as well, see below for more on that). You can chop up audio in Live’s Arrange View, but not within clips—you have to create lots of clips. But to bring it into Session View you have to consolidate (join it all into one piece of audio). But then of course you can no longer rearrange it! Aaargh!
Not only does Bitwig Studio allow you to chop up audio within clips, but these chunks you've chopped can have a groove assigned to their start points! This means you can arrange, rearrange and apply quantization to multiple audio chunks, just like you can with notes inside a clip.
In Bitwig Studio, you can auto-chop (for want of a better expression) audio at all the transients/onsets, at the click of a button. After slicing there are various tools for quickly rearranging the slices.
In Live you can apply a groove to the warping of the consolidated or non-chopped audio, but that’s not the same as what we're talking about here. It's a useful feature though. At the time of writing, this feature was missing from Bitwig Studio, but I believe it is being added soon and may have been by the time you read this.
Stretch and Audio Expressions
Bitwig Studio has three kinds of warp or stretch algorithm, and can loop a piece of audio in its raw state (something not possible in Live). The warping seems very good, so you can normally just throw stuff into Bitwig Studio without worrying about the tempo.
There are several Audio Expression that can be edited—Event, Gain, Pan, Pitch, Onsets and Stretch. It's like a separate editor for each, so things don't get too messy.
Beat Markers in Stretch Expressions window
Slice to Multisample and Drum Machine
You might think that chopping up audio in a clip, as described above, is a bit like Live’s Slice To Midi. Well it's not. What was explained earlier is kept in audio form, and this is very important. Slice To Midi is useful, but it's a different kettle of fish entirely.
If you are a big fan of slicing to MIDI, or for occasions where it is a better option, Bitwig give you two: Slice to Multisample, and Slice to Drum Machine. And yes, they thoughtfully give you a multisampler as well, which of course does not come with the standard version of Ableton Live.
Slice to multisample, audio chopped up in Bitwig's Sampler
This whole process takes just a few seconds. That’s all well and good, I hear you say, but does it sound any good? Well yeah. I can’t tell the difference between the original and something sliced like this.
Slice to multisample, showing the notes produced
Bitwig’s Browser
The browser, when summoned using the shortcut , is over on the right-hand side in Bitwig Studio. It seems more natural to be this side. You can drag its left edge to make it wider if you want.
There are many important differences between Bitwig's sleek and simple browser and Live's, which, quite frankly, is a bit of a mess. The first major difference is the ability of the Bitwig's browser to directly browse your whole computer!
This ability to browse includes external drives and partitions, and is something Ableton strangely dropped with Live 9, much to the bewilderment of many Live users. They are now expected to add folders one by one and wait, sometimes for a very long time, for them to be indexed.
Not so in Bitwig’s sleek and straightforward browser. In this one you also get a shortcut direct to your personal Home/User folder, which is a great time-saver. You can also make bookmarks of various kinds.
Ableton also introduced other confusing aspects to their browser in Live 9. Many, if not most, people could never really understand it completely, even months after the release.
There was much confusion about Live 9's Categories section, which many people including myself didn’t even use anyway, apart from the basic devices obviously. It's a sort of tagging system that dominates the browser.
There was also confusion about using the old Live 8 Libraries, which people still use. Live 9 relied, and still does, on Live 8's Library, but also had its own small one, and then a smaller Live 8 legacy library was released for people who didn't have Live 8 or had deleted the old library. Not much has changed in the year since it's release.
Bitwig Studio's browser is a single pop-out panel with seven tab icons across the top, a search box, and three panes. The top pane is for navigating folders. The middle one is for all your individual presets and samples within any folder you open, and the little one at the bottom is for previewing and information. The divider between the top two can be dragged.
