Bitwig Studio Now Available For Linux, Mac & Windows

Bitwig has announced that Bitwig Studio, the highly anticipated and long-gestating new DAW, is now available for Linux, Mac & Windows.

Here’s the text of their announcement:

The Bitwig Team would like to take this special moment to thank you. Your excitement and encouragement brought us to a great milestone today. Bitwig Studio 1.0 is an extraordinary product of hard work over the past few years, dedicated to offering a new solution to musicians everywhere, and a promise of great things to come.

We will continue to push forward with new ideas, and we welcome your support and feedback in the future.

Sincerely,

Claes, Dom, Fredrik, Falko, Genys, Mea, Placidus, Nick, Nick M, Rade, Seba, and Volker.

Details below.

Features:

  • Cross-platform DAW (Windows, OS X, Linux).
  • Intuitive non-linear sequencing for the studio world and beyond.
  • Full multi-core and multi-processor support.
  • VST 2.4 support with built-in 32-/64-bit bridging and plug-in crash protection.
  • Proprietary time-stretching technology.
  • Unlimited Audio Tracks.
  • Unlimited Effect Tracks.
  • Multi-display support for up to 3 displays.
  • Unlimited Note Tracks.
  • Unified Modulation System: Use Macro Controls, Note Expressions, LFOs, and Envelope Followers to modulate any device parameter, including nested internal devices and even VST plug-ins.
  • Note and Audio expressions, including per-note Micro-Pitch Control.
  • Automatic sample slicing to both Sampler or Drum Machine.
  • Record and edit both track and clip automation in absolute and relative modes.
  • Support for numerous MIDI controllers out of the box.
  • Multiple tools for specific tasks and editing workflows.
  • Macro Controls per device, as well as dedicated Device Panel Mappings with color-coded knobs and buttons for an overview at a glance.
  • Advanced layered editing.
  • Open Controller API: Lets you create and customize functionality for virtually any MIDI controller, including scripting access to nearly every feature of Bitwig Studio.
  • File import: WAV, MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis.
  • A PDF Manual is included with the Bitwig Studio application in English and Japanese.

Here’s our interview from NAMM with Bitwig’s Dominik Wilms, who explains what makes Bitwig Studio unique and why you should check it out:

Bitwig Studio is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, priced at US $399 / 299 EUR. See the Bitwig site for more info.

If you’ve used Bitwig Studio, let us know what you think of it!

116 thoughts on “Bitwig Studio Now Available For Linux, Mac & Windows”

  1. Just played with the Demo for half an hour, some interesting ideas- just different enough for me (as a Live User) to be confused! After half an hour I was thinking ‘I wish Live did that’ in certain areas, but strangely, had no great desire to move away from Live as I have 6 years experience using it and don’t want to learning all over again….Still, new users now have a choice, and existing Live users have may see enough in this to switch, personally I don’t.

    Good Luck Wigs, welcome to the game.

    (First comment on what will undoubtedly be a long thread! Keep it friendly people!)

    1. I also wish them well, however I think their pricing model, certainly upon an introduction to an unknown entity is far too optimistic. Regardless of their history with Ableton (nearly the entire team consists of former Ableton software engineers) they have to stand on their own merit.

      For new adopters to embrace this new software, they had to make the incentive undeniable. They would have benefited from introductory pricing to bring users aboard. With their current pricing, they have essentially disregarded the proposition value.

      It’s not as if the market is not already saturated with DAWs and some are very competent as is. We shall see how this plays out. I do recall at this year’s Messe, Dominik reason with Sonicstate’s Nick Batt that their pricing was in line with Ableton and other major developers and that they had private investors that they had to answer to….it just seems like a major misstep on their part.

      1. Yeah, I could easily see myself dropping $100 on this, but for $400 not a chance. Logic Pro X costs half that and is MUCH more fully-featured.

    2. I also wish them well but their software doesn’t seem to want to be released. I tried it out and it got me excited, liked the similarity to the ableton workflow but the rest is the most counterintuitive piece of software I’ve ever tried. It’s so broken that I can’t believe they are calling it a release and asking people to be paid for their public beta. I’m truly shocked by this, after they spent 2 years on beta testing. I thought this release would be the most amazing well designed thing in the history of music software. But not even close. I can’t understand it. The same way I can’t understand their workflow. It’s far from being ready and I don’t know if it’s me or the workflow is poorly designed. Whatever the case, is very bad and light years from what they promised.

