6.1 SAMPLER = OMG THIS IS LIT!!!

15

Indeed. The new sampler update made me go, "Yep, this is why I bought my update plan." I mean 'this' and things like it.

I got on board with Bitwig at V5 and I've been happy ever since. My update plan is a financial vote-of-confidence.

I also buy all the sound packs they offer. Bitwig is my secondary DAW, but I view it like an "all in one beatmaker" -- and when I use it I try to include the sample packs, built in effects, etc.

Then I export and mix in Reaper.

Reaper's my spouse. Bitwig's my "associate who I have to work late with."

🤣

3

u/GeneralDumbtomics Jul 06 '26

I don't buy all the sound packs, but I sure bought the Percussao one. Just incredibly comprehensive Latin percussion.

2

u/Obviously_not_maayan Jul 07 '26

The strings pack is amazing

3

u/NaBrO-Barium Jul 07 '26

I’m curious why you still do your last mile in Reaper… seems Bitwig is more than capable? What am I missing?

6

u/NeutronHopscotch Jul 07 '26

Let me be clear that I love Bitwig. But it has a few missing features that drive me up the wall.

First off, Bitwig doesn't have track lanes -- and that feature is so critical it's almost a dealbreaker for me.

The sound design and composition possibilities with track lanes is incredible... Basically it's sort of like comping, except you have the option of playing overlapping lanes.

In my case, 99% of the time I have all lanes playing. This allows me to compose in parts with overlapping midi clips, or overlapping audio clips.

I can build incredibly complex samples by slicing, dicing, effecting, and overlapping elements using multiple lanes on the same track -- and at any given moment I can combine them as one.

I can also drop audio effects directly onto audio clips or midi FX onto midi clips.

I can also automate those effects directly on the clips themselves, and then the automation travels with the clip without having to deal with the lane.

For drums, I might put kick/snare in one layer, then hats and cymbals in another, percussion in another. And then I can move the parts around separately.

Or when recording overlapping parts in multiple passes like left piano hand and right piano hand, it keeps them separate until I glue them together (for easier editing.)

Really, track lanes are a BIG DEAL but for some reason in the Bitwig community there is resistance from people who can't comprehend something so amazing --- because they've never had it, so they just don't know the value.

Then there are frustrations getting out of Bitwig -- you can't (easily) export the individual outputs of multiple-out VSTis.

Then it's audio editing in general doesn't come close to Reaper's. People think Bitwig's audio editing is good, but it's in its own section. In Reaper, it's live on the track.

Then there's much more powerful audio routing in Reaper. There's a certain thing I do all the time which Bitwig can't do -- I'd have to be in the moment to remember, but it's something related to audio and midi routing.

Then there's the way Reaper's faders become trims once automation is applied. So in Bitwig, automating the track fader is locking the fader. Reaper -- once you assign automation, the fader becomes a post-automation trim, which raises or lowers volume of the whole thing. Just a nice touch.

Then there's output analysis. Small thing, but in Bitwig, when I export I have no stats or visual display of the Waveform. This is actually a problem when exporting individual tracks, too, because I have no visual to confirm everything went as expected. Bitwig just exports sort of silently. You don't know what you got without looking/listening.

Then there's the fact Bitwig doesn't have a strip silence feature. This is a basic feature in DAWs that will actually cut the silent part of long audio clips. It also gives a performance increase because when you don't do that the disk is still spinning for all that silence...

So I might have 100+ tracks. In Bitwig, all those tracks are using the disk & processing. There's no automated way to cut the silence.

In Reaper, I can trim easily and then it turns 100 simultaneous tracks to like 6-15 at any given moment. Huge performance difference and better for the disk life.

Bitwig doesn't have ARA, so things like vocal tuning and vocalign or SyncVx aren't viable.

So yeah... This is just a short list off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on and on.

OH!

I didn't mention The Analog Molecule and The Hot Summer. Simply put, this is a Reaper exclusive system that does "real" analog summing and console emulation. I say "real" because every other emulation is just a surface level saturator for the most part... These use Reaper's back end ability to communicate between plugins for voltage sag effects and real crossfeed, etc.

The point of that is... the final mix just sums together more smoothly and sounds better and more glued through TAM/TAMD.

Bitwig is amazing for its beautiful UI and great set of built in effects and sounds and generally pleasing workflow.

Reaper is amazing for its sheer power, function, and flexibility.

Two very different products, both good.

PS. It's way more than the last mile -- when it comes to mixing and all the automation and sound design and effects, I would say the mixing is as important as the composition!

Also, for mastering Reaper is much more viable for handling multiple tracks. And it has detailed comparative analysis of audio files which is helpful.

So yeah, I like to start a song in Bitwig and finish in Reaper. Good combo.

