What Renoise could learn from Bitwig

General Discussion
1

If i should be honest i struggle with downloading cracked bitwig (and buy it when will have money :-D).
There is A LOT OF things that renoise have and bitwig lacks. It is funny how everybody thought that Bitwig team will create full featured daw from scratch with version 1 (so i applause small Renoise team for creating what they´ve created). BUT there is also one HUGE thing that Renoise should borrow and it is way how Bitwig connects tools.
When i open this software i instantly create experimental beats because i connect things how they come under the hand. Why? Because you just click on lfo and select parameters to automatize (also you can create any connectable dsp very easily). It is way how just macros and doofers work in Renoise not LFO, Keytrackers etc. And it is bad IMHO because you have to got clear idea what you wanna automatize, selecting random parameters via selectable text feels somehow uncomfortable for me so i dont experiment :-). (BUT THANK YOU FOR PROBABILITY COMMAND)
So can we have some button that we will click on and then just select parameer and it will be assigned to metadevice? Maybe you can hold it and select device and its parameter from menu and it will be created and assigned automatically.

And what are other thing that Bitwig excels at? Native DSP!
I use linux so i wanna work in box, there are no very good plugin for mixing and Renoise has very outdated devices (mainly for dynamic, space and filters). On the other hand Bitwig has almost everything you need. I love its limiter or multiband reverb (can be created inside the instrument DSP in renoise but it can not be used again with different instrument, multi-layered doofer device would solve it) for example.

When 3.0 will come out every reviewer out there will thing about bitwig imho. And these are two things that Renoise lacks.
On the other hand it also lacks automatization VSTi gui by selecting parameters and Bitwig lacks it also, very uncommon in today DAW world :-).
Piano roll, clips etc. are discutable advantage but DSPs and assigning parameters are not and Renoise should update it before it goes out IMHO. Redux wont be good enough if it wont have usable filters etc.
I still trying convince myself that Renoise is better but Bitwig workflow is killer when you love to modulate things.

Do you agree? :slight_smile:
(sorry for my horrible english)

Btw. I am not somebody who create breakbeat so i dont love Renoise for its tracker interface. I love that you can see more tracks next to each other but Bitwig has it also basically. And creating chords and human feel is uncomfortable in renoise.
Renoise was winner for me until now for its modularity (i dont like ableton with external Max because it looks to cluettered and slow to me…)

But to be honest i believe that after more work with it (i worked with it for 5 hours maybe) i will find these missing features and i will be depressed and will go back to renoise (if i will download it).
But these two things (and i´ve forget about doofer output) that i´ve mentioned should be upgraded, trust mue .

And if i was Bit_arts :lol: i should say that renoise instrument editor and assigning of chains should be solved like this (one eg for more parameters etc.)

Btw. I ve realized one thing. Renoise 3 come with new instrument concept. Great but i think that it is biggest feature mainly for linux user because there is not enough free instruments. When i worked with windows i didnt find renoise instruments very interesting (mainly because weird workflow).
Now I am on linux so i use them but i dont have any good effect to apply so it feels like a halfway done to me.

(I know that renoise is a hobby project and developers can create what they want but it is interesting that they concentrated on something what nobody expected and not on something what a lot of people need)

(Just my though here, i have huge respect for Renoise Team)

2

But if you know what you want to automate a searchable list of parameters is hard to beat, especially since effects chains are stacked only horizontally/vertically. unlike in every screenshot the devs give of effects chains. No large diskbrowser anymore, the midi tab is really big, maybe it’s hidden there ^^

Never quite understood the hate towards renoise’ filters though, I’d just use an EQ if I’d need anything fancy.

Now something that everyone I have ever introduced renoise to did complain about, and I personally hate myself is the navigation through out the pattern. There really needs to be a rapid overview of different notes, I personally can only identify text if I read it.

3

Is it true that Bitwig is written in JAVA?

4

Who cares what it is written in? As long as you can make music with it don’t worry about that kind of stuff. Leave it for the fanboys who never release any music.

5

The user interface is, the engine likely not.

6

Sorry but JAVA is a antiquated runtime compiler which consumes lots of RAM, loads very slow and has only laggy GUIs.

