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Hello Bitwig?
This close to selling my Air 2 and getting a Surface Pro 4 with Bitwig. . last minute thoughts?
Comments
Any way for you to keep the one and get the other?
Bitwig on Surface Pro is the bomb. But I'm having some trouble letting go of Air 2, maybe because of all the little self contained sketch apps that make for quick ultra portable work that also export stems...and all the special wacky synths. I'm conflicted so I kept the Air 2.
But I'll say this again: Bitwig on Surface Pro is the bomb. And I only have the pro 3...
Looks cool and I would like one but the variety and future growth potential of iOS serves my A-D-D much better. Personally I would feel like I am trapped on a deserted island.
It's something I've been puzzling over...since I jumped when touch Bitwig went live. (It took about 10 minutes for me to find a deal on a Pro 3 and have it shipped)
I already owned Bitwig, and a ton of synths unequaled on iOS...those were big $ factors. So with Surface Pro and Bitwig I'd also have 30+ killer synths with me on the desert island. No glitchy midi, no need for 7 apps to dance together to do what I want to do...
@RigVader Don't know if it will be an issue for you and it may even be corrected by now, but you might look into the Pro 4 sleep mode battery drain issue before jumping. It made me hold off on replacing my laptop for a while.
Thanks for the input people:-) Really nice to hear that Bitwig/Surface is working out great! So I put in my order, but still need to finalize the sale of my iPad, which I unfortunately can't keep.. $$$
Ios has such great promisse and so manu great apps and it will be really hard to say goodbye, but there are just so many obstacles and insequirities about what/when will work that I never really feel like comitting to moving beyond small sketches, even if I could make things work (which they never seem to do).
Also I'm a DAW person at heart and Cubasis has turned out to be a very underwhelming and fundamentally broken puppy, where Auria while very competent, seems more like a desktop application and not very touch friendly. At least it does not speak to me.
I also do photography, programming and 3D graphics, which the iPad will not do.. I guess a big reason for change is that the iPad somehow seems intent on putting me into consumer mode, where I really want some thing that invites to and does not obstruct productivity and creation.
Thanks asnor. It seems this is related to a bug in windows hello. Turning it off should help.
Saying goodbye to Windows hello. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Ah, ok. Thanks.
LOL
What's Windows?
(Sorry - couldn't resist either - hey - I run a Windoze-based studio setup - as well as a Mac one
)
@RigVader
I'm probably heading that way too, curious to know how the sale of an Air 2 goes.
MTS is pretty cool on touch, ad is StageLight (which starts at $10 and hosts vst and has both timeline and clip launch editors...
:-)
>
Well, we have a saying here that goes some thing like "don't sell the hide before you've shot the bear" (in my case don't purchase the surface before you've actually sold the ipad). I think my pending ipad sale might be towards a paypal scammer.. He is offering a good price though ha ha :-)
Are you sure your timing is good? I was originally gonna get Bitwig and Surface Pro and it is great but now what with Ableton "Kink" Auria Pro, Kirdu "Cream" Gadget, yada yada yada..Not to mention Sampr..I opted for the iPad pro instead of the Surface. This is truly a golden era for iOS....And who knows where it'll be a year from now?
This is a total speculation but I could see Biwig making its appearance on iPad Air 3 unless of course iPad Air 3 turns out to be lemon like iPad 3 and mini 3.
Don't know how much work it is development wise but relegating some of the functions to the second screen or using popups for certain functions might make it more touch friendly on 9.7. There's of course iPad pro but I still think it would be fiddly.
I've got Surface pro 3 with Bitwig and iPad Air 2 (and also ipad pro btw).
Well, first of all Bitwig is not coming to iOS anywhere in the next couple of years - it is a core problem of how Bitwig was developed and they definitely have other priorities (modular engine a-la "max for live") - there were their comments on that on KVR.
Bitwig works pretty good on Surface pro 3. But there are several problems: first of all battery life - when I make music on a Surface its battery works for 2, maximum 3 hours. Touch support is good but you still need mouse/pencil to work with it. Lots of VSTs don't play well with touch. Also you can't play on the virtual bitwig keyboard and tweak parameters in the vst instrument - keyboard looses the focus.
But the main problem is Windows. Comparing to iOS is so buggy. Once it told me that it can't boot Win10 and I need to restore the whole system from scratch. Two-three times per week it is crashing audio engine (Bitwig stops working) and you need to restart it. MIDI in Win 10 seems to be buggy (doesn't work with iConnect usb)... etc...
If choosing one device I would rather get iPad pro and wait support for AU in Auria and other music apps so it would work much smoothly.
