Bit Wig Studio?

[HoboKa]

Anybody know if Bitwig Studio holds any water?  Or would Reaper be a better alternative??  Looking to branch out with DAW's...but am stuck with PC for now.  On a slightly different tangent, I now have an 88 key Nektar keyboard and I also got Omnisphere 2.  ^.^

If I said something wrong, it's b/c I'm running on minimal sleep...

 

[Jorito]

I have Bitwig and did a few tracks in it (posted remixes, even). It is pretty cool, a bit of a mixture of Live, Logic and Cubase, looks like. With the upcoming Bitwig 3 you even get a modular synth build thingie inside of it. Best ask @Sir_NutS about it, the resident Bitwig advocate

I never worked with Reaper, but my impressions is that it’s a very flexible, more traditional DAW that you can (... must?) customize to your hearts content to make it work for you. YMMV.

Ultimately it all depends on what you want and what you’re using now. A different DAW can inspire you to do different creative things. Or it can annoy and confuse you to no end, My go-to DAW is Logic Pro, but sometimes I do a Bitwig track just to try different things. But that only works if that other DAW is different enough from your regular one. So... why are you considering to switch/start using another DAW?

[HoboKa]

52 minutes ago, Jorito said:

I have Bitwig and did a few tracks in it (posted remixes, even). It is pretty cool, a bit of a mixture of Live, Logic and Cubase, looks like. With the upcoming Bitwig 3 you even get a modular synth build thingie inside of it. Best ask @Sir_NutS about it, the resident Bitwig advocate

I never worked with Reaper, but my impressions is that it’s a very flexible, more traditional DAW that you can (... must?) customize to your hearts content to make it work for you. YMMV.

Ultimately it all depends on what you want and what you’re using now. A different DAW can inspire you to do different creative things. Or it can annoy and confuse you to no end, My go-to DAW is Logic Pro, but sometimes I do a Bitwig track just to try different things. But that only works if that other DAW is different enough from your regular one. So... why are you considering to switch/start using another DAW?

FL Studio doesn't play nice with 3rd party VST's when it comes to the Pitch Modwheel on my MIDI keyboard and that makes it a deal breaker for me, cuz I got my MIDI Controller so I could do that, as I always found doing it manually with a mouse to be a pain in the ass lol.  Also, Bitwig demo came with my Nektar L88, so I wonder if it is better optimized for said MIDI keyboard *shrug*.  Sounds like you have a pretty good setup yourself.  BTW, your recent releases are sizzling, especially the collabs.  I'm too derp to recall names, but that is some good shtuff. 

(edit)

Yeah, having 2 DAW's on the go is probably wise for the creative flow.  So much work to do.  So little time. 

[Jorito]

Ah yeah, I've heard about FL Studio and modwheels. Not sure what's up with that, since I don't use it myself, but it seems more people struggle with it.

Not sure how long that Bitwig demo is valid (Bitwig is normally $129 with a year of free updates), but Bitwig definitely works well together with controllers with modwheel. Another option you could try is Cakewalk, which is free since BandLab took it over. I used it way back and rather liked it, and you can't beat the price of free: https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk. My own setup isn't that special tbh, just an iMac, a Deepmind 12 synth that I merely use as a controller and a fairly sizeable collection of plugins and sample libs. 

Thanks for your comments about the recent releases btw, didn't quite expect it in a thread like this, but I'll take it

 

[djpretzel]

I've got Bitwig, but haven't really put it through its paces. It definitely holds its own, and the modularity of the environment is awesome.

A couple other bonuses:

1. It loads VERY quickly,
2. It scans & detects new VSTs in near real-time, and...
3. It has best-in-the-industry sandboxing of VST plugins, where a plugin can crash, disappear, then reload itself all while your song is still playing, without crashing the DAW.

If I'm just wanting to load a VST quickly to mess around, Bitwig is my go-to now, because of the above. Still wanna wrap my head around it enough to actually make a complete song, but I'm thinking B3 will be a good incentive.

[Jorito]

2 hours ago, djpretzel said:

I've got Bitwig, but haven't really put it through its paces. It definitely holds its own, and the modularity of the environment is awesome.

A couple other bonuses:

1. It loads VERY quickly,
2. It scans & detects new VSTs in near real-time, and...
3. It has best-in-the-industry sandboxing of VST plugins, where a plugin can crash, disappear, then reload itself all while your song is still playing, without crashing the DAW.