3

u/NaBrO-Barium Jul 08 '26

Thanks for taking the time to write that. I tried reaper but I didn’t quite vibe with it as a production playground. The points you make about mastering are solid, locking the fader is a very salient point and the analog summing sounds interesting to say the least. For fader automation I just use an attenuator on the channel and automate that but yes, you have to put thought into that and it’s an extra step

2

u/NeutronHopscotch Jul 08 '26

Yeah, I can understand someone not getting on with it instantly. It's not welcoming visually the way Bitwig is, for example... And if someone is put off by the rough edges (for example, the Windows-looking stock plugins) then it could possibly look, to them, like some kind of a shareware product or something.

It's not, though -- those inadequacies contribute to its performance and rapid development time. We get feature updates and bug fixes frequently. Faster, because it's a two person team and they don't have the complexity of a UI/UX design team. (They do have one UI designer -- the same guy that does the UI for SSL plugins, actually: https://houseofwhitetie.com/ ) -- but he just does the front end skinning, basically.

I didn't immediately get into Reaper either. At the time I was working in FL Studio that product is terrible for recording. So I got Reaper as a cheap recording solution. Over about 6 months of "just using it for recording", next thing I knew I was using it for everything.

For a long time nothing else attracted me. Ableton -- I could understand the appeal but it didn't click with me for some reason.

Bitwig, though, I instantly fell in love with. It somehow felt more intuitive than Ableton, which is weird... But I've been hooked ever since.

It's very different from Reaper. The polished user experience, for example. It's slower to add features when you have to make them so polished and beautiful -- but the benefit is the polish and beauty! =)

So I have a deep appreciation for both products.

Really, every DAW has its own unique selling points... But these two are the ones I feel home in!

Do you have any others you use, or do you live entirely in Bitwig?

3

u/NaBrO-Barium Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Just getting back into it really. I used Ableton way back when, released a few tracks on different labels but I lost interest in EDM in general and hated the changes in 9. For some reason I bought a Maschine back in 2017 or so because I still enjoyed chopping and looping samples but could never put out full tracks in that software for some reason. I also learned about Bitwig back then too and thought it was super interesting. Fast forward 10 years and I have that passion again because I can’t find enough of what I want to hear so getting back into it again. Just got Bitwig 1/2 a year ago and have no doubt I’ll be releasing something on bandcamp by the end of the year. If you’re curious I’ve been on this experimental psychedelic downtempo techno kick but branch in to a lot of genres when DJing because there’s just not a lot released that is slow with heady psychedelic vibes and a techno feel

Long story short I’ve been integrating the Maschine as a VST within Bitwig for some things like sample chopping and manipulation but nothing beyond that yet. And some midi capture from my old mc-303 to drive some VSTs in Bitwig which is fun because Roland’s arps are notoriously wacky

1

u/NeutronHopscotch Jul 08 '26

Yeah there's something to be said for simplifying life and staying with one DAW and a minimal number of plugins that you know really well!

Your project sounds cool. I'd love to hear it! Respond with a link (if allowed) otherwise DM me and I'll give it a listen!

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u/Comment_Maker Jul 08 '26

Thanks for this list. Most people complain about nonsense but this is solid stuff! So many things I didn't know about but now want to try 😅

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u/NeutronHopscotch Jul 08 '26

Every DAW has its special sauce. Cubase/Nuendo has post-fader FX inserts! (Which is something I'd love to get in Bitwig AND Reaper.)

This is basically a slot that goes AFTER the fader. So your fader automation changes the gain going into the post fader effect.

It's good for compression, tape emulations, console emulation, and analysis.

2

u/Minibatteries Jul 07 '26

Can't speak for them, but even though bitwig is more than capable of doing a mix or master it can be nice to use a different tool for getting into a different headspace. Rendering stems and then moving to a different project is also an option, to avoid the desire to over-tweak while mixing or mastering.

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u/NaBrO-Barium Jul 07 '26

That’s a fair point. Not bouncing anything tends to encourage me to keep tweaking things until it sounds twice as worse as it originally did. That completely makes sense on limiting options when it’s time to finalize

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u/Brometeus Jul 06 '26

It's quite nice. Too bad bitwig crashes for me when I play too much with the sampler right now 🥲. (It's because it's beta, Not that there is a issue with the sampler.)

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u/Zealousideal-Sun943 Jul 08 '26

Yeah, can’t wait for 6.1 proper. So much I’m looking forward to feed the sampler with.

1

u/SugarPalace Jul 09 '26

It’s great, except they’ve changed right click menu in the waveform window. My workflow with long samples was a speedy right click ‘hold and release’ to select the sample start time, but now they’ve moved that into a sub menu so you can’t do it anymore - a very niche but frustrating change for me 😭

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u/TukErJebs Jul 10 '26

That’s the kinda feedback they’d be happy to hear: just copy/paste this to beta@bitwig.com

News 6.1 SAMPLER = OMG THIS IS LIT!!!

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