@ipadmusic
Doesn't sound like you're using the same Bitwig (or Windows 10) that I have!
I never use pen with Bitwig. It's never needed, especially when tweaking VST:
Most vst don't play well with touch, (except D-16 group, which according to their story was an accident) but it doesn't matter in the case of Bitwig.
every one of any VSTs control parameters (depending on the vst, that can be hundreds) automatically map to the module Bitwig creates for each plugin - and it is then possible to automate, modulate with other Bitwig devices, or control live by touch via Bitwigs control surface. Touch any knob on your vst, it maps automatically to the first dial on the module.
There is no "losing focus" (?) that's any different than other DAW: some vst allow you to tweak their gui while playing onscreen or qwerty, some don't. (Blue ll, will, Codex won't for example).
With Bitwigs module system you get around that with their module gui per vst: you play on the amazing inapp play surface (which also maps x/y/z axis from your vst) while you tweak multiple dials at once: multi touch, while you play multitouch keys, live. As I said you must be using a different Bitwig...
Your experience with Windows 10 is nothing like mine. Or anyone else I've encountered.
That Bitwig won't come to iOS isn't a problem with Bitwig, any more than its a "problem" of Ableton Live...iOS isn't up for it, and if it ever is, then the desktop DAW will have moved again to something that will only run on desktop. Auria Pro, as amazing as it is, is amazing because it can do what it does on iOS. Is doesn't compare with desktop stuff at the most fundamental level and shouldn't have too: desktop DAW not only run Falcon, luSH-101, Rapture Pro, Serum, Diva, Omni, Breaktweaker, Diversion etc, they can run them all at once...don't hold your breath waiting for iPad Pro to do this.
in that sense the $10 Stagelight daw, beautifully set up for multitouch in Windows, is "better" than Auria Pro: it hosts multiple desktop synths, a single instance of any of those listed which would crash iOS audio in a heartbeat, and could never run multiple synths like these in the nightmare that is iOS midi.
(Battery wise, short life is about 4 hrs when the keyboard is attached, Recommendation for battery life on Surface Pro 3, don't leave the keyboard attached, it'll at least double the run, and like the pen or track pad you never need it.)
How does it can use the z axis. And could i make my own custom scales with the Bitwig virtual keyboard and can use all the MPE stuff like polyphonic glides, slides etc. That would be awesome!! I have the Bitwig demo and can see how the tablet layout looks but i didn´t found a way to create my own scale etc.
You can map z axis to whatever parameter you want, Surface Pro has been using touch pressure (with pen) since the first Surface Pro.
Haven't delved into scales, I check it out...
Can it also make a kind of fake velocity? It works really great with iOs devices. But i think a surface doesn´t has a gyroscope or accelerometer etc.
@Cinebient
You can map the pens z to velocity expression, timbre, etc etc, and simultaneously use it to modulate other parameters as well. Modulation (upon modulation upon modulation) is Bitwig.
How do you usually use it? As a laptop or as a tablet? Is it comfortable to use for longer periods?
I mean if I want to attach a keyboard and use it as a laptop, it can be rather inconvenient to use its touch screen. If I want to use it as a tablet, well, it's pretty heavy and you can't hold it in front of you for a long time. You can rest in on your lap, but your neck will not like it. (This is all based on my experience with my iPad 2 in a heavy case and with a BT keyboard)
Molten music does some great demos of bitwig multi touch functions.
If you are a non surface user you can still use it in tablet mode. Be interesting to see it on a large Lenovo tablet!
But scales..... SCALES please
You may be asking the wrong person. based on the made-up stuff he said about Bitwig...
The only problem I've encountered with keeping the keys on Surface Pro is that it sucks battery...I got the newer keyboard case (for the Surface 4) for its features, but that likely increases the battery use. I use the tablet by itself the way I use air 2, flat on my back in bed and everywhere else. The keyboard is not needed, but when I use do use it the touch capability is not a problem, the screen is significantly wider than the Air 2, pretty easy to zero in on a target on the touch screen at the distance the keyboard imposes...which is negligible, you don't hold the tablet any further away...
@Littlewoodg Red apple, green apple; I just want my unifruit...
That's exact what keeps me going around and around the wheel. Like you said once, I may be the perfect customer...flitting from one lovely flower to the next, pollinat'n with $20 bills.
@Littlewoodg of course I'm the wrong person to ask about it as I'm running one of the first blogs about iOS music apps, using Surface pro since 2nd model, now on the 3rd i7, having beta testing contracts with dozen of major music software vendors... of course I'm wrong.
Don't get me wrong, Surface is the best non-iOS tablet without any questions. Bitwig is the best DAW for touch interface. Ableton, Cubase are not anywhere near. FL Studio is somewhere close. Reason is surprisingly good for the touch screen (after some tweaks that would convert multitouch gestures into hotkeys).