Maybe it loads quickly on Windows, but on Mac it’s a bit of a tired old dog. It loads slowly, and the GUI also slows down on bigger tracks. These are all known issues, and the devs are working on improvements here, but wrt. performance Logic beats it without even trying. Of course Logic has been incredibly optimized for MacOS, where Bitwig’s focus has been on other aspects, and it only affects you if you run on Mac, but I thought I’d point it out. There is a lot of other stuff to like about it though!

[HoboKa]

Nice, I noticed how fast that Bitwig loaded and I didn't need to "refresh plugins" manually.  And, boy, does FL love to crash!!  Premier Sandboxing sounds intriguing.  May as well give Cakewalk a shot (but they say nothing is for free...maybe it data-mines your PC!!??)  **the NSA approves of this message**  ...I love how my mind takes me on useless tangents.  Anyhoo, thanks for input guys!  Hmm...now that I have Omnisphere...I'll need to grab something that is decent for orchestral stuff.  Being an aspiring composer is not a cheap hobby x_X

[Sir_NutS]

Yeah I've been using Bitwig since release and I don't think I will need to switch anytime soon.  The strong points of bitwig are the modular possibilities, the sandboxing of VSTs which is the absolute best of all the DAWs I've tried (and I've tried almost all of them except Logic) and the quick workflow it offers.  Also, I'm not sure if this is a thing nowadays but you can use 32 and 64 bit VST2 and VST3 devices on the same project without any issue.  I know I had issues with this in a couple of DAWs a few years ago (Sonar comes to mind).

However, it's also a relatively young DAW, compared to the mainstream ones that have been around for more than a decade, so you might find here and there some stuff that's considered "basic" in other DAWs is not yet available in BW.  So if you want to switch I recommend trying to at least make a couple songs on it to see if you're going to miss anything pivotal from your previous DAW.

Overall, I've always said the best DAW is the one you know.  Don't switch for the sake of switching.  But if you're curious about having a modular DAW with the best VST support then check BW out. 

A note on Reaper: it's cheap, and also has a vast feature list.  However in my experience it was very clunky and the workflow never quite clicked for me.  Even after doing some deep customization on it (which is one of its strong points, as it's highly customizable) I just couldn't feel at home.  I did produce a few songs on it but left it after BW came out, whose workflow clicked for me quicker than any other DAW before it.  So be warned that Reaper is famous for having a steep learning curve, but also packing tons of features.

edit:  Also, I have a Nektar LX48.  The nektar controllers are basically made for BW's workflow, specially if you're into live performances.

[HoboKa]

2 hours ago, Sir_NutS said:

Yeah I've been using Bitwig since release and I don't think I will need to switch anytime soon.  The strong points of bitwig are the modular possibilities, the sandboxing of VSTs which is the absolute best of all the DAWs I've tried (and I've tried almost all of them except Logic) and the quick workflow it offers.  Also, I'm not sure if this is a thing nowadays but you can use 32 and 64 bit VST2 and VST3 devices on the same project without any issue.  I know I had issues with this in a couple of DAWs a few years ago (Sonar comes to mind).

However, it's also a relatively young DAW, compared to the mainstream ones that have been around for more than a decade, so you might find here and there some stuff that's considered "basic" in other DAWs is not yet available in BW.  So if you want to switch I recommend trying to at least make a couple songs on it to see if you're going to miss anything pivotal from your previous DAW.

Overall, I've always said the best DAW is the one you know.  Don't switch for the sake of switching.  But if you're curious about having a modular DAW with the best VST support then check BW out. 

A note on Reaper: it's cheap, and also has a vast feature list.  However in my experience it was very clunky and the workflow never quite clicked for me.  Even after doing some deep customization on it (which is one of its strong points, as it's highly customizable) I just couldn't feel at home.  I did produce a few songs on it but left it after BW came out, whose workflow clicked for me quicker than any other DAW before it.  So be warned that Reaper is famous for having a steep learning curve, but also packing tons of features.

edit:  Also, I have a Nektar LX48.  The nektar controllers are basically made for BW's workflow, specially if you're into live performances.

Seems compelling enough to do some serious experimentation and tinkering.  Might help me understand my keyboard better too.  Thanks!!