The Files Tab in Bitwig Studio's Browser Panel allows you to navigate your computer and various bookmarks. It has six sections. The first is Current Project, and next is Bookmarks. There are several ways to create bookmarks in Bitwig Studio. The Bookmarks section is for folders on your computer you think might be handy when using Bitwig Studio. Next is the Library Locations section, which contains Bitwig’s Library, installed contents, VSTs and anything else you put there. Next is My Files, which is your crucial User (Home) Folder on your computer. Also there is one called 'Computer', which takes you up a level to the hard drives, and finally there is Recent Documents.
You can find anything quite easily, just in this tab. For example, if you go into My Files and navigate to your main samples folder, you can right click on that and choose to add it to Bookmarks. Alternatively though you can add it as a Sound Location, in which case it will go into the Samples tab. Or you can do both—I do, so I can leave them open at different places.
The Samples tab is searchable, and the searches take no time at all. I mean literally no time—the results are up before you finish typing 'kick'. If you search for something like ‘kick’, you can look at all 2,765 results in one go, or see them separated into their separate folders. Bitwig's browser tells you how many files you have in each folder, and this includes searches where it sells you how many search results are in each folder. This is a very useful feature, which Live does not have.
I want to compare Bitwig Studio and Ableton Live in terms of finding samples. The Samples tab contains all your samples. This might sound obvious, but Live users will understand. I'll elaborate with an example anyway. Here are two shots of Live's browser.
There are four Samples folders in Live's browser, and they are scattered here and there. You can see three in the photo on the left. Disregarding the Live 8 one, you can see my personal one at the bottom, which I use, or at least used to, and the Samples Category at the top, which is useless to most people. If I search for 'kick', out of over 2,700 kicks that I have, only 19 are showing when I click on the Samples Category, so pretty pointless (see the image above, on the right). There might be some more in the Drums Category...there are, but I see the first one is the same as the first one in the Samples Category. Confusing! What about 'All Results'? Maybe we could try in there? This does indeed seem like it might have everything, even most of mine, but now the problem is I just have one whopping great list of 2,700 samples with no breakdown whatsoever. If I go to my own samples folder in Places, I get the separate folders alright, but let's just try an example.
If I go to Bitwig's browser the folders are already opened for me, and I can see the contents and the list. In Live's browser on the other hand, first I have to click on the intermediate folders, and then when I get to my destination my other samples packs are hidden, at least until I start scrolling. I think you get the picture.
Searching for a kick in Bitwig Studio and Ableton Live. It's easy in one and a pain in the in the other.
When auditioning samples in the browser you can get loops and hits to audition automatically when selected, in time with your track. They will keep auditioning if you click elsewhere, which might seem obvious, but is something Ableton deliberately removed in Live 9 for some obscure reason, much to a lot of people’s annoyance.
When auditioning single hits it’s the same, but they play every beat or half beat, so are easy to audition. In Live they only play every bar, and of course annoyingly stop when you click elsewhere.
The other tabs are Devices and Presets, Multi-samples, Music, Clips and Configuration. Tagging and categorization is available for presets you save as well as the factory ones. You get a wide choice of categories and a selection of descriptive tags. So for example you could save a bass categorized as Bass and tagged with ‘dirty’. Clips you save can also be tagged.
One last point on the Browser which I forgot and was just pointed out to on KVR: Bitwig's browser can open different folders and leave them open, but in Live's, when you open one, the last one closes! The poster who reminded me said it was his biggest dislike in the Live browser.
Multiple projects open in tabs
You can open several projects and drag material from one to another. They appear in tabs on the right hand side of the screen. Several projects can be open, but you can only have audio on one at a time. This is yet another feature high on the wish list for many Live users. It’s great for copying bits from one project to another, trying different versions or effects out and so on. It also means you can zap ideas into a new project and then carry on with another without waiting ages for one to save and another to load, not that they take long to do that in Bitwig Studio.
Inspector Panel
Bitwig Studio’s Inspector Panel (see left) is a panel that can be brought up on the left hand side. This has a whole multitude of functions, depending on what you want to inspect. It will tell you lots of information about a clip, track or whatever, and allow you to assign various parameters. This is an important panel, to be used regularly, but can be hidden away most of the time.
