The latest DAW on the market promises to address some of the weaknesses of existing options, but can it succeed at the first attempt?
There’s a huge amount to consider with any new DAW. Even a major update of a long-established DAW like Ableton or Logic throws up dozens of talking points, but when considering a completely new version 1.0 product, built from the ground up, there’s even more to discuss.
We could easily fall into the trap of trying to list every last feature of Bitwig here, but we won’t turn this into a tediously exhaustive list of specifications. A large part of the story can be summed up in a few words: yes, Bitwig is a thoroughly capable DAW loosely akin to Ableton but no, it isn’t quite as comprehensive as more established DAWs. So, rather than examining every last minor detail of Bitwig’s feature set, let’s instead take this as an opportunity to assess what sets it apart from other DAWs.
Introducing Bitwig
First, a little background. Bitwig Studio was officially announced in January 2012, when the Berlin-based company revealed demo videos of the prototype software. Although Bitwig Studio is the company’s first DAW, the team behind Bitwig aren’t entirely new to the music software game. The company was founded in 2009 by four of the developers involved in the creation of Ableton Live.
While Bitwig (the company) has roots in Ableton’s development team, it’s important to note that there’s no common code between the two programs. There are similarities, of course, but there are also major similarities between, say, Logic and Cubase despite the fact that the development teams have never overlapped. That the Bitwig team has developed such a solid package for the first version of a new DAW is an impressive achievement in its own right.
Following a quick and painless installation and registration process, Bitwig scans your third-party plugins in the background while you start to get acquainted with the layout. What’s immediately obvious is that Bitwig follows the non-linear approach of Ableton, with a similar clip-based focus to the production process. The logical place to start is by dropping in some audio loops to get the hang of the editing and arrangement options. Like Ableton, this couldn’t be much easier: drop an audio file on an empty clip and it’s immediately analysed and stretched to fit the tempo of the project. The quality of the audio warping engine is high, but there’s only one main time-stretching mode, Stretch, with standard and HD settings. As such, its effectiveness is largely determined by the nature of the source material.
In Ableton, by comparison, you can switch between alternative algorithms to suit each type of audio. The only other time-stretch mode in Bitwig is Repitch, which simply adjusts the audio playback rate, pitching the audio up when increasing its tempo and vice versa.
Thanks to the non-linear approach, Bitwig is well suited to dance music production. The 80s roots of DAWs like Logic and Cubase are reflected in the way they approach the more conventional aspects of rock and pop music creation – recording, editing and mixing. With Bitwig, in addition to the loop and sample options, there’s more of an electronic music focus to many of the instruments and effects. But, fundamentally, it’s the overall approach which is thoroughly modern and versatile, from the multi-monitor support (up to three screens) all the way down to the way the clip launcher panel can be activated in both Mix Panel Layout (broadly analagous to Ableton Session View) and Arrange Panel Layout (Arrange View). The interface gets slightly cluttered if you have all the possible panels open at once, but the versatility of the approach justifies it.
That the Bitwig team has developed such a solid package for the first version of a new DAW is an impressive achievement in its own right
Instruments and effects
Bitwig’s built-in devices are split into seven categories: Audio FX, Containers, Generators (test tones), Instruments, Modulators, Note FX and Routers (for hardware instruments and effects). What’s immediately striking is that in the Instrument category there are only three major synths: FM4, Organ and Polysynth (a fairly standard subtractive device). You can’t really pick any major faults with the three synths – they all do what they do reasonably well – but there’s not much character on display from such generic synths. FM4, the frequency modulation synth, is typically awkward to program, although the 116 presets provide good starting points for sounds. Organ is very limited, with little more than nine drawbar sliders for dialling in harmonics. The dual-oscillator Polysynth is flexible, with seven different filter modes, but there’s nothing to make it stand out from the hundreds of subtractive synth plugins already on the market. Likewise, the Sampler device is perfectly usable if slightly more basic than Ableton’s equivalent. All in all, the synth and sampler options feel like a missed opportunity to set Bitwig apart from other DAWs.
