Bitwig 3.1 Composer-Focused Update: Top-3 Wishes Poll

[keel]

Bitwig is just missing one feature and it is midi chase. Highly annoying to compose anything long note things, like pads, fx, raisers and so on. So annoying that I sold my Bitwig license away. If the add midi chase, I would thinking to buy it again

I use pads and do not know what midi chase is about. For instance this atmospheric piece has a lot of pads. In what way can midi chase augment the use of pads ?

https://soundcloud.com/nominal6/fog

Lol, what? Midi chase means that it will read midi notes, short and long ones, everywhere. Not only from the beginning of the note. Try it out, compose 8 bar long midi note in piano roll and try to start Bitwig to read it middle of the note. You won't hear anything. You will hear the note, once the playing cursor goes beginning of the note. When you have midi chase, it will play your long midi notes everywhere, like from the middle of the long note = you save tons of time and nerves.. Once you get used to have this midi chase, working without it is impossible. At least for me. It is so annoying

[mevla]

Lol, what? Midi chase means that it will read midi notes, short and long ones, everywhere. Not only from the beginning of the note. Try it out, compose 8 bar long midi note in piano roll and try to start Bitwig to read it middle of the note. You won't hear anything. You will hear the note, once the playing cursor goes beginning of the note. When you have midi chase, it will play your long midi notes everywhere, like from the middle of the long note = you save tons of time and nerves.. Once you get used to have this midi chase, working without it is impossible. At least for me. It is so annoying

I see what you mean. So when it's important to hear that track's sound I put the start point a bit before so it catches the beginning of the note(s), that's all, no sweat. It also gives just slightly a bit more of a context before it reaches the part where editing is being done.

Never really got into creating music intensively using something else than Bitwig, so I've never seen that 'midi chase' before.

[andypryce]

Lol, what? Midi chase means that it will read midi notes, short and long ones, everywhere. Not only from the beginning of the note. Try it out, compose 8 bar long midi note in piano roll and try to start Bitwig to read it middle of the note. You won't hear anything. You will hear the note, once the playing cursor goes beginning of the note. When you have midi chase, it will play your long midi notes everywhere, like from the middle of the long note = you save tons of time and nerves.. Once you get used to have this midi chase, working without it is impossible. At least for me. It is so annoying

I see what you mean. So when it's important to hear that track's sound I put the start point a bit before so it catches the beginning of the note(s), that's all, no sweat. It also gives just slightly a bit more of a context before it reaches the part where editing is being done.

Never really got into creating music intensively using something else than Bitwig, so I've never seen that 'midi chase' before.

That is not the point.
Imagine a sustained pad chord from Bar 1 to Bar 9. And you are working on some other track in loop mode between Bar 7-9. You won't hear the pad unless you always start from Bar 1.

[mevla]

That is not the point.
Imagine a sustained pad chord from Bar 1 to Bar 9. And you are working on some other track in loop mode between Bar 7-9. You won't hear the pad unless you always start from Bar 1.

But the pad in question has a life of its own so to say, that has started before that point. Its ADSR has started before that 'artificial' starting point where the loop begins. What about the addition of that pad sound with its decay happening at strategic point in the piece. Maybe it has began to decay when the loop begins and that's what make its charm. Starting at the point where the loop starts, will the ADSR of the pad be reproduced adequately as if it had started at its real physical point where the composer has put it on bar 1 ? Can midi chase achieve that and pick up the sound at an exact point in its ADSR curve as if it was playing a bounced version of the pad from bar 7 ?

[jonljacobi]

It simply means hearing all the notes that should be playing at that point in time, regardless of whether they started before that point in time. And yes, they should sound as they should sound at that point in time.

[mtelesha]

One easy FIX for working with lots of pads. Bounce it to a track and run it as a audible track. Saves you every problem there is.

MIDI Chase screws up pads due to the previously mentioned ADSR and any other effect you have plus another thousand ways not listed.

[mevla]

Thanks for the explanation about MIDI chase. Certainly not something I'd insist in having. Bouncing to audio looks like the ideal way of keeping all aspects of a pad sound 'life span, evolution and decay' when needed.

[koalaboy]

For a composer-focused update, I want the features that help me compose (which many others have already mentioned).

I am noodling on the keyboard, and then think "Hey - that was just what I need":
Retrospective recording - let me pull the last (1/2/5/10) minutes of input data into a clip.

So now I have the notes, but they don't quite fit what I already had:
Midi timestretch. I personally like the FLStudio 'resize selection' method, but also would appreciate more formal tempo/time capabilities like many other DAWs such as Cubase.

Then, all sorts of tools to modify what I have in creative ways:
Chopping, Gating, Chord building, Arpeggiation, etc.
Let me apply processes to the notes to add variety and flavour (at source).
Bonus points for retaining history and/or making it non-destructive.

Finally, as I will have variations, add in ghost-clips so that I can mix/match as I desire in a sequenced fashion without having to play it 'live'.

[mevla]

Having many Arrangers in one session, with only one active. To be able to have several arrangements within a same session to work with, without having to load other sessions.

[lunardigs]

Having many Arrangers in one session, with only one active. To be able to have several arrangements within a same session to work with, without having to load other sessions.

I kinda want this too, although I don't know how it'd be realized.

[stamp]

Having many Arrangers in one session, with only one active. To be able to have several arrangements within a same session to work with, without having to load other sessions.

I kinda want this too, although I don't know how it'd be realized.

Arrangement tabs that work like tracks?
Maybe with the ability to show 2/3 on one screen with only 1 active.
+ you can switch from one to the other without stopping sound by simply doubleclicking the relative ruler.

That would be a nice touch!

[synthdawg]

I vote for tab completion and tab navigation when the Browser & Popup Browser has focus. A sequencer, a drum pattern editor & a better piano roll (not having to scroll into the grid to get the grid lines to display at the correct time divisions so the grid snap actually works ie snap to any resonable time division perhaps a specificity setting). Ghost notes that work all the time (hiding unused notes is often buggy) & setting a scale would be nice. More exhaustive documents for noobies. Perhaps throw a lot of money at Sami Rabia (Aiyn Zahev Sounds) and convince/coerce =P him to do a ton of tutorials and use Bitwig (idk him but dayum I learn so much just watching how he approaches music plugins/devices in his youtube vids). Not all composition based requests but eh

[farfadetfarfelu]

> Mixer snapshots and the ability to recall them w/ midi assignment

> Disable PDC for each plugin individually when needed

[mumpcake]

Being able to send audition of MIDI files to selected track.

[nsq]

It seems that the composer-focused update has been canceled. Or it has never been taken into account