Bitwig Announces Studio 3.2

Bitwig has announced Bitwig Studio 3.2, an update to their namesake DAW that they say focuses on delivering greater control and sculpting possibilities.

Here’s what they have to say about the new features in Bitwig Studio 3.2:

EQ+

EQ+ brings a new look and modern sound to Bitwig Studio. Clicking on the EQ curve adds a band that can be dragged right into place. Along with 14 filter options and up to eight bands, EQ+ also has an Adaptive-Q option to narrow the width of bands as their gain increases, in addition to global frequency Shift and Gain controls, ‘soloing’ a band while dragging it for precise editing, and different oversampling modes. Taken together, sculpting a sound is now more like drawing the spectrum than twiddling knobs.

And while it is a graphic equalizer, EQ+ goes a step further by applying a rainbow color spectrum to the EQ curve. The color of each band’s frequency is then used to color that band. Seeing frequency settings colored predictably creates a kind of sonic muscle memory, connecting sound with visuals. So in the same way that your first controller knob always has a red flag in Bitwig (up to a purple flag for the 8th knob), frequency controls will start showing you the sound before you hit play.

The rainbow spectrum can also be seen in trusty EQ-2 and EQ-5, and frequency controls are now rainbow-ized in various filter and tuning controls across 20+ Bitwig devices.

Saturator

Bitwig Studio’s new Saturator is a unique waveshaper for cooking up any sound material with adding the right amount of buzzing, rumble and warmth. Unlike most waveshapers or distortions, this one works in the log domain, just like our ears. So with Saturator, richness can be added to any sound in just the right places.

The basic, high-level panel displays the curve being applied along with Drive, gain Normalize, and low-pass controls that can either lighten the saturation or turn it into a dynamics processor.

The expanded curve editor offers a matching set of Threshold, transform Amount, and Knee controls for the Quiet and Loud portions of the signal. And additional skew controls take the Loud sounds and treat the positive and negative transients differently, adding additional richness to the sound and spectrum.

We’ve also added a Saturator module to The Grid, where polyphony allows each note to be independently shaped for even more sonic possibilities.

Evolving Sounds

While tools like EQ+ and Saturator are made for fine control over sound, some tools bring life and pleasant unpredictability to your process. The play between will and luck is at the heart of these tools, just as it’s at the center of making music.

Arpeggiator, a source of creativity in all versions of Bitwig Studio, has added a number of features and possibilities. Along with controls for velocity and note length, each step now has a pitch control too, like step sequencing new patterns on top of the notes being held. And for those using MPE-enabled or other advanced controllers, micro-pitch changes are now tracked, and per-note pressure messages will update note velocities for more dynamic performances.

Additionally, a number of new arpeggiation shapes have been added to either blossom out from the center, spiral in toward the middle, keep the order notes were played in, and more. You can also swap the synced timing out for a millisecond clock, maybe to stutter the end of a phrase. Or keep a note interval but play it off the beat grid. Or turn global note length up to 400% and let notes overlap for new harmonies. Or even Humanize step start times and velocities. The piano interface is newly flexible.

Bitwig Studio’s Instrument Selector, Note FX Selector, and audio FX Selector have all gained voice modes, for dynamically triggering different layers. Whether each note of a chord needs a slightly different preset or a totally different VST, these modes will handle the details without any fuss. The same for a few arpeggiators set to do polyrhythms or a pile of audio effects that should be swept thru.

Some modes switch layers when a new note arrives, such as Round-robin passing each note (or individual chord notes) to different layers, Free Voice targeting unused layers first (ideal for creating polyphony with Eurorack hardware), and Random for spreading things out (particularly nice with a pile of different audio FX). And any of these modes will take the same sequence of notes and transform it into a new bouquet of sound.

Keyswitches turns a range of notes into controls that target specific layers (good for film scoring with different sounds and articulations). CC mode uses any control change message to sweep thru the available layers (like using mod wheel to cycle thru various note FX), and Program Change does the same with that kind of MIDI messages (common from pedal controllers, etc.).

What all modes have in common is an awareness of how many layers are available. So when another audio effect or synth patch gets added, all the setup work has already been done.