    1. Agreed! This app needs to be so cheap that virtually everyone buys a copy. Like $99 for launch day only, then $199 for the next month. Then full price with no sales till Xmas, then another round of killer sales. They should consider version 1 as a seed version to get everyone playing with it and talking about it. By the pricing I assume they are either broke and need operating capital, or don’t really understand how to generate buzz and market a product in the modern world.

    2. Considering the actual quality of the product, which is an insulting piece of unfinished crap that doesn’t even work as expected, they should give it away for free. Even 10 euros would be too much, because IT’S NOT EVEN FINISHED, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

  4. Erm… It’s kind of exciting to see new DAWs on the market, but this is so much grown from the Live gene pool that I wonder WHY? Still, as someone upstairs says, more options for new comers to the DAW range, but personally this seems like a bunch of folks that could have put extra wunder efforts into Live branching out to create their own version of what could’ve been a beautiful consolidated package.

    1. Why you ask? If for no other reason than it has automation delay compensation, so your automated tracks will stay in sync. This is huge and something Ableton can’t get ironed out, probably because of their old code which would require a huge amount of work to fix.

      1. Doesn’t Studio One have that built in as well?

        Also – I am wondering about the sandboxing. What VSTs are crashing for people? I don’t see VST crashes and it could be because I’m not using the same VSTs as other people do regularly. Is this a common problem? If so – which are the main culprits?

    2. This IS really the next generation of Ableton Live.

      They guys who founded Bitwig are old Live developers that broke off from Ableton about 4 years ago. This is when put the brakes on new development and said that they had to focus on making bug fixes.

      While Ableton was patching their old buggy code, the Bitwig guys were creating a next generation DAW from the ground up.

      There’s a lot of technology going on in Bitwig under the hood that’s not obvious until you dig into it a little bit, but it positions the app well for the future. For example, there aren’t really three versions of the app (Linux, Mac & Windows). As I understand it, there’s one version that runs on virtual platforms that run on each OS, kind of like how Java works. This should make it a lot easier to roll out changes in the future.

      They also built the app assuming that some users will want to use multiple machines, with multiple monitors, even in multiple physical locations. And plugins are sandboxed, so if you’ve got a VST that crashes, it’s not going to crash your DAW. And Bitwig’s modules are all built on a modular audio system, which they’re going to open up for users to edit in version 2.

      it’s very hard to switch DAWs. But at the very least, these guys are raising the bar for Ableton and others.

      1. I honestly think its kinda fucked up how so many developers theses days brake away from there origins and then branch off make there own company and then rip off the own work. This can be said for every type of developer these days.

        1. 1) Can you give any examples?

          2) Do you think that when a software developer works on a piece of software they should stay at that company and work exclusively on that software for the duration of their life, or where would you put the limit? I’m a software developer, and that’s not how things work. Whatever your line of work is, I’m sure you wouldn’t apply the same standard to yourself.

          3) Ableton Live may have introduced some great features even when they started out, but they also started with the bulk of the concept of a DAW coming from previous software. Software are tools, and they are iterative. Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari are all built upon eachothers’ ideas, and the ones that have been around longer were based on browsers that preceded them.

          4) Do you know what it’s like working at Ableton the business or anything about the lives of the people who left to work at Bitwig? Perhaps they didn’t agree with the business decisions at their workplace and decided to start their own business. Perhaps they all quit for unrelated reasons but remained friends and decided to start a new business together. Perhaps Ableton fired them and they decided to start a new business together. Maybe a group of the developers didn’t want to continue working in a stagnant code base but the business had no interest in starting from scratch, so they quit. You have absolutely NO idea.

          I’ve seen so many ignorant comments from armchair marketers and software developers regarding Bitwig. Maybe I’m just feeding into some sort of troll bait.

