in renoise 3 we can’t even use separate tracks anymore when effects are tied to instruments …
Nice move developers
I tried the demo yesterday on Linux. Conclusion: It doesn’t even work.
First of all, their only distribution method on Linux is .deb, which is distro-specific. It’s not even a good distro-specific way of doing packaging because the default app for handling .deb packages downloaded to your hard drive does not even try to auto-install dependencies! On Arch Linux, I had to install Bitwig by installing a second package manager, dpkg, which is all kinds of terrible. I also had to force it to skip the dependency check because the dependencies were already fulfilled by my main package manager, pacman. While Renoise’s distribution on Linux could be made better (perhaps using Nixstaller or a similar program to generate an installer), at least it respects the multitude of Linux distros out there.
Next, when I opened the program, my speakers suddenly started emitting static. This was even before I was asked to set up the audio settings. All audio across the whole system stopped working. I tried opening Renoise to see if I could get audio. Nothing. I was forced to reboot to get working sound again.
After that, I tried getting it to recognize my rather basic Korg microKEY-37. Clicking auto-detect did nothing. I selected the “Generic MIDI Keyboard” from the list and the resulting entry in the devices list greeted me with a question mark. I added an instrument clip, hit Record and Play and tried mashing keys on the keyboard but nothing.
MIDI support and, well, being able to play audio, are among the most basic functions of a DAW and Bitwig on Linux fails at both of these somehow. Not only that, but Bitwig actually breaks my system until reboot! I have been using Linux for many years now and Bitwig is literally the first program I’ve used that has totally broken system audio.
Renoise on Linux had working audio out of the box. That’s why I bought it (also Renoise had a super cheap price tag).
Edit: Found the MIDI device. It was hiding at the bottom of the big drop-down list full of blank entries. Audio still broken though. Gotta reboot now.
My experiences after 4th day:
Still awesome GUI and nice workflow. Some serious bugs like undo suddenly not working (argh!).
Some basic features like track grouping and multi vst output are also missing, but according to forum devs will deliver those during the next bugfix updates
Overall impression: pretty stripped down feature set for the initial release - especially in relation to the high price. The release still feels like a beta version.
Really stupid: demo version doesn’t allow to save projects. Nonetheless, I assume that after a while this DAW will be one of the best for electronic music production.
Renoise is still much more stable and mature and provides a lot of features that Bitwig won’t have until version 2++.
But what’s great about Bitwig are those features that are missing in Renoise: wav tracks, multiple automation envelope lanes at once, real multi monitor support.
How I wish Renoise would’ve also gone this route … but it is like it is.
Yeah, but truth be told, Renoise also doesn’t provide any integration into linux package managers by default. You have to install it manually via installer script, which is messy at best ( or make your own package before installing ). You will rarely see proprietary and commercial software make it into official repositories of any distribution anyways. You use Arch Linux, why do you care about the distribution method so much, when you can easily extract the .deb packages and fix stuff yourself? Not like we would download a tarball from a website and just install it via pacman anyway. I also use Arch and Bitwig is already in the AUR, so no need to worry about anything.
I agree that in a perfect world there should be support for all or at least most major distibutions and package management systems. However, given the amount of different distributions and possible configurations on Linux, that’s probably asking too much right now. I guess we are lucky we are finally given some attention at all if you consider the market share of linux (let alone of those distros that are not Ubuntu)
From a business perspective I understand that most companies that provide commercial software for linux only officially support Ubuntu. It’s just too much to handle for developers of proprietary software that due to licensing issues etc. can not simply rely on the community to fix stuff and prepare/provide packages, sort out package names of depencies and so on.
Do you use version 1.0.3 ? Since that update Bitwig works very well for me…
Distro agnosticism is better than distro-specific integration that only supports a few distros.
I use Arch Linux because I want rolling-release updates for KDE and other software. Just because Arch leans toward manual configuration for solving problems does not necessarily mean that I enjoy spending an entire day getting a piece of software to work. A tar.gz archive is just much easier to work with when it comes to doing things manually.