The nearest equivalent to Bitwig’s Inspector in Ableton Live is the various sections of Clip View, if you unfold those (see below). However Bitwig Studio’s Inspector Panel is for more than just clips—it works on whole tracks, clips, right down to individual notes and audio events. Ableton Live has no equivalent of audio events by the way, as audio clips in Live can only contain one piece of audio.
In the two images here you can see an approximate comparison of how a note clip is covered in Bitwig Studio and Ableton Live. This is where you set things like Loop Length and so on. Of course you can do many of these things without actually having the Inspector Panel open, but it’s there when you want it.
Ok, now it's time to look at all the knob tweaking. This is a biggie so take a deep breath and hang on to your hat...
Automation, modulation and relative automation
Comparing automation and modulation in Bitwig Studio to Live quickly gets complicated. My opinion is that Bitwig Studio gives you a lot more, yet actually makes it a lot easier. A few key points:
- In Bitwig Studio you can record or draw automation, modulation and relative automation in the Arranger and in the Launcher.
- Modulation and automation can be fixed to, and edited in, clips in the Launcher and clips and tracks in the Arranger.
- Modulation and automation get automation lanes in Bitwig Studio’s timeline, as well as being editable in the Automation Editor Panel and the full sized Edit View.
- Automation lanes are additional to Track Mode editing in the Editor.
- You can have an automation lane for a parameter, and another one for modulation of that parameter (by automating a macro).
- Bitwig Studio automatically optimizes automation you have recorded or drawn. Most of the breakpoints are removed and slopes are drawn in-between.
- You don't need to turn the grid off to draw a curve.
- Breakpoints can be snapped using Bitwig's various snapping modes.
In most DAWs automation is done in the track, in automation lanes rather than clips, as there is no equivalent to Bitwig’s Launcher. Automation is usually taken to mean recording a fixed value at each point, working on the full range of each parameter. In other words, directly recording your knob turning.
Modulation is where one parameter acts on another, producing relative values. If you set the range of the modulation to 100%, it’s effectively the same as ‘automation’. If you set the range to less than 100%, your knob can tweak the parameter within the range you’ve specified. This means for example, that you can specify that turning a knob from 0-100%, actually only moves the cutoff from 5-90%. In Bitwig Studio you have modulation and also relative automation. Modulation is done with device macros, and relative automation is done in the Automation Editor in Clip Mode.
In Ableton Live 8 you were limited to modulation in Session View, and it had to be drawn in. In Arrange View there was automation (which could be recorded) and clip modulation. In Live 9, Ableton brought in the ability to record automation in Session View. When they did that they seemed to relegate modulation somewhat, treating it separately, and somewhat hiding it. Ableton regard automation as primary, and modulation as secondary. Modulation stays inside Live’s clips in Session View and Arrange View. Automation is inside a clip in Session View, and gets converted to automation lanes if you move a clip from Session to Arrange View. In Live, modulation does not get automation lanes. Automation on the other hand is only in automation lanes in Arrange View. If it sounds complicated that's because it is. All these limitations actually make it all the more complicated.
In Bitwig Studio automation and modulation are not so separated, and don't have all these limitations. The only limitations are that you can only have Clip Mode (defined previously) in the Launcher, which is patently obvious, and that relative automation is always edited in Clip Editing Mode, although it can be done in the Launcher and Arranger. Relative automation is a similar concept to modulation but is done differently. You can have more than one kind of relative automation active at the same time, producing curves within curves within curves.
Macros and knobs
Every device in Bitwig Studio, including the Bitwig devices that house all third party VSTs, has eight macros already installed, folded away ready for use. If you unfold the macro panel you'll see the macro knobs, each with a routing button and editable label. The macro knob can control one or more parameters, within a range of your choosing. This is all done by dragging and clicking within the device(s). As well as setting the range, you can also determine the direction if you want, so for example turning a knob from 0 to 100% might actually decrease one parameter while increasing others. It’s quite easy to learn once you start trying it out. You can also switch macros to bipolar mode which allows you to change from positive to negative (+/- 50%).