      2. ”these guys are raising the bar for Ableton”
        I don’t think so, this is no ‘Suite’ offering, its more like fruity loops in terms of content (no offence FL users) With Suite you basically get a pretty advanced sampler, most of the AAS plug ins integrated to Live, gigs or really top content (full orchestral sample set etc.) and of course MAX. The combination of MAX and Live is pretty hard to surpass in terms of flexibility and modular synth fun. If Live adds a few of the BITWIG features (particularly the audio/clip editor) then they pretty much have it…. I have played with BITWIG for most of the day, the mix views and having clips and session view up at the same time just aren’t relay helping (and clips and session view can be done in LIve now) the in clip audio editing is a great idea but very limited (no crossfade, reverse etc…) so I would still open an audio editor like wave lab…
        I think they need to price this more like 150 bucks in its current state. I don’t think Ableton will be worried…

        1. Bitwig is built on a modular audio engine that’s deeper than Max. I got a demo from Dom at NAMM, and he showed how all their instruments and effects are built on this engine.

          They are planning to open this up to users in V2.

          Also – Bitwig us $300 less than Live Suite. That’ll buy a lot of VST’s that will work in any app, not just Live.

          1. ” a modular audio engine that’s deeper than Max”

            A rather bold claim…in what respect would you say it’s ‘deeper’?

          2. That “deeper audio engine” has yet to be seen and it’s coming in version 2. But, hey! They just released a version 1 and, cough, it’s broken. Bitwig is like a big promise of a future that never comes.

      4. You say Ableton had to waste the last couple years patching old buggy code… and who wrote this old buggy code? The Bitwig guys! What makes you think they won’t take the money and run when it comes time to fix the bugs this time around? You want to trust your time and money to that? Good luck.

        1. No – I said that Ableton announced when they lost the Bitwig guys that they were going to focus on bug fixes. That tells me that Ableton lost their best developers and did not have the resources to do a big rewrite of Live.

          The proof is in what you see in Live 9 vs Bitwig. Live 9 is a mature version of Live 8. Bitwig is version1.0 of a DAW that is built for the future.

    3. I agree. This is basically LIVE with a few very cool but nice-to-have extra features. Not enough, in my opinion, to differentiate it as its own product. Just feels like a few disgruntled employees were not getting any love for their feature requests and decided to go implement them anyway. I wish them luck and I hope that this brings some excitement and competition into the DAW space.

    1. Someone also asked this on their FB page and they responded “No, no crossgrades”. But there’ll be educational pricing sometime later (what will not help the most of us). 😉

  6. I like what I’ve seen from Bitwig Studio demo videos. I also like Live pretty well, but there’s a certain aspect to it that makes it a no-go for me (things go crazy when I turn a dial while I’m zoomed in using Accessibility on the Mac).

    Also, I’ll be curious to hear if/how the reliance on Java impacts Bitwig Studio’s performance.

  7. Now it is finally here, I have no desire to even download a demo – I know this sucks but I can’t help it, I think part of me doesn’t want to end up liking it and wanting it.

    Sorry guys, maybe one day, maybe if the pricing wasn’t so high, not that I think it is overpriced, just a lot to fork out for an amateur like myself who has already invested in the Live Suite.

    1. Any actually useful features in Bitwig will just get added to Live in the next releases…hopping DAWs every time someone comes up with a new gimmick is a productivity killer.

      1. How’s that going to happen? It took them ten years to add multi-monitor support.

        In the time it took Ableton to go from version 8 to 9 (which wasn’t a huge upgrade in features), the Bitwig guys went from nothing to releasing a Live-killer.

        Don’t hold your breath to see all these features showing up in Live!

        1. the lack of multi monitor support was their choice, not their inability.

          and a “live-killer” would have to steal all of current users, not just people choosing one or the other.

        2. A Live-killer? LOL, sure. They were not even able to finish their product so people can use it. They just released a full version which is actually a public beta and they charge you for it. Hey, that’s a very smart way to do business. Fail.

    2. The Linux install is a deb download and built for AMD64 – just make sure your system is 64-bit Linux. For the moment, for me, that was a very short test, until I fire up a 64-bit Linux install.

  10. I question the assumption that Live will be able to incorporate Bitwig’s “actually useful features in the next release.” In order to do that, Live will have to rewrite its code. The fact that Live still doesn’t offer mouse scrollwheel support doesn’t reassure me that it can keep up with Bitwig at all.

    1. Ah, looks like I may have spoken too soon. Playing with the demo a bit, seems that Bitwig Studio doesn’t seem to offer mouse scrollwheel support either, lol.

