Bitwig Studio Intro – Check Out The Video And Let Us Know What You Think!

‘Give it to me! Come on! Ah!” That’s what we expect a lot of readers will be saying after watching this video intro for Bitwig Studio.

Bitwig Studio is a new multi-platform (Linux, Mac & Windows) digital audio workstation for producting, DJing and live performance.

Bitwig Studio was developed by a group of former Ableton employees and has many similarities with Live. The new app promises to leap-frog Ableton Live in several ways, though, including the ability to open multiple documents and multi-monitor support.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Features:

  • Multitrack recording – Record and produce your music in a super-fast, intuitive workflow.  Bitwig Studio’s arranger is a mix of editing power, ease of use and flexibility.
  • Arranger clip launcher – A non-linear environment that lets you trigger clips in real-time.
  • Mixer clip launcher – An alternative view of the clip launcher aligned with the mixer, optimized for live performance and DJing.
  • Hybrid tracks – In addition to audio and instrument tracks, you can also work with hybrid tracks. They accept any kind of material, allowing you to bounce note clips to audio in place.
  • Clip automation – In addition to traditional track automation, automation can also be recorded and packaged inside clips, both on the clip launcher and the arranger.
  • Per-note automation – Pitch variations can be applied to individual notes directly in the piano roll. You can also edit velocity, volume, pan and timbre in the expression lane.
  • Simultaneous multitrack editing – Edit contents of multiple tracks together. You can see them all juxtaposed and isolate only the ones you want to edit.
  • Multiple audio events per clip – An audio clip can contain multiple audio events. You can chop and edit audio files inside a clip non-destructively and loop it all as a package.
  • Real-time time stretching – Bitwig Studio’s proprietary technology lets you match any audio material to the document tempo and get everything in sync.
  • Device nesting – Devices can contain other devices, and the whole package can be saved as a preset. Many of our instruments and effects use nesting in new and powerful ways.
  • 32/64 bit VST support – In case of a plug-in crash, a protective mechanism prevents the application from crashing and you from losing your work.
  • Metadata-based browser – Find your musical material quickly. Add tags and search by content type.
  • Open multiple documents – Exchange musical material between documents. Drag and drop, copy and paste back and forth.
  • Multi-monitor support – Bitwig Studio offers flexible screensets to take full advantage of your monitor configuration.
  • Advanced controller support – Use the most popular controllers out-of-the-box, or hack your own controller functionality with our open javascript API.

Pricing and release date for Bitwig Studio are to be announced.

44 thoughts on “Bitwig Studio Intro – Check Out The Video And Let Us Know What You Think!

  1. Hmmmm…I’m an Ableton Live and Logic/GarageBand user. By rights, I should be REALLY excited about Bitwig (considering it’s devs and workflow), but for some reason I can’t put my finger, on I’m not. Maybe it’s the reluctance to learn Yet-Another-Digital-Audio-Workstation (YADAW), maybe it’s that it looks a bit crufty, or maybe I’m just getting old. I had the same issue with Reaper. It’s a fantastic DAW at a fantastic price and is very powerful, but I can’t really be bothered passed the “how do I export stems” stage so I can work on a foreign session in Logic or Live. We’ll see.

  2. This looks interesting to me, but it also looks SO much like Ableton Live that i wonder if it will be more imitative than innovative.

  3. “Hybrid tracks contain (inaudible)’gabrafawooding stushions’?” Is there an english version of this video I can check out?

    1. “Hybrid tracks can hold audio recordings and note clips simultaneously.”
      At least I think that’s what it says. I had to listen a few times to figure it out.

  4. Looks nice but they better hit it out of the park with the price point. A new DAW is not something the majority of us want even if it does 1-up many of the heavy weights. If stability is even slightly an issue I don’t see this taking off. Any effects, instruments, samplers, or drum kits? If not, anything north of 200 and my money will go into my “new synth” piggy bank

  5. Looks great. This goes just far enough beyond Live to get me interested, and I’m really looking forward to trying it out. I also love the idea of a modular synth native to the DAW.

  6. Give it to me! Come on! Ah!

    I like it very much. It looks like a mixture of Logic and Live. The per note automation looks awesome. I wonder if we will be able to edit velocities individually, like in Logic. Also I wish there is something like Logic’s transformer here, cause it is a great time saver.

  7. Looks good but like people have said I’m really not in the mood to buy and learn yet another DAW. As a Logic/Reason user I’m just going to keep the faith on Logic X.

  8. Seeing is believing, and what I’ve seen so far is by far enough to make me consider looking into this.

    Its one thing to put a ‘new’ product onto the market, but the main issue is making it last. If people pick up on this they expect continuity because I think you can’t expect a first release to be as complete as it can. And that’s where things can start to become very difficult very fast. Especially considering that their start has been a /lot/ easier than for most other newcomers since they didn’t have to design their base model from the ground up. They took quite a lot of material “with them”. But eventually you will need to come up with something new if you want to keep your product alive, and that’s where things can become quite difficult.