The orange ring on the outside of a knob in a Bitwig device (left) might look similar to one in Ableton Live (below left), but these are actually two different things, or can be. The coloured or white notch shows the knob setting, and the orange ring shows the modulated value, which is relative to that. You can control or automate both at the same time.
In Live however, the orange ring is just the same as the knob setting marker.
Automatic optimization of automation
A truly brilliant feature of Bitwig’s automation is that after you’ve drawn or recorded it, Bitwig Studio automatically removes most of the breakpoints and draws diagonal lines to join up the remaining dots. This means it’s perfectly optimized, ready for you to tweak. You don’t even need to turn the grid off and back on, Bitwig Studio does this automatically. Live users will know exactly how incredible this feature is as soon as they see it.
Automation in Bitwig Studio, immediately after drawing/recording. The curve is automatically optimized, with most of the points removed and slopes created. The grid does not need to be turned off.
The image above shows four bars of automation drawn in Bitwig Studio immediately after drawing a curve by hand. Bitwig Studio does the following for you automatically:
- 1. turns the grid off,
- 2. optimizes the curve by removing most of the points, and
- 3. creating slopes,
- 4. turns the grid back on.
- The curve is not only smooth, it is easy to adjust because most of the points have been removed.
Live does none of those things. In contrast, first you have to turn the grid off, then you can draw a ‘curve’. This creates dozens or hundreds of breakpoints points, joined not by slopes but by small steps (see image, click on it to see all the points). If you want to adjust the curve in Live, you can't. Not as it is. You would have to scrub through it to remove most of the points if you want to be able to adjust the curve and/or get slopes. This is easier said than done; I find this very difficult in practice, for some reason—my trackpad keeps selecting bits when I want to scrub. It is possible to deliberately select an area, and move it as one, with the breakpoints still there. But you still have to then join the section you moved to the original, with something better than a straight line, and try to create some kind of rational transition. To be honest, I found that feature made little sense in practice. In fact I actually found it easier to just draw automation one point at a time from scratch in Live.
Ableton Live’s automation curve as drawn/recorded with the grid off. There are hundreds of breakpoints to contend with if you look closely.
Curves
You can also create actual curves using a curve tool. This isn’t always necessary because the optimization process described above is so good, but it's always handy to have and is very quick and easy to do. You simply [ALT] drag a line or point.
MIDI Controllers
There are three main ways to control Bitwig Studio with hardware.
Firstly there is a very easy-to-use system for MIDI assignment. You just right-click a knob or whatever in Bitwig Studio and select 'Learn Controller Assignment'. The knob or slider turns green and has an animated simulation of a knob being turned (as shown in the image below) to tell you to turn the knob on your controller, or push the button or slider you want to assign. Then the job is done, and the notch on the knob in Bitwig Studio changes according to a sequence, so red always means the first knob on your hardware, orange is the second and so on.
Assigning controllers to parameters is very easy and the software colour codes assigned knobs. The Freq has a red notch indicating it is Knob 1 on my hardware. Reso is yellow for Knob 2 and so on.
The second method gives you automatic control of eight knobs on a device you have assigned as 'primary device' on any track you select. So if I select Track 12 and my primary device is a Sampler, my hardware's knobs will automatically switch to control the eight parameters set up for that. This method seems to work for 'generic' or 'unsupported' hardware—it worked on two I tried anyway. My keyboard, an M-Audio Oxygen 25 3rd gen, works fine like this and so does my Novation Nocturn. The way to do it is to use the macros provided with each device. If you use full range modulation you have the equivalent of direct parameter control, or you can use a different range. You can also use the macros to control FX and so on. Assignment is by a simple dragging process, you don't need any separate mapping browser.