    2. >The fact that Live still doesn’t offer mouse scrollwheel support doesn’t reassure me

      Mouse scroll wheel works all over the place for me in Ableton Live 9.x in OS X.

      1. Not me! I’ve got it open right now, and none of the controls move when I scroll my mouse wheel. I have to click, then drag, just like 10 years ago.

          1. Okay, with a wired mouse and a wireless Apple Magic Mouse I can scrollwheel my way through BitWig’s & Live’s vertical scroll bars. Anything else — knobs, sliders — nada. Am I unique to this limitation? If so, I’m very happy to hear it. But I’ve never been able to move these basic controls without clicking first.

            If you are reporting something else, please point to the online verification that confirms scrollwheel support. Because I can’t find it anywhere. But I may be as blind as a Coke can too. 🙂

        2. Sorry, that’s not good enough. The average user with an average mouse should totally expect scroll-wheel support from these apps. U-he’s gear sets the standard. No excuses.

  13. I’ve tried it for half an hour. Looks and feels nice, but I wasn’t particularly impressed by the included instruments or effect, which don’t seem to be up to Live’s standard (in itself not extraordinary!). Anyone had the same impression?

  14. Crashing a lot for me, with vst (had trouble with Diva…) sandbox isn’t working, audio engine stopped working and I had to re-boot to close the program! I notice there is an update already (1.02) but when you click to upload it the sever has an error! Poor old BW, should have done an open BETA, launching it this way will fuel the haters….

      1. Sporadic crashes, frequent audio dropouts on osx 10.7 while tweaking controls of instruments. (Drum machine, fm4)

        1. Audio dropouts? Tried changing your buffer size? No offence but that kind of thing is usually a PEBKAC issue.. 10.8.2 here, smooth as butter and modulating like crazy.

  15. Checked out the demo. Huge disappointment. These guys might think people are really stupid as to release such a piece of crap. I was so excited about it and now I see that is practically broken and unusable. And they charge 400 bucks for it!!!!!!!!!
    It’s full of inconsistencies, the workflow sucks, million of mouse clicks are needed to only drag samples around, preview of samples is horrible, mouse interaction too, etc, etc. This is NOT a full version. It’s a BETAAAAAAAA.

        1. I thought drag and drop samples was their main claim to fame and they can’t even get that to work without crashing? wow.

  16. Needs to be sub $100 to have any chance at all of surviving. Needs some proper marketing and PR, not just a bunch of spotty geeks with ex-live on their cv. Why bother with Linux at this stage? Comes across as a hobby project. Sorry guys the boat has long gone.

  17. Bitwig looks pretty sweet. Everyone should welcome the competition in the market. It results in better products for everyone.

  18. Seems like a lot of people don’t want to admit bigwig has some very very cool features. Probably live users that are afraid something better is coming. I just bought live, so it’s a little frustrating but I can tell u this: there are a few features in bigwig that seem like they should’ve been in live a long time ago. Multi-monitor, multichannel editing , random variance on midi notes, etc. I’m really really hoping ableton answers back. I agree with one of the above posters. I’m afraid to use it. Might like it too much. .

    1. Multi-monitor, already implemented in Ableton. As for the “not implemented features”, Ableton is brilliant in choosing features. They have a very strong sense for the workflow and don’t like to pollute Live with stuff that at the end of the day will just add more undesired complexity. That’s exactly why Live is Live.

      1. Yes, live has multi-monitor support.. finally. But how long did it take them to get there? What about multi-track editing, multiple projects, drag-drop between projects, sandboxing plug-ins, etc? Look I’m not hating on live. They created an incredibly innovative DAW. But people should be able to be honest about competitors. Like I said I just purchased live less than a year ago (bought the suite). No one wants live to be the top dog more than me, but seeing as live is on its ninth iteration and it is still missing some features which to me seem like they would be a logical progression.. It’s a little disappointing. I think a lot of this stems from the architecture design of live. As a software developer I can tell you that if you don’t design your application to be flexible and dynamic, then it can become extremely hard or impossible to implement certain changes/features. I think that is what we are seeing with llive. As I said, I love live but I find myself getting aggregated often with its limitations and quirks. I’m going to give bigwig a shot today. I think people need to stop blindly judging something just because it isn’t their daw. From what I gather, a lot of these people haven’t even tried bigwig?! Prejudice in one of its many forms..