There should never be a thing that is only supporting “four” or so distros. It’s better for interoperability if new distros emerge and are immediately compatible with third-party software.
Distro specifics are not the domain of third party software developers, and they usually aren’t cause for concern. If you look at any of the Linux game ports done by Ryan C. Gordon you’ll notice that they are all packaged using a self-contained installer and ship the necessary libraries, and that these binaries work on a wide range of distros simply by building on a “lowest common denominator” machine with some minimum version of the GNU C runtime libraries.
Nixstaller produces self-contained installer binaries that will do dependency checks and even integrate with the user’s package manager (including support for pacman). I highly recommend it for third-party Linux software distribution until Listaller becomes ready to use. Other options include MojoSetup and InstallAnywhere.
I think the only “real” problem related to cross-distro compatibility is buggy versions of libraries shipped by some distros. I don’t think this is any different from, say, new versions of Windows breaking compatibility with old applications, or the havoc caused by OS X Mavericks.
I also think a lot of developers new to Linux spend too much time overreacting to the multitude of distros and desktop environments, something which they have not seen before in a OS, without realizing that there are generalized methods of porting to and distributing for Linux that are distro/DE-agnostic.
Yes, this is 1.0.3. However, I discovered that the audio issue only occurs on my SoundBlaster card… strangely enough. If I use the integrated audio it works fine. I only used that SoundBlaster for hardware MIDI synth for old Klik & Play games so while I’m at it I’ll go ahead and reconfigure my system for software synth.
I have, however, also discovered that vst-bridge is currently having issues with Bitwig (sound skipping, audio engine resetting and then forgetting VST parameters), so it’s still not ready for general use. On Renoise, vst-bridge works fine.
Muhaha, I had basically the same issues as Dattorz. After the hazzle it works but I’m asking myself, what I’d use it for. I’m about to sell my Live - license, because I never finish “projects” with it (in contrast to Renoise time) so why I would use a clone ? Maybe mixing, but Ardour would do that well enough.
After I started it, the RAM usage was on 95% (8 gb), even after I quitted. Had to restart … nicely polished piece of software 
BTW : Has vst-bridge an advantage over fsthost ? Does every VSTi work with vst-bridge ? Thanks for the info.
I tried it out. It’s too mouse-clicky for me.
If you use Renoise as opposed to (say) Ableton Live, how is Bitwig supposed to be a game-changer?
Quit procrastinating and make some music 
fsthost is a VST host. vst-bridge is a wrapper that works with your existing DAW. With vst-bridge, all you have to do is compile and install it, then run vst-bridge-maker once for each VST to generate .so files that will be seen by the DAW and then it Just Works™. No need to mess with extra configuration or an additional sound server.
As far as compatibility goes, it mostly depends on Wine. If the VST itself can’t run under Wine, it won’t work under vst-bridge either. Before you buy a VST, always try the demo first. Watch out for VSTs with DRM schemes that aren’t compatible with Wine. I’ve tried plugins by Image-Line, Valhalla DSP, and various freeware VSTs on the Internet and they all work, more or less.
Is anyone here able to route midi or audio from renoise into bitwig via JACK? I can select “renose” as an Input Device and route the audio into Bitwig, but it doesn’t actually record anything…
I fucking knew it…
fixed
[left]tried the demo during the last days but couldn’t get it to output sound without heavy crackling on my macbook pro ( tried my ni audio2 usb-interface and the internal soundcard). when using renoise, logic pro x and tracktion 5 i do not have this problem - strange 
[/left]
Hmm, perhaps that is why in only costs 400 $ 
Who needs audio if you have histogram based automation ?
you could have just used the package from Arch User Repository
on a side note renoise-demo is available from AUR as well.
Thanks for the heads up man. I installed it. The fabfilter - plugins seem to work fine. Synthmaster2 does not (massive GUI issues, perhaps I have to change some configs). But Synthmaster2 (32 bit, though) works with fsthost. Having synths started that way is better anyway, because midi routing is easier through jack 