You can expect an audio interface thread some time in the future if i ever get some money together.
Bitwig DAW Whats all this then?
- Thread starter psyfi
- Start date
You can expect an audio interface thread some time in the future if i ever get some money together.
Speakafreaka
Champagne Rouletter
Truth is there comes a point where you have to release, refinance or plain well stop paying developers.
They've been developing it a while - suspect if refinancing had already happened then the might have had their hand forced about release.
They've been developing it a while - suspect if refinancing had already happened then the might have had their hand forced about release.
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squbsy
Guest
Yeah, I suspected that. I don't know a lot about software development but I do know it's not as simple as most people assume.
JPsychodelicacy
Studio Elf
It's worth remembering that the first couple of versions of Ableton were effectively tarted-up loop players with some decent effects (and a quite tasty audio engine for the time) - I think it took until at least version 4 or 5 for it to really come into its own.
J.
J.
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squbsy
Guest
Yes, Live v1.0 had a lot less in it - no midi whatsoever. But back then, being able to trigger clips of audio that accurately was amazing enough. Bitwig's big problem is that their thing is virtually reverse-engineered from Ableton Live and so comparisons to Live 9 are inevitable and don't really do it any favours.
Like with anything else, the bells and whistles mean nothing if the basics are not working properly. If I buy a car, the powered soft-top isn't going to distract me from the intermittently functioning brakes.
Like with anything else, the bells and whistles mean nothing if the basics are not working properly. If I buy a car, the powered soft-top isn't going to distract me from the intermittently functioning brakes.
JPsychodelicacy
Studio Elf
Point taken - though I thought it was more a case of former Ableton devs forming a new firm and building it from the ground up, based on their existing knowledge, rather than strictly "reverse engineering". You're absolutely correct in terms of the fundamental things having to be "right", but on the other hand the fact is that they're going for a far more technically complex initial product than Ableton were in 2001. That said, how many times have you bitched about "Steinbug" in the past before they seem to finally have got it right in your estimation? *ersatz smiley*
I think the different way we see things - coming at them from slightly different backgrounds in terms of electronic music, with you being a more traditional studio wizard and me a spoddy computer nerd who tried to make music as a kid - is interesting though. Triggering samples (albeit short ones) accurately was something I'd been doing since my tracker days on the Amiga, so Ableton to me looked more like a fancy version of what I considered normal - whereas I found the whole VST/softsynth aspect, and particularly the exponential jump in audio quality they achieved in just a few years, to be more impressive.
J.
I think the different way we see things - coming at them from slightly different backgrounds in terms of electronic music, with you being a more traditional studio wizard and me a spoddy computer nerd who tried to make music as a kid - is interesting though. Triggering samples (albeit short ones) accurately was something I'd been doing since my tracker days on the Amiga, so Ableton to me looked more like a fancy version of what I considered normal - whereas I found the whole VST/softsynth aspect, and particularly the exponential jump in audio quality they achieved in just a few years, to be more impressive.
J.
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squbsy
Guest
Yeah, I bypassed the whole tracker thing. Before Cubase/Creator on Atari ST, I thought that sound coming out of computers was an appalling idea which would never catch on. It all sounded like Nintendo platform games to me and nobody ever did heroin to that.
Testing the very first ever VSTi - Steinberg's 'Neon' - didn't change my mind either. I think NI Pro-52 was the first inkling that it might possibly catch on, although the tiny GUI made it feel exactly like you were programming a real Prophet 5 through the letterbox with knitting needles.
I understand why Bitwig is a bit of a dog's dinner and I hope they manage to catch up with basic customer expectations because regardless of how limited it currently is, it is inspiring in all the ways that Live is irritating. The tune i started on it as a tester is currently accruing layers at an impressive rate and sounds like a winner.
But there is no way you could call this 'from the ground up'. The phrase 'on giants' shoulders' springs to mind because they definitely haven't re-invented the wheel. It's Ableton 3 with the screen laid out properly [i.e. left to right] and a rather addictive internal modulation routing paradigm. That alone is worth the price of admission because it encourages you to make sounds which move and morph and the whole thing ends up sounding quite rich and animated.