  19. How well does it handle MIDI – for those who’ve managed to install it OK? I ask because someone else in a FB group noted that it wasn’t really providing a whole lot of MIDI support. Specifically he mentioned multichannel VST handling, VST MIDI out and MIDI tracks. He also mentioned a lack of track grouping.

    Do these things exist in Bitwig or did he miss something?

    I noted no AU support at present and no Rewire support and no plans to incorporate it at present.

    I can’t install it at present as I mentioned above. 64-bit Linux only. (And, yes, I have Windows and MacOS DAW setups but I don’t want to install to those machines – I just wanted to try it on Linux first.)

  20. I really like the layout and the workflow. I was trying for awhile to get into live…got in at version 9. I just don’t like the tiny buttons and where everything is located. I know how that sounds…With BW It’s like they thought ok Live was a good idea but how can we make it even better laid out and start with the code Live wishes they were using. Being able to easily drag the clips where you want on to a track is really cool itself. Someone said that’s not a big deal. Really? Obviously there are much more important features but that’s huge to me. Its also full screen on OSX and Live is not….though Retina support would have upped the ante. Of course the library is not there yet but then again i have Komplete and others. I bought Suite and NEVER use the library so I’m not missing that. No crashing whatsoever for me..seems rock solid with NI and Waves at least. Happy so far. I don’t need marketing as someone suggested. Just make something fresh and good that will be a good tool to use. This is music production application and not a beauty product after all. Spend your money on 2.0 and not advertising.

    1. “Spend your money on 2.0 and not advertising”

      How much better would this world be if businesses did this more often?

      1. how is live not fullscreen? you can even make it override the osx system bars – which is what i think you are referring to. also – how can you not drag a clip anywhere you want? you can disable the grid… also you really can’t drag more then one clip in BW or it sorta, crashes…

  21. I’ve been using Ableton for many years, and bitwig just came out but it’s unbelievable for a 1.0.1 version. Some crazy features like multi-modulations mono/poly…It just need an adaptation time to enjoy the product. Well, u know…my brain is probably conditioned to play great with ableton at the moment, but I’m sure with the time bitwig will be as good as Ableton :), and I will enjoy it after an adaptation time

  22. Just thinking that I could put the money I’d spend on Bitwig towards some new hardware instead like the Waldorf pulse 2 I’ve been drooling over. I have Ableton Suite and I’m reasonably happy with it. Not ecstatic or anything, but another $400 towards another DAW doesn’t sound wise for me at the moment. There’s just not enough to entice me and the price while it might be in line with Ableton’s ridiculous pricing, is a detergent for me. I’m honestly DAW’d out! But, I can’t judge Bitwig though…and I kind of hope they do reasonably well. If they keep Ableton looking over their shoulder it should be better for all DAW users as it provides more options and competition, hopefully lowers prices a bit and yet makes these competitors pushing innovation. I’d think the choice for a new DAW user should now be interesting. But I don’t think enough existing Ableton users, Logic users etc will be jumping ship so eagerly to part with an additional $400. At least not initially. Perhaps v2 Bitwig and Live 10 (or whatever) will be the dciding factor. If Ableton doesn’t take Bitwigs challenge seriously this next round then maybe the tide could turn. I think now the ball is mainly in Ableton’s court. Again, I’m happy enough with Ableton currently but I bought Ableton because of its innovative options as all as it’s fairly broad user base which help ensure Lives longevity. But if Bitwig does something radical in its next update and Live just rests on its laurels in its next version I may revisit my decision. It’s an interesting time for DAW companies and users. Bitwig has to attract and gain a loyal following. Ableton has to secure theirs. I personally don’t think it’s a great time to start a new DAW company and it just seems Bitwig waited to long. Bitwig could’ve grabbed me before Live 9. Another thing is that with all of the interesting things going on with iPad music, both Bitwig and Ableton lack an iOS version that could transfer projects back and forth. And, while Korg’s Gadget might not currently be thought of as being in the same league, it actually does some things better than both of these DAWs. Gadget while not nearly as deep gets deep results while being impressively fun and easy to use. If it’s to be believed, Korg will be pushing Gadget forward as the next gen DAW. And with iPads getting more and more powerful, wouldn’t this little app be an interesting DAW to see sneak up on the all powerful giant DAWs? I know I’m exaggerating but it’s not totally unfathomable. Anyway, good luck Bitwig. Ableton- are you awake?

