Bitwig has released an open beta for Bitwig Studio version 1.2 – a preview of what they call their ‘most significant update yet’.
All Bitwig Studio license holders have access to the latest beta version, in anticipation of the official release in October 2015.
Here’s what’s new in Bitwig Studio v1.2:
Bitwig Studio v1.2 Features:
- Group Tracks – When building up a Bitwig Studio project, the individual parts can get out of hand. In most cases, there comes a point when it’s essential to get a handle on the mix in the most efficient way. Group Tracks is a tried and true way to quickly manage multiple parts of a mix at once. Tracks that have common mix or tonality settings can be set in groups to minimize large sections of a project.
Consolidate your mix and get organized with Group Tracks. - Pop-up Browser – To accelerate the browsing workflow, all devices in Bitwig Studio 1.2 feature the Pop-Up icon. This advanced browsing feature appears in a new window that uses Bitwig Studio’s tagging system to eliminate the boundaries between devices. The result is a meta view of all available sounds in one category. Searching for the right bass? It doesn’t matter if it’s a Polysynth preset or a sample, you now have the freedom to audition all your content in place while playing on the fly. Use the Pop-Up Browser to find the right sound quickly and to get back to what is most important, making music.
- Histogram Display for Dynamic Devices – Several audio devices in Bitwig Studio 1.2 feature a new window into a visual environment illustrating the dynamics of sound over time. The Histogram Display makes use of scale, light, shade, and volume on an XY grid to visualize sounds. The result can be found on the Audio Mod, Compressor, Dynamics, LFO Mod, Peak Meter, Gate and Transient Control devices. The Histogram Display allows for quick analysis of device settings as they dynamically affect sound using animated graphic displays.
- Project Templates – Project Templates eliminate repetitive tasks by predefining the most commonly used project setups for the style of production you work with most often. Making several custom Project Templates containing various devices and routings can offer a great starting point for any production.
- Customizable Shortcuts- Extending on the freedom that exists throughout Bitwig Studio, customizable shortcuts are now available. Now it’s easy to see the factory shortcuts available for anyone to change, and all the parameters to which can be freely assigned. The shortcuts feature is now available in the Bitwig Studio preferences.
- Per Project Mappings – Bitwig Studio makes every effort to eliminate the boundary between controllers and those who use them. This is immediately noticeable from community designed controller scripts or the newly enhanced MIDI mapping functionality. The depth of these mappings can get extremely detailed, and keeping track of their unique settings in each project is no small task. In the 1.2 update a new finger-pointing icon in the lower right of the project window. Pressing this icon reveals a new mapping panel. The mapping panel keeps track of any parameter mapped to a controller or computer keyboard and is completely editable.
- Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression – In the past few years, multi-dimensional controllers have pushed the boundaries of MIDI, and created a gap between the degrees of freedom they are capable of and what DAWs and plug-ins were designed to utilize. Multi-dimensional controllers send gestural data that most software is not equipped to deal with, which limits the creative use of multi-dimensional controllers.Music instrument manufacturers and music software editors alike share a strong interest to agree upon a set of conventions that enable an improved user experience of new controllers, allowing to achieve more with electronic music than before.
This is where MPE (Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression) or “Expressive MIDI” comes in. By supporting this preliminary standard, Bitwig Studio 1.2 is among the first DAWs capable of capturing and utilizing the precise features of the most advanced MIDI controllers available on the market today.Expressive MIDI allows for natural articulations which creates a significantly deeper connection to sound.
- The following additional features can be found in the Beta as well:
- Oscilloscope
- Device Inspector
- Delay-4
- Expand Clip Height
- High-DPI and Retina Display Support
- Jack Support + Jack Transport
- Poly to Mono Modulation Mappings
- Pressure Note Expression
- Roger Linn “LinnStrument” Support
- Roli “Seaboard” Support
For details on version 1.2 of Bitwig Studio – and specials available to users, from iZotope, The Loop Loft & Keith McMillen – see the Bitwig site.
For me, it’s been almost 24hrs of pure bliss.
Loving the GUI, meta clips, mappings, the new visual displays….
Just class. All of it.
My wife is cursing you, but I’m happy to say great job Bitwigs!!
Can’t wait for the big release!!
Now it comes with 2 browsers, both of them not very well done.
It seems that those who hate the new browsers are more vocal than those who do not.
