Known bugs, flaws or malfunctions in Bitwig 3.1

[outerspacecat]

I'm currently testing Bitwig 3.1.again and would like to know which (already integrated) functions may have errors or do not work as intended. I do not mean feature requests(!), but purely functions that are available but behave incorrectly.

Examples would be the broken automation in Logic or the lack of delay compensation for MIDI synced plug-ins like in Ableton Live or faulty audio bounces in Studio One.

In other words, I would hate to spend days testing render quality, MIDI timing, PDC functions, automation behavior, summing behavior, side chain timing etc. if these things are already well know by you hardcore users.

Is there an overview of where to pay attention if you want to set up large projects in Bitwig or any stumbling blocks I should know about?

[antic604]

In other words, I would hate to spend days testing render quality, MIDI timing, PDC functions, automation behavior, summing behavior, side chain timing etc. if these things are already well know by you hardcore users.

Are you using DAWs for scientific studies, or are you actually write music? Because even if there were issues with any of the things you mentioned above (which I'm not aware of), fixing them wouldn't make your music any better and neither does their hypothetical existnence make good music any less good for average or even advanced listener that's not you. If you're one of those that think their music will be better in Reaper or Logic because they perfectly translate gain automation into signal amplification then I really don't know how to comment

[this isn't to say that bugs shouldn't be fixed, but they really should be considered in a adequate perspective]

[outerspacecat]

I really don't know how to comment

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then indeed just don't comment, thanks.

Everyone else, please do not be afraid to share your experiences, workarounds and pitfalls.

[skarabee]

@Antic: definition of "good music"?
If we can do "good music" with a buggy software, why should devs spend time to correct their work in any daw? And if the music of the OP is not as "good" as someone think, he doesn't have the right to ask if there are bugs in a software he wants to buy? Seriously...
In can go further: why should we use DAWs? A simple K7 recorder would be enough, especially is the music is not very "good". And for the "good" music, well, it's still "good" music", even on a crappy K7.
(And not talking about the constant other DAW's bashing and lack of respect for newcomers, it really doesn't help)

That said, and to answer to some parts of the question, I also encountered this one, with another plugin (not Xo)
viewtopic.php?f=259&t=536731
Basically, when extracting a midi clip from a plug-in not set to channel 1, using the pen, you can't overwrite...

Also, about automation recording: viewtopic.php?f=259&t=537237

Hope this help.

[antic604]

I really don't know how to comment

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then indeed just don't comment, thanks.

I know what you're talking about, I just don't know how to comment on such an approach without sounding rude

[Rivanni]

That said, and to answer to some parts of the question, I also encountered this one, with another plugin (not Xo)
viewtopic.php?f=259&t=536731
Basically, when extracting a midi clip from a plug-in not set to channel 1, using the pen, you can't overwrite...

Please use [ quote ] (without the spaces) to quote.

The bug youentioned here is one in XO and will be fixed by XLN Audio as I wrote in that thread.

[Rivanni]

I really don't know how to comment

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then indeed just don't comment, thanks.

I know what you're talking about

So that's why you start talking about being able to make music or making music better etc in your first comment. It totally misses the point and is a weird response. I guess we won't see any feature requests from you anymore because they wouldn't make your music better.

The question was about long standing bugs or weird behaviour. At some moment in the process of making music you want to use the tools and functionality your DAW provides. If that DAW has some serious flaws then it's good to know that upfront. It could save you hours of time if you knew about for example the pitch bent bug in Ableton Live or one of the other examples OP gave.

[antic604]

So that's why you start talking about being able to make music or making music better etc in your first comment. It totally misses the point and is a weird response. I guess we won't see any feature requests from you anymore because they wouldn't make your music better.

Quite the contrary, actually

Workflow features - which is what I'm after - help to lay down ideas quicker and to stay in the flow, thus making the music more natural and organic, which usually means 'better'. Whereas things like whether or not automation is super precisely reflected in parameter rendering are not relevant in the big picture or noticeable, at least not to anyone who's not the actual producer of that particular song.

At least myself I remember a song for its catchy melody, captivating arrangement or creative sound design and not because sidechain envelope was super tighe or because when phase was flipped it nulled perfectly

But that's just me.

[codec17]

But that's just me.

Yeah we already knew....

[Yokai]

IMO (and AFAIK), there are no significant known issues in 3.1 that would adversely affect any evaluation of Bitwig. There is one fairly well-known behavior that might *seem* like a bug, but it's just the way Bitwig works and we all expect it and work around it. I presume this behavior is a by-product of the excellent plugin sandboxing and resource management (and crash protection) features of Bitwig, but honestly I've never looked closely at this nor asked the devs why this happens.