      1. If that is an intro price – they would have advertised it as such to attract more buyers. After playing with the demo for a while I don’t feel that this version is worth the asking price. There are still too many bugs and workflow issues that need addressing. Drop the price & more people will buy it…then bump up the price again in V.2.

  24. first i do not understand why people rage about the price. if you buy it in theyre webshop € 250.– thats a reasonable price for a very good daw who competes with live on many levels and does a lot of things even better than live. played around with it for the whole day and im sold. the sequencer is funky and tight, the effect processing (especially the possibility to further process the effect portion of a sound) is awesome. for me bigwig feels a bit like a mixture of live and reason. maybe this is not the daw for commercial edm production, but its perfect if you are doing techno 🙂

    2. >first i do not understand why people rage about the price.

      It’s not a rage. Almost nobody buys a DAW in a vacuum. That means we all own at least one DAW already. For $400 there needs to be something that adds tremendous value to what we already have before it’s worth the effort. Otherwise I’m just duplicating most of what I have. For instance, Bitwig looks pretty darn good for a 1.0 product. There was a time just over a year ago when I was dumping Logic when it would have been a contender because I was ready to dump a large amount of money, and I wanted a clip launcher. But I’ve already bought into Live, and I’m happily productive making music. So $400 to step backward in several ways and forward in only a few irrelevant ones doesn’t make sense. But for $100 or so, I’d get it just to play around and buy into what I hope would be a big future for the product. But as it stands, $150 spent on NI Molekule would get me a ton of new creative options, and $400 on Bitwig would not, and my productivity would not be interrupted along the way. That’s the kind of reasoning many of us are doing when we say $400 is too high. Unless you really are fed up with Live, or don’t own Live, there isn’t much incentive to “switch”. That leaves the market to be only people who like to use multiple DAWs, or just buy every new shiny thing that comes out.

  25. Oooffff… not even five minutes into the demo and it crashed :\

    Definitely doesn’t instill confidence when you’re spending $400 on something, but I guess its to be expected this early on. One thing I did appreciate was the ability to auto send error reports once I reloaded the app, which I can only imagine will be an invaluable tool for the developers.

    I will say this, I actually found Bitwig quite intuitive once I got things going. Fleshing out a 4 bar loop together using only the default content was shit simple an overall I actually found myself wanting to dig deeper into what it could do.

    Not sure how I feel about the price… not to say it isn’t worth the money but as a user of two daws already, its not exactly on my list of priorities. I definitely agree some kind of introductory price incentive would most likely sway me to make an immediate purchase, even with the bugs. $199 would definitely be tempting and $99 would be a no brainer.

  26. I can’t understand why most people are disappointed… Bitwig Studio is great. There are functions I was able to use out of the box wihtout having to rely on a textbook. Ableton Live still has some cryptic parts I’ll never dug into. Live is totally overpriced. Live is the buggiest, crash pronest DAW I ever used. Live wasn’t able to adress issues over 3 to 4 major versions. Bitwig offers so much out of the box and delivers immediately. It might not be the best choice for all those people that think Live is a DJ app. For those Bitwig might seem broken. I really can’t see why you wouldn’t embrace Bitwig for what it is. A great DAW. But it’s everyone’s choice where he invests his money.

    1. Live was buggy and crash prone…the whole time these dudes were working on it! When Ableton told them to slow down and do some bug fixes they quit!! These guys are obviously not interested in actually maintaining the software they write.

  27. Really really like it.. just made a great tune, or the start of one. This combined with reaktor will be fantastic.
    I own reason 7 and live 9 and bitwig felt very fresh and inspiring. Looking good guys.

  28. I think they have cornered themselves by promising something they can’t deliver. They have 2 years time beta test, and now they are releasing a version 1 which is half backed, full of bugs, unfinished areas and serious conceptual holes all around. The state of the product and the price seem like a huge disconnect. The software looks very cool, it sounds great but it feels they try to put so much stuff on it that made it very confusing. This creates a very bad reputation and if people are not able to pay for unfinished software and wait for version 2, the could clearly go down. I hope they can fix their software fast, otherwise people won’t pay for an unfinished product. And from what I’ve seen they have still a long way to go. It would be a real pity if they go out of business. Good luck to them, they are gonna need it.