I just wish I could link faders together, monitor what I'm bouncing, zoom into sampler waveforms, slow the LFOs down by another decimal place, audition sampler zones with the mouse, quantise audio, send fx channels back to themselves, etc, etc...
Testing the very first ever VSTi - Steinberg's 'Neon' - didn't change my mind either. I think NI Pro-52 was the first inkling that it might possibly catch on, although the tiny GUI made it feel exactly like you were programming a real Prophet 5 through the letterbox with knitting needles.
I understand why Bitwig is a bit of a dog's dinner and I hope they manage to catch up with basic customer expectations because regardless of how limited it currently is, it is inspiring in all the ways that Live is irritating. The tune i started on it as a tester is currently accruing layers at an impressive rate and sounds like a winner.
But there is no way you could call this 'from the ground up'. The phrase 'on giants' shoulders' springs to mind because they definitely haven't re-invented the wheel. It's Ableton 3 with the screen laid out properly [i.e. left to right] and a rather addictive internal modulation routing paradigm. That alone is worth the price of admission because it encourages you to make sounds which move and morph and the whole thing ends up sounding quite rich and animated.
I just wish I could link faders together, monitor what I'm bouncing, zoom into sampler waveforms, slow the LFOs down by another decimal place, audition sampler zones with the mouse, quantise audio, send fx channels back to themselves, etc, etc...
JPsychodelicacy
Studio Elf
If one were feeling more charitable, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" could apply there as well. It follows that if you have a new DAW being written by a crew of former Ableton guys, then the end result - at least initially - is going to resemble their previous work to some extent (see also : PreSonus StudioOne, which was started by a bunch of ex-Steinberg folks including the original developer of Nuendo).
Seth may very well have a point re: publisher-enforced release earlier than the devs hoped for - it wouldn't be the first time!
Also, on a tangent re: computer music in the early days - there was a very interesting interview with Bob Yannes (inventor of the C64 SID and later founder of Ensoniq) in the "Commodore : A Company On The Edge" book in which he said that the main problem with early computer sound chips was that they weren't designed by musicians. SID was a significant improvement on anything that came before in terms of musicality, despite being made to a tight budget and deadline (I'll bore you with that tale when I see you next if you like).
J.
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squbsy
Guest
You can talk about whatever you like. I'll be staring at that bird's arse.
JPsychodelicacy
Studio Elf
O
oceanz
Guest
Bitwig is coded by team including the dude that made Vember Surge - which is defo a good sign.
O
oceanz
Guest
Surge is epic I reckon. Vember Surge
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snowdogg
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Bitwig guys are on fire! 1.0.8 changelog has some "NEW" entries too! tasty.
funny they should name it as a play on the word bigwig.
apparently powdered wigs were first used to treat baldness from rampant syphilis.
shortly after balding king louis XIV made large wigs popular with the aristocracy.
if you were richer you could afford a larger wig...
thnx vsauce
:
funny they should name it as a play on the word bigwig.
apparently powdered wigs were first used to treat baldness from rampant syphilis.
shortly after balding king louis XIV made large wigs popular with the aristocracy.
if you were richer you could afford a larger wig...
thnx vsauce
:
O
oceanz
Guest
(Ableton crashes for me probably 30% of sessions - always with 3rd party plug-ins - on 2 different set-ups. Bitwig so far seems rock solid even with a stack of 3rd party stuff. Sounds fine to me so far and I really like modulation options)
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squbsy
Guest
That's my one! i asked them for that.
I told them I was a minor-league pop-star and they said they knew and liked my stuff.
They sent me a free licence and I've been using it intensively and sending them detailed feedback.
I feels all important...
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squbsy
Guest
Heh. I don't think anybody would aim so low as to pretend to be me.
It's a nice feeling to be influencing the development of something like this. They're small enough to be responsive - I get personal responses to my emails - and you can feel the enthusiasm fizzing out of them when they write.
It's a nice feeling to be influencing the development of something like this. They're small enough to be responsive - I get personal responses to my emails - and you can feel the enthusiasm fizzing out of them when they write.