The behavior is simple, and it occurs pretty much only when you're using 3rd party plugins in the project. Especially synth plugins. If you have a project with many tracks still in a MIDI state--in other words, not everything is flattened down to audio tracks--then when you very first open such a project and start the playhead moving through the existing arrangement, you might hear some very short drop-outs and glitches when the playhead encounters new clips on the existing MIDI tracks.

I presume this is some type of lag while Bitwig reads the internal plugin settings and caches some stuff about the plugin settings in memory?

Either way, it happens ONLY on the first playthrough after opening a project that hasn't been opened yet in that work session. So most of us know by now to just let the project play end-to-end one time after opening a project. Or we don't even know or care about any glitches we might hear at first, because we know they'll happen only one time.

[outerspacecat]

Thanks for the hint! As long as the audio export is not affected by this, the real-time behavior does not bother me. The only bad thing is undetected errors during export (as it can happen with Logic or Studio One, for example).

I am indeed a heavy plug-in user and rarely have projects with under 300 ms latency generating plug-ins. I must say Bitwig is doing a fantastic job here. The timing is right, the pdc works great, also when grouping, working with sends and also side-chaining seems to be okay.
However, it is useless for recording or playing in, because there is no delay compensation constrain function. With 300+ ms latency nothing can be recorded of course. The only thing that helps is the cumbersome workaround with grouping and deactivation of all tracks including deactivation of the plug-ins on the master track and recording on a single working spare track.
I hope that there will soon be a pdc constrain function for recording here, as there is in Live, Pro Tools or Cubase for example.

[reflekshun]

Thanks for the hint! As long as the audio export is not affected by this, the real-time behavior does not bother me. The only bad thing is undetected errors during export (as it can happen with Logic or Studio One, for example).

I am indeed a heavy plug-in user and rarely have projects with under 300 ms latency generating plug-ins. I must say Bitwig is doing a fantastic job here. The timing is right, the pdc works great, also when grouping, working with sends and also side-chaining seems to be okay.
However, it is useless for recording or playing in, because there is no delay compensation constrain function. With 300+ ms latency nothing can be recorded of course. The only thing that helps is the cumbersome workaround with grouping and deactivation of all tracks including deactivation of the plug-ins on the master track and recording on a single working spare track.
I hope that there will soon be a pdc constrain function for recording here, as there is in Live, Pro Tools or Cubase for example.

Have you experienced any timing issues with Critical timed automation (something that needs to be changing exactly on a beat or bar)? I find that when compensation starts to rise the gap between what I'm drawing and what I'm hearing increases. In some cases the automation is 500-1000ms off which is more than just a nitpicky amount!

[stamp]

I find that when compensation starts to rise the gap between what I'm drawing and what I'm hearing increases. In some cases the automation is 500-1000ms off which is more than just a nitpicky amount!

Really? Have you talked with support regarding this?

[outerspacecat]

Have you experienced any timing issues with Critical timed automation (something that needs to be changing exactly on a beat or bar)? I find that when compensation starts to rise the gap between what I'm drawing and what I'm hearing increases. In some cases the automation is 500-1000ms off which is more than just a nitpicky amount!

No, at least not with the test songs I produced, but with 40+ tracks I'm already in complete chaos, should something not work.
However I did some short tests before hand with heavy latencies (400 ms generated in different places) and then automated an UAD Moog Multimode Filter XL (within groups and in-between the heavy latency generating plug-ins). This filter automation behaves more or less identical to Cubase (my reference at the moment). The timing is (more or less) within a workable range - as good as it gets. As far as I know, sample accurate automation is currently not offered by any DAW.
So no, I didn't notice some heavy out of time automation so far.

[sth]

However, it is useless for recording or playing in, because there is no delay compensation constrain function. With 300+ ms latency nothing can be recorded of course. The only thing that helps is the cumbersome workaround with grouping and deactivation of all tracks including deactivation of the plug-ins on the master track and recording on a single working spare track.
I hope that there will soon be a pdc constrain function for recording here, as there is in Live, Pro Tools or Cubase for example.

That sounds very extreme, but also rare to be playing/recording under such heavy latencies to begin with since that's usually associated with "mastering" type plugins. The latencies don't "add up" since the whole graph only needs to care about the "most-latent." Deactivating that single most-latent plugin would be enough to drop to the next-lowest-latency plugin, thus you only have to deactivate the plugins that cause so much latency that it's unbearable (that's *exactly* what the features you're talking about do).

I'm curious as to the specific plugins and where/why they're used, since I haven't encountered anyone who has that problem.