Assigning Macro 1 to Frequency. The blue dial shows how far you want the parameter value to go during the assignment process.
When you switch tracks your hardware will automatically control the macros of the Bitwig device or VST designated as 'primary' (indicated by the icon below the device title).
Method three is Bitwig Studio's built-in scripts for providing more sophisticated ‘soft control’ (automatic control) for supported controllers using the device mappings panel.
The Novation Launchpad (and Launchpad Mini) works as a clip launcher in both Launcher orientations. To get it to swap orientations you have to press the Mixer button, now known as the Flip button. A notice flashes up on the screen telling you if you are in Mixer or Arranger orientation. You can launch scenes in both orientations by pressing any button in the column that relates to the scene, which only really makes sense in the Arrange View orientation, where the scenes are vertical. However the script may be changed to allow easier scene launching in the Mixer View by the time you read this. Some of the other Launchpad functions also work. In the meantime, if you want to use the Mixer View, which is mainly for playing live, you can launch scenes via the laptop keyboard.
Devices and presets
Bitwig Studio comes with plenty of instruments. For comparison, Ableton Live Standard has very few, and you need to get the Suite upgrade to get most of the Ableton instruments, or buy them individually. So Bitwig Studio should be compared to Ableton Live Suite. Presets, by the way, can be reached from inside devices as well as the browser.
Let’s start with Bitwig’s sampler, which is called Sampler. This is a sampler capable of handling both individual and multi-samples. In Ableton Live Standard, you get a basic sampler called Simpler, which can only edit single samples. You can buy Ableton’s multi-sampler Sampler separately, or get it as part of the Suite upgrade. A multi-sampler is necessary for realistic instruments like pianos, for when you want to play over several octaves, and for other odd things. Some people like to load drum kits and ‘round robins’ (using a multisampler as a sample selector). Once Live users have bought both Simpler and Sampler, they can convert one to another. They're basically the same thing, Sampler just has extra features.
With Bitwig, life is somewhat simpler—there is no Simpler. Bitwig’s Sampler is a proper multisampler, equivalent to Ableton’s Sampler. It loads up looking like a Simpler, but accepts multi-samples. If you drag in a whole load of samples, it’ll put them all in the right place, i.e. key zones, for you. You saw an image of that in the section on slicing to multisample earlier in this review.
Bitwig’s Sampler
Bitwig has three synths in it’s arsenal. There is a virtual analog synth called Polysynth, which of course is polyphonic. It’s similar looking (a bit) to Ableton’s Analog, with two oscillators. It sounds great, and I’ve not noticed any latency with it. There is also a synth called FM-4 which is an FM synth with 4 operators. This is quite similar to Ableton’s Operator, at first glance at least. To complete the trio is a drawbar organ. I’m a big fan of organs, being into house music since it started, and this doesn’t one disappoint. It’s also very easy to use, you simply drag the drawbar sliders up and down to get the sound you want.
There are five separate dedicated drum synths, one each for kick, hat, snare, clap and tom. They are all tuneable, and the tuning is set correctly to the note the drum decays to, as opposed to what it starts from, which is how a drum synth should be (not all actually are!). This means you can use the tom as a bass line for example, and have the ‘boom’ of your kick in tune with your track. It sounds an obvious feature, but some drum synths that don’t do this.
Bitwig Studio has all the usual effects such as reverb, delay, compression and so on. There are a lot of interesting routing possibilities. Devices have slots in them into which different kinds of device chains can be inserted. There are several kinds of device including containers, generators and modulators.
VSTs
When you load a VST plugin into Bitwig Studio, you get a device with all the configuration already done for you, and done extremely nicely. Here's what u-he's ACE looks like.
A VST plugin loaded into Bitwig Studio is automatically configured for you, with features that include a scrollable and searchable list of parameters and eight macros.