But my point was that it is difficult to work just with fingers on Bitwig + third party plugins. Here are couple of examples: Open FM-4 (built-in synth in Bitwig) and try to change any value in the matrix... you can't do it even wih stylus - only mouse works. Next - FM8 (NI) - try to enable any Oscillator in matrix (first thing you do when open this synth) - same thing (it is done by right-clicking (though stylus works in this case). There're synths that works good there like Serum or Hive. Or built-in Polysynth is great.
But some VSTs are still unfriendly (Kontakt, Reaktor). And Win 10 sometimes (not always) just killing me - When you need to change output with Asio driver - it is almost impossible with the pen or touch (you need to have mouse or attach keyboard), it is crashing audio engine (some serious Serum patch with Soundtoys effect rack and couple of plugins that you can't freeze (sends, masterbus) easily crashes the audio engine, as I mentioned iConnect MIDI for some reason stopped working after upgrade to 10 from 8.1.
About focus with VSTs: open BitWig in Play mode (where there's push-like virtual keyboard), open Serum UI (or Massive or any other VST), play a chord and while holding it try to change any serum parameter - Serum is not responding to the touch. It is minor thing - but there are lots of little things like this to be fixed.
@yug Regarding question on attachable keyboard my workflow with Surface is to have mouse with me - I'm not using attachable keyboard when making music, just touch and mouse - that works.
And I don't regret buying Surface. Moreover I'll definitely buy next one (SP5 or however it would be called). But it won't replace my iPad.
And if somebody need to choose I would rather choose iPad as the first tablet for music making. Surface is great when you already have good powerful laptop/desktop and iPad.
@ipadmusic
As I mentioned, some vst gui don't respond to touch while playing the onscreen keyboard in Bitwig and some do (and in other touch daws, MTS on Windows for example, the scaling really sucks). I was wrong, I've only found one that doesn't respond to multitouch while playing...
I tried Serum as you suggested: if you touch the dial you want to twaddle before you hit your chord, you're in business. That's the only issue, you have to touch your dial first then play. Some vst are like Serum and others you can touch the control after you hit your chord, and twaddle. The only synth I've found that just won't do it either way is Papens Blue ll, and Bitwig thought of that too, as I mention above and see below.
As long as you've been blogging about iPad music (and beta testing software) you must understand this has nothing to do with Bitwig, or its keyboard focus: standards for vst dpi scaling and interface issues were introduced in Windows 95. "Vst developers are a tad behind" (to quote one favorite iOS/desktop DAW developer). Variations among vst gui have nothing to do with Bitwig.
But in a way your issue (which except with Blue, is solved simply by changing what you touch first) makes my point: Bitwig has the solve, also mentioned above: their interface allows the user access to every twaddleable dial on every vst you can load into a desktop daw, while you hit your chords, no matter how widely vst gui's vary among developers.
Same with their FM synth (I have no idea why you re having difficulty with touch in the matrix, you may not have set minimum contact area small enough in your touch settings)
As I mentioned I've never had to use pen or mouse in Bitwig. My fingers are on the large side...The only reason I'd use pen is to access the z axis...
I don't use Kontakt or Reactor, but there's a chance that their implementation for touch and scaling is lagging, or your contact minimums aren't set small enough, or you need to touch your dial before hitting your chord...
Blogging about iPad music, and having beta testing contracts doesn't make you right, or wrong, about Bitwig. Bloggers are a variation on pundits, self annointed, and usually self taught. Bloggers share their opinions, opinions are something we all have. Being a blogger as such isn't a qualification, even if you were first.
Bloggers can be qualified certainly, and some qualifications could add weight to their opinions, which leads me to ask: When you mention your beta testing contracts with major software developers, by contracts do you mean NDAs? I assume if you were paid beta tester you would've said paid, and it seems to me that a paid beta tester would've sorted out user issues, and variations in vst gui, that you're blaming on Bitwig.
i say you just focus on desktop if you are serious about releasing music professionally. there have been NO groundbreaking revolutionary albums made purely on a touch device. im not saying that the talent isnt there but shows that theres still a long way to go.
I agree, though you might be forgetting the Gorillaz. I don't know how groundbreaking and revolutionary you'd consider their stuff. maybe just pretty cool and groundbreaking. Either way they deserve a mention for bringing some good vibes to iOS music.
As Bitwig is desktop software on tablet, and Surface Pro are tablets that are laptops, the stats you mention might be a changin'. Ill be watching the Bitwig site, those folks won't be keeping it to themselves when it happens.