Finally, evolving sounds are easier to create at all levels. To delay an entire device chain, Note Delay waits up to two bars (or five seconds) before passing notes to a layer. On the modulation level, the ADSR, AHDSR, and Note Sidechain modulators all have similar Pre-delay controls now. And within The Grid, the start or release of signals can now be suspended with the Logic Delay module. In addition, the new AHD on Release modulator animates any parameter note release for instant responsiveness. Sum it up and creating growing sonic landscapes has been made simple on every level.

And a Few More Things

To round out this release, some requested workflow enhancements are here. Drum Machine offers local audio returns, and spectrum analyzers across the program show the full audio range better. The Mixer View now has mini displays for some devices, and dropping a sample into a Grid patch creates a Sampler module with that audio. And in addition to a volume control that takes Tool down to silence, some new Grid modules have also come along for the ride:

XP (Filter) – a modulatable filter with key tracking and 15 modes, including combos

Array (Data) – a recordable sequencer, for keeping track of up to 1024 events, notes, velocities, or anything else

N-Latch (Logic) – tracks the last trigger received from up to eight inputs, for an exclusive solo-type relationship

Saturator (Shaper) – a loud/quiet threshold shaper in the log domain

Logic Delay (Logic) – delays high-logic or low-logic transitions
updated Steps (Data) – new Interpolation option, for crossfading between step values; also a great way to create a lookup table

Updated AD (Envelope) – new Looping option, to repeat the envelope if the gate signal (often the key) is still held down when the envelope completes

Availability

Bitwig Studio 3.2 is now available as a beta release and is expected to get a full release in Q2, 2020. 

Bitwig Studio 16-Track and Bitwig Studio 8-Track will also get updated, but the new devices will only be available in the full version of Bitwig Studio.

12 thoughts on “Bitwig Announces Studio 3.2

  1. Some fabulous stuff in amongst this, they seem to be billing the EQ as a big new feature, but the Saturator is about as good as I have heard (and I own a lot of 3rd part VST FX offering this function) and the new grid modules are mind blowing! I like the little things as well, like being able to edit the files (rename etc) from within Bitwigs amazing browser, great when making smart collections or just for adding BPM or Key to a sample as you use it. I look forward to digging in to this!

  2. Maybe not the most impressive dot-update in Bitwig history, but some of these new or tweaked features can be quite nice.
    Perhaps surprisingly, I’m most excited about those tweaks to the arp and to the voice selection. By combining a few things, it should make it easier to do some “semi-generative” musicking. Bitwig’s Micro-Pitch video introduced the very simple trick of having a one-step arp triggering a bass. It might be obvious to a lot of people, but it never occurred to me that I could use an arp in this way. Playing with the voice selection and arp patterns could improve this simple trick.

  3. *a volume control that takes Tool down to silence*

    That was one I’ve been wishing for. I think Array and Logic Delay are going to lead to some fun places.

    EQ+ seems good but I like Toneboosters EQ4 for its mid/side features. Separating into mid/side and then having two separate EQ instances is a more awkward workflow for some things.

    I’ll wait and see on the saturator… I have a couple of favorites in that area already.

    Biggest wishlist item now is — similar to the Tool amplitude change — a way to control a wider range of frequencies (from slow LFO to Nyquist) with a single sweep in the Grid.

    1. Favourably, its about 40% cheaper than Live Suite. Without sales, Live Suite list is GBP 539 and Bigwig List is £350. Both have sales that make them cheaper periodically!

      Bitwig is more like the suite version of Live as it comes with a ton of content (over 10 gigabytes ) and has a full sampler (with WT and Granular) and drum rack, some pretty premium fx (saturator, EQ, vocoder, etc now as good as leading stand alone VSTs), some interesting instruments (Phase 4 etc) and of course ‘grid’ which is (in my opinion) much better than the integration of MAX. It doesn’t have the integrated ‘AAS’ instruments or new wavetable synth as Live 10 Suite does, but you can buy (better than) theses as full VSTs if you want them for the difference in price.

        1. bitwig is now more like a cross between ableton and reason or reaktor, with all the integrated modular stuff and math type interactions

          thats probably the best feature that sets it apart

          1. But also, the one thing Ableton has that no one else has, is very tight integration with Push 2. There isn’t anything similar on any other DAW. It’s the main reason I use Live. If Bitwig had something similar, I would consider switching. And yes, I know about all the hacky workarounds to get Push and other controllers to work on Biwtwig, it’s not the same at all.

  4. with ableton the timing and volume information from any audio or midi clip can be extracted to create a groove template. bitwig doesn´t have that feature. why is that, coders?

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