100% agree. I was frustrated at first, because it does in theory so much that i would want from Live, but than it drops the ball on all the things Live actually does great.
I will upgrade my license from time to time to support them, but I’m really over Bitwig atm.
I am trying Ableton a bit… It’s unbelievable how much GUI performance matters. The sequencer view is way more fluent and lucid. I actually can see the notes there. Stationary scrolling just works. Also live recording is practical. If now the GUI performance was even a bit more fluent (like steady 60fps with 5K as a video game), and there was an inplace pianoroll in the sequencer, or a way to move notes around directly here, I would be already very happy. The onboard fx is very good, too. I also like how the GUI prevents floating windows just like Renoise. Ok, Renoise still is better here and its analyzer a lot faster and more precise. But this already seems to work better for me than Bitwig. And everything just seems to work. Groove templates very nice! 
Looks like every “base” functionality is in there. The concept seems to be “make it easy as possible”. I like that. You can load tracks of other songs simply by looking into the song file in the file browser.
If the basics work nice, I also can go without comfort stuff.
What do you think about Ableton in its current version?
i agree totally here.
There are small things that matter - in Bitwig - remembering piano roll position is very annoying (very clunky), whereas in Ableton Live - it is very smooth - and i can focus on making music or whatever - not on displaying the midi clip properly 
solo feature in ableton stock eq also matters to me (in Bitwig workflow of eq+ is a bit more complex) - there is no auto-focus option (when you click on band, eq soloes that band) - it’s great…
but sandboxing is crucial in my case… u-he integration - preset browser… are things why i choose bitwig when working on something more complex than simple instrumental.
Interesting. I couldn’t run ableton on my (older) machine at all, it would crash at starting. Bitwig runs smoothly without any problems.
Bitwig droning
So true, I tried Live a few months ago and went through same experience, no wonder it’s the preferred choice of DAW these days… but it’s not a tracker so that sucks 
lol 
Well, the shitstorm became quite annoying and meanless, also will not change anything. I would conclude the following for myself:
They build so many dependencies around the core system of Bitwig, like tons of languages, supporting 3 OS systems, pdc adjustment everywhere etc., so adding more core stuff has become too much effort for the size of the team. Seen in so many complex software projects.
Instead of reducing complexity here, they are actually still increasing it by addition questionable dependencies (eg. adding Japanese translation, or even German). So don’t expect big core additions anymore.
This might be even become worse due using “modern” agile development management methods, completely not focussing on the whole thing with a bird’s view, keep staying in a micro perspective.
That’s why they are adding fx and very specific / niche stuff instead, it is a lot easier to maintain.
I will now only buy an update, if the recent additions already are worth it for me, at the moment of buying. Won’t anymore give credit in advance and hoping new features i miss. Clearly this does not work anymore, since half of the development time of my last subscription has flown into building payable additions which I don’t have access to.
And then I really have to decide, if the current state is worth 170-200 euros…. I guess not. It should be around 100 then, in my opinion. Ok, maybe then in 3 years or so…?
Bitwig is a great daw which is missing some elemental core features, and this will not change anymore. Seems to be cemented like this. Too hard, too slow to implement.
There is no communication with the users at all, maybe with some few people like Polarity. They do not care about some kind of democratic voting for features. Because it might ruin their development efforts, it seems.
This is partly only based on assumptions, but sounds pretty logical to me. What do you think about it?
What I think about it: bitwig violated its own eula. That alone is not legally correct.
What a nice move! Spectral suite now is part of a new 4.4 update, included in the upgrade plan. I guess my faith is restored. What do you think about it?
That is a happy end
Did you try Delay+? I am stunned by it. It sounds extremely good, is very easy to setup, and seems to very useful for rooms, too. Sounds as good as Valhalla Delay, but you also can insert any fx into the feedback chain, so the possibilities are unlimited. This plus Bitwig’s mixing / routing capabilites makes it a total enjoyment.
Not so sure about Chorus+, Flanger+ and Phaser+. Those seem to provide only a very narrow, sweet spot parameter range… for very specific scenarios/genres only. Also I honestly can’t hear anything great here. The original fxs (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser device) have some issues, those are still not fixed. In the end, I still would rely on something more flexible like Melda…
But Delay+, if you did not try it yet, do that now! (Yes, I am late with this )
Yeah nice move… But still no need to upgrade for me (I’m still on 4.0) as this is really a niche thing. Like you I wait for core updates. For the price I could get some vsts that I can use on different daws.
Tested the beta 6 version yesterday and it seems Bitwig is getting more and more CPU demanding. On my i5 4460 under MXLinux it’s almost not usable anymore. GUI feels also notchy. Hope it get’s better in the official version, otherwise I’m done with it until I upgrade my PC at least.
Seems to be something strange of the project I tested. Actually beta 6 uses a bit less RAM and CPU usage is comparable to previous versions.
i’ve noticed increase in responsiveness, specially when loading plugins, it’s almost instant
They could reproduce it and it will be fixed.
Just updated Bitwig to v5 a couple’a days ago. Really pushing my style into new territory, simply due to the FM synthesis, granular capabilities, and the modular environment. Not as easy to compose in as Renoise, I honestly do not like piano-roll/horizontal composition. If feels wrong in comparison to Renoise. If these two software were actually a single DAW… No, I’m never going to purchase Redux and use it as a plugin.
@taktik, please? I mean, heck, lots of synthesis capabilities. I’m not asking for all of that, just some FM and granular stuff to add to the sampler’s capabilities. I can finagle the rest by hand. Your sequencer is the best around.
That being said, it would be nice to also have a bit more ‘Operator’ style composition tools (buzzes and repeats, etc.). I maximize the commands we have here already, but I can’t do quite as rapid work as the Operators. Less necessary than the expansion of Renoise’s sound, but would be wonderful.
Demo still says 4.4.10. Do you mean beta?