    1. Funny how many super-vague negative comments there are on this thread from people that sound like they have never tried Bitwig.

      Anyone expecting version 1.0 of a brand new app to be bug-free is an idiot. The developers will have tested Bitwig with dozens of systems, but not the thousands of system variations that are out there. That’s why they offer a free version to test out.

      Mac users will probably encounter fewer hardware compatibility issues than PC users and Linux users, just because Macs are so much more standardized. If you’ve got a PC, it’s a fact of life you gotta deal with. I’ve been testing Bitwig on a 2011 Madbook Pro, and it’s been running rock-solid for me so far. It also seems pretty easy to figure out (this is coming from a Live user.)

      For the people wanting a 32-bit version that runs on Linux, get serious. Should any company building a new DAW put effort into a 32-bit version for Linux, when the entire industry has been focused on moving to 64-bit? No way.

      1. I do expect a $390 application to be able to recognize my hardware.

        I would prefer to be Windoze free. I run a Mac-based studio and a Windoze one. I’d rather replace Windoze with Mac for the aggregation alone, but I have VSTs on Windoze that are not available on MacOS so it provides a balance between two studio setups. I think overall that Mac is the clear leader for working with audio production for a number of reasons.

        However, … all my other DAW suites run fine on Windoze and see the hardware just fine. Yes, I’ve had to tweak Windoze to make it into a suitable audio workstation – par for the course running a studio on Windoze, but, work it does – and pretty well over all. Yes I’ve had to think about my studio setup and make compromises with choosing what hardware to use – because it’s Windoze, but that’s got nothing to do with whether a DAW, out of the “box” won’t see that hardware – that’s not Windows’ fault.

        And, *all* my other Linux apps (and I do not regularly use Linux for audio production though I have dabbled in doing so – and Linux is my common desktop of choice for pretty much everything other than A/V production), have 32 bit versions. All of them. However, is the A/V industry going 64-bit – yes – I agree but not entirely although I agree it’s heading that way. Sure. I don’t have any fault with Bitwig for not offering their Linux offering as 32 bit therefore – just that it’s actually the odd one out for applications I’ve looked at using on Linux, and it took me a little by surprise *given* they are supporting Linux – is all. I’m not even proposing they *should* support Linux as a platform. Doesn’t matter to me either way.

      2. “Anyone expecting version 1.0 of a brand new app to be bug-free is an idiot”.
        Did you check out the demo?
        There’s no free bug software, of course, and Bitwig is indeed very interesting, but they just went just too far by releasing an unfinished “beta”. Here some of the things I experienced:

        – Constant audio crashes, it’s an audio app and it has to work out of the box, 2 years of beta testing, hello? Samples don’t play properly sometimes, and the drum machine is a pain to use once you want to try out new samples. Workflow killer.
        – Audio events inside clips is a great feature but when you use lots of them, it gets incredibly messy and doesn’t feel like fun anymore due to the visual and interaction mess it creates. Bummer. Not a step forward, workflow wise.
        – The audio editor is completely broken. Changing pitch for events doesn’t respond in realtime. And on undo, it changes the pitch of the whole event in a crazy way.
        – The automation is a total disaster. It’s broken, to say the least. tools don’t work as expected and I find it conceptually very confusing, too many options and different rules depending on the context.
        – General navigation, selection of stuff and duplication is poor and weird. It’s not very responsive to what I want to you do and expect. The UI is not very well designed, lots of waste of unnecessary space and way too much stuff going on.
        – Preview in browser feels buggy and not responsive.
        And these are just the things I remember..

        Good things tho: workflow familiar to ableton. Instruments are inspiring, sounds great. Nice sound library. Performance seems ok.

        On the other hand, I’ve read pretty horrifying things about people getting speakers blown, computer audio messed up after installing. IT WASN’T TESTED PROPERLY!

        All this is simply unacceptable for a full version you have to pay for.