09.40 AM
Why mention the price in Pounds and give the alternative in Euros/Dollars? Weird.
Nice review otherwise though!
10.02 PM
Use Jackpilot like Betwig suggests instead of one way only ReWire.
08.15 AM
Thanks for review. Consencus seems to be wait for now to see V2 + 3 developments and then potentially take the plunge.
12.11 PM
I love bitwig.
My workflow just increased by 50%..
I also love the design.
The lack of audio and midi effects are noticible.. But i hardly use plugins from a daw.
10.40 PM
A good start, but surprisingly missiing features and stability for a product they’ve been coding for five years. When Bitwig gets AU and OSC support and matures a bit (2015?) I’ll take a look. But right now I cannot see dropping my current DAW for this.
07.48 PM
I think is stupid and unfair comparing Ableton in his 9th version vs. Bitwig in his 1st version. Even doe the look alike (owners of Bitwig are Ableton programmers), that doesn’t mean that neither DAW will be better than each other. I have used both but i like Bitwig more. My opinion in the matter is Bitwig has the advantage of having the element of surprise and the fact that the company owners used to work for Ableton as programmers, thats make Bitwig unique. They know what there doing and they are doing it on his own terms = innovation. They have the oportunity to make something better enough to surpass at least Ableton; for now. But i dont think they want that, i think they want to convince music producers that Bitwig will have more cohesion with todays era of standard apps and technology.I dont think they want people from Ableton to start switching to Bitwig, they want new blood, fresh minds to give them the opportunity to create something new from something new that been Bitwig Studio. Ableton now has the pressure from Bitwig, lets be real is a new DAW, everyone knows any new program will have glitches, bugs, etc. But the fact thats is his 1st version and everybody is already comparing it with other industry standard DAW’s, that tells me is going to be a great DAW and is a big accomplishment for the company. Ill tell you right now, give Bitwig 5 more years,,,you will see my point.
04.59 PM
Bitwig has no future. They are not selling enough and running out of fuel. They have screwed it really bad with all that silly hype and having released an unfinished and broken product. They don’t have the resources to keep it up, so, it’s a matter of time.
05.16 PM
5 years of coding to release an unfinished copy of Ableton Live? No thanks.
02.56 PM
I just bought Bitwig. An absolute joy, was making music in minutes.
Began recording bands on an Teac A3340S.
Had an Amiga. Then PC. Then Mac. Spent enough money over the years and enough time fiddling around and going through documentation.
On firing up Bitwig it worked immediately with everything, has not crashed once. Have barely had to learn anything. It gets out of the way of the musician. Bitwig understood the biggest point of all.
10.07 AM
Lux?
Wtf no future? bitwig has sold great amount of licenses. better then expected. Dont talk about your own imagination.
This is a old review and i think they really just bit the tip of bitwig. Wouldnt call this fair for new users to read this review, alot has happend since then.
Cheers And ps i left fl and never looked back
05.20 PM
Saw a promo pack with the arturia & bitwig full version … i want to try first … So I run the bitwig demo, omfg pure chaos layout in Bitwig. Had to boot 2 times to run propery without glitches. So it’s comparable w ableton they say?, for the use of scenes? No the smooth layout of Ableton give me peace, the bitwig one headaches. So they have a few good ideas, i must admit but for how long. … Abelt0ns fits just one one screen but with the bitwig hysteria a third screen is welcome 🙂 nice try, much work to do i don’t believe people say that workflow is better.
06.04 AM
Don’t spend your money on this product. Terrible quality, too many bugs and too complicated.
10.53 AM
Love the workflow, bitwig takes all the good things from other DAWs and combines them:
Inspector from Cubase
Scenes and clips from Live
Automation from Logic
Tag based browser from Maschine
Etc.
It will probably always be a personal thing which DAW works best for someone… For me Bitwig works better then Live, Cubase, Logic, Maschine, Renoise, Mulab and other software all of which I own licences for and used in the past years!