Known bugs, flaws or malfunctions in Bitwig 3.1

[reflekshun]

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?

Yeah, I'm trying to put together a case with a project so it's clear. Otherwise they will think i'm bonkers lol

[outerspacecat]

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.

With UAD plug-ins you get pretty much 200 ms of latency with an average project. Then use something like oeksound Soothe, Leaping Audio DynOne a few instances of VPS Avenger (set to 15 ms), Farbfilter stuff or any other linear phase EQ, Slate VTM here or IK Multimedia Tape machine there and you are way over 400 ms just with a simple 24 track project...
Main latency generators are UAD plug-ins in my case.

[stamp]

Yeah, I'm trying to put together a case with a project so it's clear. Otherwise they will think i'm bonkers lol

Please, keep us informed.

[sth]

With UAD plug-ins you get pretty much 200 ms of latency with an average project. Then use something like oeksound Soothe, Leaping Audio DynOne a few instances of VPS Avenger (set to 15 ms), Farbfilter stuff or any other linear phase EQ, Slate VTM here or IK Multimedia Tape machine there and you are way over 400 ms just with a simple 24 track project...
Main latency generators are UAD plug-ins in my case.

I hear your total and kind-of how you can get there. But, it's only additive in the worse-case which is one very-latent plugin following another in a chain. So I must imagine you're chaining the worst offenders over-and-over. Maybe get more used to bouncing or be a louder voice towards the idea of "automatic-bouncing" or "freezing" as a workflow enhancement?

[stamp]

Coming from Live, where automation was not latency compensated until version 9, I avoid latency inducing plugins in the first place, and when I have to use one I bounce, like sth suggested.

[antic604]

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.

A workaround would be to export a piece of audio (bounce in place a section of Master, perhaps?) as a cue reference for recording, then just open a new tab - which disables audio engine for the current project - record there against that bounce and then drag the recording back into main project's tab. Not ideal, obviously but should work, I think.

[antic604]

But that's just me.

Yeah we already knew....

Who's "we"? Are you schizophrenic?

[Hez]

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!

Interesting - would be curious to see a project if you can nail this down. I have very very occasional projects where automation seems to end up delayed, but other times I have projects with 300ms+ of plugin latency where the automation still appears to be sample accurate, so I can't figure out exactly what is inducing the issue.

[zerocrossing]

I’ve been having problems with polyphonic aftertouch that I didn’t have in previous versions.

[outerspacecat]

Thanks for the answers.

I just stumbled over one thing: "Bounce In Place" doesn't seem to compensate for latency of virtual instruments. As "Bounce In Place" is "Pre-FX" I guess the pdc is turned off as instruments are probably treated like any other (fx) device?

If I use "Bounce" and select "Pre-Fader" or any other option but "Pre-FX" the bounce of the virtual instrument is latency compensated.

Something I can live with - but these are the things I meant in the beginning of this thread. Every VPS Avenger user for example has to know these things, otherwise every bounce could be shifted up to 15 ms.

@antic604 I hope you can understand that an undetected 15 ms shift of your notes are indeed make your music worse and affect your music writing.

[stamp]

Thanks for the answers.

I just stumbled over one thing: "Bounce In Place" doesn't seem to compensate for latency of virtual instruments. As "Bounce In Place" is "Pre-FX" I guess the pdc is turned off as instruments are probably treated like any other (fx) device?

If I use "Bounce" and select "Pre-Fader" or any other option but "Pre-FX" the bounce of the virtual instrument is latency compensated.

Something I can live with - but these are the things I meant in the beginning of this thread. Every VPS Avenger user for example has to know these things, otherwise every bounce could be shifted up to 15 ms.

@antic604 I hope you can understand that an undetected 15 ms shift of your notes are indeed make your music worse and affect your music writing.

Avenger is not the only vsti that has latency. If you have a reliable way to reproduce this you should definetly make support aware of the problem. Should be an easy fix and will save you and other users some time and trouble in the future.

[antic604]

I just stumbled over one thing: "Bounce In Place" doesn't seem to compensate for latency of virtual instruments. As "Bounce In Place" is "Pre-FX" I guess the pdc is turned off as instruments are probably treated like any other (fx) device?

If I use "Bounce" and select "Pre-Fader" or any other option but "Pre-FX" the bounce of the virtual instrument is latency compensated.

Good catch, but two things with regards to the above:

1) bounce-in-place isn't pre-FX, it's post-sound-generator actually, because if you nest FX within instrument's FX slot or in a Layer / Chain, then FX will be included in the bounce; small distinction, but very important one

2) perhaps this is intentional, because with bounce-in-place the (not nested) FX are still in place and active, whereas normal bounce just renders the output of sound-generating-device to a separate audio track, without the following FX chain? so maybe it was supposed to be different, but didn't work out as planned? just thinking out loud - I'll have to test it too because in my current project one of the (bounced-in-place) tracks was delayed too but since it was a straight 1/16 I thought it's just due to me not moving the clip correctly

And yes, I do understand that delayed audio can be a problem but whther it impacts the music in any way is really very subjective and depends on type of music, particular sound or track character, etc. But I agree DAWs shouldn't have bugs like that

[outerspacecat]

I've sent an email to the support regarding this behaviour. Let's see what they think.

[astey]

Controller Api which uses extensive controllers (Push4Bitwig) will freeze the GUI completely for up to 20 seconds, while selecting tracks containing Vst-Plugins with a lot of Vst Parameters.
For example Cream Arp or Akai VIP.
Bitwig Team was able to reproduce it five months ago. Bug is in the current release still.

[outerspacecat]

I am very impressed with Bitwig. There's been some progress. There's a lot of clever stuff in there that the established DAWs lack. The browser is divine, side-chaining selection (pre, post, groups, colors) is just the way it should be, automation works great, operation in general, free assignment of keys etc.

What bothers me a bit is the sluggish operation of some plug-ins (mostly VST3) or the heavy CPU spike with Softube plug-ins (workaround is to use VST2 variant).

Is there something I can do when using VST3 plug-ins under macOS or what do I have to tell the respective plug-in developers to get there plug-ins on par with Bitwig?