  29. how are they releasing a beta and taking people money for it? thats a decent slap in the face….
    anywho, the demo crashed when dropping samples into the drum rack, restarted, tried dropping a small group (8 clips, 2 bars each) onto timeline, hovered, held shift to split them onto different tracks, and it hung like that, transparent clips on the tracks – had to force close. i didn’t even bother going for the update, as it dosent sound like it fixes those issues. osx 10.9 – no plugs used, as no AU supp.
    has anyone purchased? if you go into ‘about’ screen does it still say beta?
    might just have to wait till it gets all of the features (including after 1.0 section) functioning to really feel it out.

  30. Haven’t tried it yet. There are some features that make it stand out from the crowd. They’re clearly trying to offer a few of this key features that Live users waited a long time for, or are still waiting for. If it’s as buggy as people say then that’s disappointing. Plus, this:

    Not in 1.0:
    AU support (consider at later date)
    ReWire support (“There is no rewire support planned”)
    OSC support (planned)

    I’m a bit concerned about AU support not being planned explicitly. I have a number of AUs that don’t have VST versions and I use them a lot. And NO reWire support? Not a deal breaker but I still use rewire often.

    I think I’ll watch and wait. Never upgraded to live 9 as I use live for performance mostly and I haven’t performed in a long time. In fact, I’m using old generations of all my DAW software. I think I’m still on Reason 5… and didn’t they just, like, give Reason 6 away?

    Whenever I do get around to deciding between Live 9 or BW… I hope BW has had time to iron out the kinks and add the modular environment feature (planned for 2.0). Perhaps I shouldn’t hold my breath but I’m rooting for them.

  31. OK. So, I wanted to give it a fair trial after I’d watched some of the videos which in part seemed appealing with some interesting features, in spite of the other misgivings already noted.

    Consequently, I downloaded the Bitwig demo and installed it on Windoze 7 64 bit. It installed in the Program Files (x86) dir (odd – thought it was 64-bit – oh well). I could have installed it on a Mac in the other studio, but I might want to use it on Windoze in Studio B.

    It didn’t recognize the ASIO drivers for my main interface. Only gave me the option to use WDM – by which I would lose 1/2 my channels. (= dead in the water). [ Maybe I’m missing something there, but if out of the box it won’t do that it’s not useful. ]

    By contrast, (although I am an S1 Pro user – and Cubase and ProTools when needed), I installed Reaper which I had been vaguely interested in to test its poly aftertouch support, and a.) it gave me the choice of a 32 or 64 bit download on the site b.) recognized my interface perfectly the first time – all channels (and gave me a list of all my ASIO interfaces as it happens).

    Half the price. (and S1 Pro is still on sale for less than *that* for a couple more days too!)

    And in a couple of minutes with Reaper (as in S1 Pro, Cubase and ProTools), I had audio tracks and instrument tracks with VSTs able to record just fine.

    I also did not find the Bitwig interface at all intuitive. Lot of blocky space that to me seems wasted on precious screen real estate.

    So, the demo’s gone. I removed it from my system and until things improve with Bitwig, for me personally, it won’t get another look at the moment. I’m not saying it won’t be *great* for other people, but for me, it’s not going to work – at all. Maybe I’ll revisit some time in the future. Not now though.

    I did *look*.

  32. I gave bitwig 1.0.2 demo a try and my native instruments audio 8 dj does crackles and pops. And the scroll doesn’t work either. With the internal soundcard of my macbook sounds ok though.

  33. BS = Bitwig Studio = Bull Shit
    I can’t believe that they are expecting users to pay 400 bucks for an OPEN BETA. Because that’s what it is. Didn’t they spent 2 YEARS beta testing? When every normal company spends 6 months on beta before release. This is the biggest lie in the music software industry.

    1. Do you have any concrete criticisms? Because you sound more like an Ableton employee sent here to dis the competition than somebody who’s actually tried Bitwig Studio and has something constructive to say about it.

      1. Yes, that’s a pretty concrete criticism about a company that wants me to pay for a not-yet-ready product and for their public beta. I’ve tried the demo myself and have the right to say what I think. You suggesting I’m an Ableton employee?. The same could be said to you, that you are a Bitwig employee. Be smarter.

  36. renoise goes for 58eu, so i would say that indeed they should consider their pricing (ableton as well for that matter). Many of their revolutionary ideas already exist in renoise..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *