Bitwig is mind boggling stupid with Controller scripts.

[brownerthanu]

I doubt that every controller out there spends all their time on making sure Live, Cubase and Logic all have good support

Having worked for music tech companies (digidesign, eventide) actually they do spend a lot of time supporting specific daws. It’s just that Bitwig currently has such small market share it’s not yet worth the effort. I hope that soon it will be.

[machinesworking]

I doubt that every controller out there spends all their time on making sure Live, Cubase and Logic all have good support

Having worked for music tech companies (digidesign, eventide) actually they do spend a lot of time supporting specific daws. It’s just that Bitwig currently has such small market share it’s not yet worth the effort. I hope that soon it will be.

I'm getting at the fact that Ableton (and a few others like Steinberg etc.) I'm relatively certain also go out of their way to support those controllers. I get the impression that Bitwig, MOTU, Cockos etc. do not. They set up some framework support then expect the controller manufacturers to do the rest of the work. If Bitwig had taken the approach to actively pursue supporting controllers like Arturia's I'm absolutely certain it would work as flawlessly as it does in Cubase etc. but that's not the approach they took.

[pdxindy]

The number of supported midi controllers in Bitwig is something like double what it was a few years ago. As with any of this stuff, it takes time.

[brownerthanu]

I doubt that every controller out there spends all their time on making sure Live, Cubase and Logic all have good support

Having worked for music tech companies (digidesign, eventide) actually they do spend a lot of time supporting specific daws. It’s just that Bitwig currently has such small market share it’s not yet worth the effort. I hope that soon it will be.

I'm getting at the fact that Ableton (and a few others like Steinberg etc.) I'm relatively certain also go out of their way to support those controllers. I get the impression that Bitwig, MOTU, Cockos etc. do not.

Ah I see. Yeah it comes down resources. Ableton and Steinberg are huge compared to Bitwig and Cockos. I think the challenge specifically is this: officially supporting controllers requires a surprisingly big resource commitment, but silently supporting controllers doesn’t get you much marketing value.

Creating the API was a pretty difficult task. I think they could do better at fostering the developer community. I’ve posted questions in the controller scripting subforum and rarely get useful answers.

[x.iso]

Logically speaking, when company is developing a controller and software for it, they would have to choose a DAW or few as target and testing platform. It's no surprise that they normally choose what's most common/popular to sell more of their product. Unless they get some deal from the company that makes DAW's, that's how it works. Theoretically MOTU could be such exception since their main business isn't DAW as far as I know, but unless they do something like that they can't push growth of this business part.

[machinesworking]

Ah I see. Yeah it comes down resources. Ableton and Steinberg are huge compared to Bitwig and Cockos. I think the challenge specifically is this: officially supporting controllers requires a surprisingly big resource commitment, but silently supporting controllers doesn’t get you much marketing value.

Creating the API was a pretty difficult task. I think they could do better at fostering the developer community. I’ve posted questions in the controller scripting subforum and rarely get useful answers.

It might be an unfair comparison, because Möss is a genius, but he made an absolute killer interface for a very badly third party supported piece of hardware in Push 2 for both Bitwig and Reaper. Both Cockos and Bitwig have good documentation I hear for developers to code control surfaces, so the real work is left in the hands of the end users, and Möss proves complex integration is possible, but should we the end users be expected to?

I decided Bitwig wasn't for me when I first demoed it and it didn't have any support for Novation controllers. Yes I understand resources are short for smaller companies but as an end user you have to ask yourself which things are more important to you, I'm not a coder and I cannot wait around for other users to take their own time to code for my controllers, or afford to arbitrarily switch hardware at $500 a pop when a company is too small and will not take the time to support in house the more common controllers out there. I get that it's a resource management issue for DAW developers, but I'm already married to a DAW with poor controller support in DP...

I can't 100% vouch for it, but it really does seem to me that Ableton are proactive in their controller support, if that's the case I think it's something the developers of Bitwig should have brought with them.

[machinesworking]

Logically speaking, when company is developing a controller and software for it, they would have to choose a DAW or few as target and testing platform. It's no surprise that they normally choose what's most common/popular to sell more of their product. Unless they get some deal from the company that makes DAW's, that's how it works. Theoretically MOTU could be such exception since their main business isn't DAW as far as I know, but unless they do something like that they can't push growth of this business part.