All the VSTs' parameters are in a scrollable column, clearly labelled, with a coloured draggable level slider for each one. This list can be long for a complex plugin, but there is a search bar at the top. You can choose to only show the parameters that are automated. I'm hoping Bitwig will also add the ability to show just the parameters that are macro-mapped in the not too distant future.
Those sliders work like the knobs I described earlier, so each has actually two functions. The vertical bar will be different to the shaded band once the parameter is modulated.
Each of these devices has it’s own set of eight macros ready built in and tucked away, ready for assigning, which is done by a simple dragging method. There is no separate mapping window—the ranges are set within the device (a bit like how parameters are set in Massive). You can shrink a device down to a narrow vertical bar containing just it’s name and a few small buttons, or you can expand it to it’s original state, and then expand it more to reveal the macros, a presets list, a panel called Device Mappings, and of course the VST’s own interface itself.
Container devices and nested device chains
The first container type is called the Drum Machine. It seems to be fairly similar to Ableton’s Drum Rack. I rarely used Drum Racks, so I’m not sure how exactly different they are—they certainly look very similar. It can contain up to 128 drums, each triggered by a note. You can click on each pad to reveal the device chain for that particular drum. Another type of container device is an Instrument Layer, which is used to stack instruments for complex sounds or store VSTs with their FX chains. There is a third type for stacking FX devices in parallel. In fact there are nine types of Container device in total.
Devices of all types can contain different chains as applicable. Some are just used to save a device chain with a preset, but others can do all sorts of weird and wonderful routing tricks. There are five different types of nested device chains found in devices.
Here's an empty Instrument Layer container with its little box (this type is called FX) in the top right corner, ready for a nested device chain (maybe you could call it a 'nesting box'?). You can add one or more instruments into the devices box, drag an FX chain into the 'nesting box', and then save the whole thing as a preset. This device, like all Bitwig devices, contains eight macros, plus other features, tucked away ready for use.
‘Bounce in place’ and hybrid tracks
You can bounce clips in place as well as to a new track. This means the ability to render a MIDI clip to audio in the same track! Short paragraph, huge feature though.
Sends and effect (return) tracks
Sends and returns are pretty standard, but Bitwig Studio manages to offer a few tasty surprises. Return tracks are called Effect tracks in Bitwig Studio.
If you click on an Effect Track and go to its Device Panel, you can see a list of all tracks with sends enabled to that return, and their levels (see image below(. You can adjust the send levels by dragging the little sliders. This is very handy obviously, and one not found in Live.
Effects (return) track's Device Panel, showing all the send values on the left. They can be adjusted from there using the little sliders.
Future Features
Several features are in the pipeline….group tracks, native modular systems (build or modify devices), LAN multi-user jamming and multi-user internet production.
Summary
Bitwig Studio is a truly revolutionary leap forward for the Digital Audio Workstation, and at exactly half the price of Ableton's Suite, represents wigtastic, value!
Bitwig Studio: €299 also available boxed
Bitwig | Overview
The browser, when summoned using the shortcut , is over on the right-hand side in Bitwig Studio. It seems more natural to be this side. You can drag its left edge to make it wider if you want. 
Inspector Panel
In the two images here you can see an approximate comparison of how a note clip is covered in Bitwig Studio and Ableton Live. This is where you set things like Loop Length and so on. Of course you can do many of these things without actually having the Inspector Panel open, but it’s there when you want it.
You can also create actual curves using a curve tool. This isn’t always necessary because the optimization process described above is so good, but it's always handy to have and is very quick and easy to do. You simply [ALT] drag a line or point. 
Here's an empty Instrument Layer container with its little box (this type is called FX) in the top right corner, ready for a nested device chain (maybe you could call it a 'nesting box'?). You can add one or more instruments into the devices box, drag an FX chain into the 'nesting box', and then save the whole thing as a preset. This device, like all Bitwig devices, contains eight macros, plus other features, tucked away ready for use.