2 points to this:
1) 1.2 it is still in Beta and these browsers are subject to change (a la the update we just got in beta 7)
2) not everyone shares your assessment. To the contrary, many are very pleased. Since it means my Push will become more powerful in Bitwig than Ableton, I am one of these.
It has nothing to do with hate. Ralph has a fair point. What’a the point of having 2 browsers? Do you know other piece of well designed software that comes with 2 browsers? Or can you just explain what these 2 browsers are intended for?
I was clearly responding to “both of them not very well done”, but I’ll take the bait anyway..
There are two browser’s because one is a popup, in-place audition browser which needs one kind of UX and the other is a drag and drop, in-depth browser.
One could argue that only one is necessary, but on the contrary I don’t need a file system browser when I am auditioning, but it can be handy when I am really searching for something. Likewise for the ‘project files’ browser. These are important things to have around, but they are not all that related in terms of workflow. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Anyway, go ahead and keep claiming that they stole everything from others and then crapping on them for doing things differently. I enjoy the cognitive dissonance.
“Cognitive dissonance” I can’t find a better description for the 2 browsers. That’s perfect, thank you!
I did not find yet a native way to use surround interfaces… but maybe I did not look well..
And I’m still missing the possibility to change the colors of the interface… should be an easy parameter , as in some others 😉
I like what they are doing, and very keen on the updates promised for v2 – yet 18 months after coming to market they are on 1.2, so I guess v2 is another 5 years away – ouch.
The new browser is the opposite og good design and good user experience. A total design redundancy.
Any news about multitouch features as shown running in a surface pro 3
+1 to surface pro 3 multi touch as well as Expressive MIDI for QuNeo. The mappings for QuNeo are already amazing, but mappable Expressive MIDI for playing synth parts would be way amazing
This website has already posted a video which shows extensive Surface Pro 3 functionality for Bitwig
I didn’t understood if what was shown in that video was the 1.2 version or a future version
linn-strum-ent !
linn-strum-ent !
linn-strum-ent !
completely laughable update imo. why? answer: still no groove extract function. what were they thinking?? since live 8 (released in 2009) one is able to extract quantize templates out of audio and midi clips. logic has it, too. bitwig sucks again. to me this is a make-or-break question.
Can’t see groove extraction being anywhere near the top of the required feature list for most people.
Things like real multi-monitor support and the ability to open multiple files are WAY more important for most people and it’s smart that Bigwig is focusing on features that people actually need rather than trying to match Live’s feature set.
How many grooves do you need to match in a day that you can’t just do it by hand? It seems like a nice feature, but make-or-break? I wonder what your workflow is like.
Do you not realize how ridiculous that claim is? “Since Live 8…”
You do realize that there were 7 versions of Live previous to Live 8 which did *not* have groove extraction?
Anyway, it seems that heavy users of groove extraction are not the primary target audience of Bitwig. And there are half a dozen or more major features of Bitwig 1.2 that do not have a parallel in Ableton Live. “Even after 9 versions!!!”
What is ridiculous is comparing Bitwig with Ableton Live.
Ableton created the idea and revolutionized the market. Bitwig ripped off the whole concept (didn’t they had a better idea?) and with every update the software gets even more cluttered and complicated. Already it’s painfull to watch on the screen. And it doesn’t have even one single feature that is not copied from another DAW.
Or…. some of the core devs of Ableton Live got frustrated with the way things were going and went on to create their own foundation for making music in this non-linear fashion, but taking inspiration from other sources.
There is not a single DAW that doesn’t take inspiration from elsewhere. Hence why version announcements / roadmaps are often so secretive — the others are lying in wait to capitalize on a good idea.
Anyway, if Bitwig did nothing better than Ableton does, it wouldn’t be making any noise. But it does, so it does. Ableton could use a bit of “ripping off” of other DAWs, imo.
Dayam! Why the desperate need to compare Bitwig with Ableton?
Face it, Ableton is success. Bitwig is just a flop.
“Ableton is success. Bitwig is just a flop”
wow, such an insightful and sharp analysis! > you just convinced me, THANK.YOU.SIR!
err…
you are just a hater, spreading disinfo propaganda, anyone spending an hour with bitwig (do it , yes, try it) must reasonably come to conclusion that it is extremely well though out, pleasing to the eye and extremely performant. Bitwig is really and pleasure for the mind, it allows you to do things impossible with any other program.
Give it time and it will blow Ableton off the water and the popularity tables will turn as more producers will have had time to harness its power.
Bitwig’s design is just beautiul. Like Apple products.
Good luck with your Bitwig!