    And well, another thing people need to keep in mind… The initial release of Live 8 was a disaster for many; it even went as far as the CEO apologizing for the lack of stability within the software’s first releases. But the programmers weren’t fully free of the blame in that either. I’m /not/ insinuating that it was all their fault, that would be lame and plain out slander, but I /do/ state that it is something to keep in mind when it comes to software stability. Especially when considering that they didn’t build their base model from scratch; they used existing blue prints.

    Still; seeing is believing. But at this point its not something I’d be all excited about.

    (disclaimer: I am a Live user and obviously biased here and there. Still trying to put that besides me though).

  9. Again the music is really uninspiring – not a good advert for their product.

    I also am not excited by the GUI, but some of the features look good.

  10. This does seem almost like a Live skin at first!

    I’d like them to demo how this is different and better than Live.

  11. Sorry for 2 posts in one thread (not my habit) but because of this video I checked out their website and well, suddenly things look a lot less interesting, see this url:

    http://bitwig.com/faqs.php (their FAQ section).

    – Minimum screen resolution 1280×1024; Nice for people who invest in sound hardware over video hardware.

    – No support for AU plugins on Mac in version 1. They will “consider supporting AU” at a later stage.

    – No rewire support planned, instead they direct you to third party software.

    Especially the “no rewire support planned” is a disappointment for me.

  12. The layered editing looks like a welcome upgrade from ableton, as do the hybrid tracks, everything else looks pretty similar and I have to wonder if live 9 will include a lot of the same features when it finally comes out, perhaps at a better upgrade price point for those of use who are already ableton users….

  13. It’s funny to hear people saying “it looks like Live” and then also saying “I don’t want to learn another DAW”. People, if you know how to use Live, you will know how to use Bitwig instantly. This is a good thing.

    I think price point is the key to the success of Bitwig. I find Live to be way overpriced and slightly under-featured for what I would personally use it for. But Bitwig hits the feature list square on for me, and it looks like it’s going to beat Logic X out of the gate. If they float this out at around $250 – $300 it will be a runaway success. If they go $400 and above, it will be a slug match to get new users. Disposable income is not something most musicians have a lot of, especially these days.

    1. keep in mind that the whole music software industry is kind of getting into the dumping-price race. lately. Live is not that expensive, it’s not cheap, but also not expensive. I’d say, those of us who have bought it have the right to demand that the producer keeps its promises and that the software works for what We’ve paid it for.
      On the long run, if they sell software at a too low price, quality will have to suffer from it.
      I’m not saying that I don’t wan’t software to get cheaper, but a pricing policy like Apple’s won’t be good for the majority of software houses. Not everybody can compensate losses in the software sector with huge profits from iPad sales.

  14. FEAR NOT. I am 100% sure all of this features if not better will all be implemented in the NEW ableton live. This is a BOLD move on their part because at this point in the game who the fuck wants to buy yet ANOTHER DAW?. We shall see.

  15. Its somewhat amusing how most comments (on this thread) are more interesting to read and think about than the actual topic they relate to.

  16. Bitwig was been working for 3.6 years from ground up on a stable host.
    Looks like Ableton has some company.

    The difference is that Bitwig has a pretty complete working beta and
    Ableton is missing 3 key components, such as a working 32 bit bridge.

    I’m putting my money on Bitwig knocking out Ableton, just like Logic
    is starting to knock out Protools and Everything has knocked out 32 bit Fruityloops.

  17. The modular environment coming down the line is the biggest thing for me. I’d consider ditching my hardware all together if that delivers, and process audio as well as be used in synths. Though I don’t think I’ll part with my polyevolver ever. So I take that back

  18. BitWig does look good…but I will surely wait until Live 9 comes out to decide. To be honest I’m (isn’t everyone!) expecting something big from Ableton. If Ableton doesn’t deliver to fix some things lagging behind the times and hopefully create a new way to think about making music on a computer, I’ll gladly drop them for BitWig. It’s not that i’m shallow…but they seem to be playing role of Hare in the tortoise race.

  19. I’m sticking with Ableton Live because I am invested in it; Not only monetarily but in time and energy. I’m sure that Live 9 will have many of the new features that people have been asking for; Which seem to be the main selling points of Bitwig and the only reason is it not just a Live clone with a new skin.

  20. Multiple document support. Essential feature in any daw… in special for those producing EDM (bored with that loop anyone?)

    Even a boring loop have a element here and there you can re use in another project (fx preset, synth preset, etc etc).

    With this feature, bitwig already got my attention. Lets see if its useful or not. Surely I will give it a go

  21. So this will run on my Ubuntu laptop and support all my VSTs?
    This is the breakthrough a lot of frustrated casual Linux users
    have been hoping for for years and years…

  22. Kind of bummed by no re-wire support, to be honest. If they want to compete with Live than surely they’d want to make sure their program can be both a re-wire host and slave, no?

  23. If I can convert all my Live packs and racks and grooves and all that, then I’m a lot more interested than if not. Especially with it lacking ReWire, so it’s not like I could even just slave Live to Bitwig and use all my most useful legacy stuff until I rebuild something similar in whatever the new hotness is supposed to be.

    In other words, it’s either got to be very compatible with live, *a lot* better than Live, or a really inexpensive way to get a particular feature I’d be willing to use outside a ReWire context and just export the audio or midi in order to get over the hump for me.

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