Yeah I get that on the part of the controller side, but I think it's also a worthwhile DAW developmental practice to work with at least the major controller developers. Like I mentioned it's not just a Bitwig issue, it's common for most DAWs besides the big four... I just think it's an area that DAW manufacturers take too lightly.

I just find it slightly frustrating because to me anyway Reaper, Bitwig, and DP10 are in most ways better than Cubase, Live, Pro Tools, and Logic.

[pdxindy]

Logically speaking, when company is developing a controller and software for it, they would have to choose a DAW or few as target and testing platform. It's no surprise that they normally choose what's most common/popular to sell more of their product. Unless they get some deal from the company that makes DAW's, that's how it works. Theoretically MOTU could be such exception since their main business isn't DAW as far as I know, but unless they do something like that they can't push growth of this business part.

Yeah I get that on the part of the controller side, but I think it's also a worthwhile DAW developmental practice to work with at least the major controller developers. Like I mentioned it's not just a Bitwig issue, it's common for most DAWs besides the big four... I just think it's an area that DAW manufacturers take too lightly.

I just find it slightly frustrating because to me anyway Reaper, Bitwig, and DP10 are in most ways better than Cubase, Live, Pro Tools, and Logic.

You're sort of assuming that the DAW company offering to collaborate with the controller company automatically means the controller company will do it. It may be that Bitwig devs offered and the big companies didn't bother because they don't consider it worthwhile. Not saying that is so, just that we don't really know.

[Kypresso]

Just get a nektar Panorama P4 or P6.

[ejgallego]

Indeed controller support is one of the main problems we bitwig users face, and the main blocker some of my friends have; all we can do is to keep supporting Bigwig and pressing controller companies to improve support.

[Alchemedia]

Re: Controller script for MiniLab MKII, I received this today from Arturia:
"Sorry for this inconvenience, The DevTeam is working on this but I don't actually know when it will be released."

[jeffb01]

Re: Controller script for MiniLab MKII, I received this today from Arturia:
"Sorry for this inconvenience, The DevTeam is working on this but I don't actually know when it will be released."

thanks for the update...

[reflekshun]

The open scripting thing has a lot of potential. It's crowdsourcing which can be amazing, but the reality is that Bitwig's crowd is relatively tiny right now, meaning in a lot of cases one person who is probably working full time on another job is fitting in script writing when possible for many different hardware scripts for Bitwig! Super risky! Hopefully Bitwig's audience grows and crowdsourcing becomes more reliable / powerful.

[Noumena]

I was thinking -- this could be a great chance for someone that knows what they are doing to make some dosh. Set up a patreon or some other setup where you build scripts to order for $x, then people could split the cost or pay on their own, with the results being released into the community.

I love Moss's work -- Flexi took me a while to figure out (kept losing all my work because I wasn't exporting!) but now, with modes especially, it is a miracle with my k-mix and BCF-2000 especially.

That said, I wish that we had a Push2 mode that was exactly or more exactly like Ableton's. I could work in Ableton for hours and through complex sets with the screen off because of the way that track navigation works. Moss's implementation is very complete but not facile for my use case... and in a lot of his implementation fx tracks are different and separate from audio and instrument tracks, which... I guess it is a different way of working.

I'd love to pay him $100 to listen to what I need and help me get there... and if there were other takers that could because $500 or more.

[reflekshun]

I was thinking -- this could be a great chance for someone that knows what they are doing to make some dosh. Set up a patreon or some other setup where you build scripts to order for $x, then people could split the cost or pay on their own, with the results being released into the community.

I love Moss's work -- Flexi took me a while to figure out (kept losing all my work because I wasn't exporting!) but now, with modes especially, it is a miracle with my k-mix and BCF-2000 especially.

That said, I wish that we had a Push2 mode that was exactly or more exactly like Ableton's. I could work in Ableton for hours and through complex sets with the screen off because of the way that track navigation works. Moss's implementation is very complete but not facile for my use case... and in a lot of his implementation fx tracks are different and separate from audio and instrument tracks, which... I guess it is a different way of working.

I'd love to pay him $100 to listen to what I need and help me get there... and if there were other takers that could because $500 or more.

I totally agree! And this is a good idea, there's just one problem, many of the script writers prefer to be casual - they don't want add another obligation when they are already working full time on another job. This is a hobby or enjoyable gift to the community. As soon as they open a patreon, they have turned the hobby into more of a job which I understand some of the current scripters don't want. Maybe there are people out there though that would love this! That would be cool I would definitely support those people's patreons!