7

Nope, because what I can see here is (excluding the sample start/loop params) basicly less powerful than even the current Renoise solution, as it doesn’t allow as many mixed modulators per target. Beside that it seems to have the same boundaries of envelopes and modulators to their target, as Renoise currently has. Or in a short sentence: It seems, this is exactly, what it should NOT look like.

I haven’t checked out Bitwig yet. And when I see things like this I already lose any motivation to do so.

8

You are right that renoise envelopes Čan be more intrresting But what i love about bitwig architecture is great modulation. One lfo Čan control anything inside sampler etc

9

You are right that renoise envelopes Čan be more intrresting But what i love about bitwig architecture is great modulation. One lfo Čan control anything inside sampler etc

Well, since it controls several things at the same time, I doubt it’s polyphonic so you can just use the lfo device.

10

Naah, you cant. You cant modulate detune, shape of waveform etc very well…

11

Why not? It’s not a mere click, no. (anyone want’s to write a tool to specifically “inject” those into an instrument?) :lol: Danoise’ tool is close to that.
And if you midi map you can completely skip the macros.

12

Stereotypes. :P (But often true.) Bitwig’s GUI (Java) is snappier and faster than most DAW’s, Renoise excluded (which in RC1 is not only ultra-responsive, but also loads incredibly fast). I’d never have guessed that the GUI uses Java if I had not known. The audio engine is not in Java.

Well, I like Renoise the way it is, though I’d love a clip launcher and the collaboration feature that Bitwig will supposedly have in 2.0. But that may be a long time and who knows what the Renoise team comes up with in the meantime.

13

Hi I appreciate your sharing.

My chakra can feel your euphoria through the cables. And you are probably improving your current setup… some day… :panic:/>/>
I cannot agree!!! Do agree would mean to download the bitwig demo and all… thats not gonna happen! :w00t:/>/>
Now after all … trying to… cheat on renoise… what if I like Bitwig better? aaaah but I can see in my third eye a combination of a
sequencer and renoise… the one which is actually a (virtual) modular CV system … Numerology … tried it years ago it was the
ultimate fun… the timeline (putting pattern in order) was bugged I remember… Looking for it later sorry I respond to an offtopic
thing … i am forced now to end this post and run to my car… :wacko:

EDIT Number 2: All I wrote before was guessing and nothing. :D Have Bitwig demo opened now. It explains itself! (and crashed lol)
I have the impression that they packed all DAWs in one together even don’t care to name the functions the same. (crashed again)
The instruments and effects are high quality too. Obviously It is made to run on the current and next generation of
Computers. (this Polysynth eats like a Diva)

(it crashes directly after opening)
Yes, I am definitely impressed by it. One can modulate different destinations with
one source. And vice versa. And now it comes… changing f.e. the speed of the
LFO. Should be enough stuff there to create amazing illusions.

PS: I checked it now: The virtual modular system (Numerology) is only for OSX.

Greetings

14

Yeah ok. Bitwig seems to use some Java->Cocoa wrapper, so it feels quite snappier. So it alsouses hardware acceleration because of Cocoa, which Renoise does not use, since Renoise still relies on Carbon (just like Logic).
So here, the speed comes from Cocoa and not from Java.

15

nope, bitwig’s UI is all rendered with cairo, which is superfast.
also, carbon has been deprecated for quite some time and iirc you can’t even deploy 64bit apps with it.
logic, being an apple product, absolutely is built on cocoa, and i bet renoise is too.

16

Bitwig has never crashed for me, midi works when i dont enable alsa jack bridge. Maybe because i dont use external instruments or fxs. It is interesting that so many people has crashes with it.

17

Yes you can do 64bit with carbon. At least Logic 9 uses Carbon. Maybe this changed with Logic X like it changed with Final Cut X.

18

What can Renoise learn from Bitwig…mmh…maybe how to build a basic-featured sampler? :wink:

19

But Renoise IS one big sampler.

Unless that was a joke about Bitwig’s poor sampler?

20

I doubt he was joking. Bitwig has automable loop start for example…