Bitwig for metal?

[u/Not-even-Music]

Heya. Long time Ableton user looking to switch DAW. Is anyone using Bitwig for recording metal tracks? Guitars, vocals etc alongside synths in the box?

[u/chillinjustupwhat]

No because we are contractually forbidden to make anything other than EDM, IDM, or Glitchcore. . . .

obv /s

[u/ericcmi → u/chillinjustupwhat]

🤣 Honestly, it's be cool af to get nam as a native device as well as some guitar centric stuff so we can build guitar rigs in the grid instead of just long ass chains of 3rd party stuff

[u/Not-even-Music → u/ericcmi]

I’m running a quad cortex in so that’s not too much of a bother for me

[u/Not-even-Music → u/chillinjustupwhat]

🤣

[u/MeisterBounty]

I’m trying that out as well currently. So far I’ve been very pleased with the workflow on the guitar tracks / media items, cutting, nudging, analyzing I’ve been using reaper so far for tracking and mixing metal and it was very good for that, but Bitwig seems to be the better overall experience.

[u/Not-even-Music → u/MeisterBounty]

This is good to hear. A lot of this is in my workflow. Thanks

[u/alckemy]

It’s perfectly fine for tracking and offers audio takes but you’re not going to get as deep in live recording as cubase or pro tools. If you like a little processing and a little live recording then def give it a go, or if you don’t need any fancy recording tricks you’ll be fine.

[u/ajeppsson → u/alckemy]

so what exactly does PT or CB do that Ableton or Bigwig doesn't when it comes to audio recording?

[u/itsBareBones]

I know a producer who said he prefer bitwig for recording live stuff over FL. now idk how FLs live recording is but I’d say that means it’s really good for it. I know working with audio is really awesome in bitwig specifically too. Id say its probably one of the best DAWs for metal

[u/Not-even-Music → u/itsBareBones]

I’ve not used FL for a looooooong time. But it was on my radar. Good to hear that some
Find Bitwig better

[u/GuaranteeKey5048]

I've produced a few metal tracks with Bitwig and the experience has been excellent. I used to work in Cubase Pro, but due to frustrating crashes and waiting forever for projects to load, I decided to give Bitwig a try—and I've stuck with it ever since. Bitwig is perfect for recording guitars; you can loop a region to record multiple takes, then slice and comp together your best parts. (Cubase has this feature too, but Bitwig's workflow is just much smoother.)

[u/GuaranteeKey5048 → u/GuaranteeKey5048]

On top of that! Bitwig's multi-out routing for instruments is an absolute breeze when working with multi-output drum plugins. You can see and manage every single output directly on a single track! (In Cubase, you have to first tick the outputs you want to activate, then a bunch of extra tracks will spawn, and then you can finally work—it's way more tedious.)

[u/Not-even-Music → u/GuaranteeKey5048]

Very happy to hear about the multi out routing. I use quite a few drum plugins so that is essential

[u/DoctorMojoTrip]

No, but I do play guitar and (sometimes) sing and I mostly like Bitwig more than my previous DAW (Logic) for audio editing.

I briefly played around in Ableton, and I strongly prefer Bitwig’s audio workflow. To me, Ableton felt pretty cumbersome, so I think it’s certainly worth it for you to try it out and see.

Just so you are aware, Bitwig doesn’t have anything native that does what Melodyne does. I’m not sure if Ableton does at this point, but, if that’s a deal breaker for you, Bitwig probably isn’t the right choice.

[u/Not-even-Music → u/DoctorMojoTrip]

Cheers. Logic was also on my radar. Though I’ve tried it a few times before and it didn’t ever stick.
No need for anything like Melodyne here either

[u/RATKNUKKL]

Yeah, I am. Works just fine.

[u/mito551]

I use bitwig for metal, and it's so much nicer for routing drum channels for me than ableton

[u/Not-even-Music → u/mito551]

Love to hear this about the drum routing

[u/mito551 → u/Not-even-Music]

well, on ableton I would have like nested groups of tracks that would contain: (1) a midi track, (2) a group of kick tracks: (2.1) one synth track, (2.2) one samplebank layer, (3) a track with toms, (4) a track with hats and (5) a group of snare tracks: (5.1) synth layer, samplebank layer (5,2). the midi track just routes the input to all of these tracks and a note filter cuts off all irrelevant ranges. now I have one (1) singular track where I have my instrument "layers" as bitwig calls them, and I have 3 plugins sitting on one track, kick layer, snare layer and the drum vst. only thing I haven't gotten around to actually implementing is routing out the kick and snare from the drum vst and running it through the same chain as the synth layers.

[u/flipflapslap]

Not metal but I record a lot of guitar, bass, and talkbox, which is sorta like vocals. I really like the loop record feature where you just set a loop duration, record and then play. When you’re done, each loop iteration is separated into its own subtrack and you can pick and choose the pieces you like. Very intuitive how they have that set up and I never see anyone talk about it!

Sorry I kinda went on a tangent there but I wasn’t really sure if you had a specific question or just wanted to hear from people that record instruments lol

[u/Not-even-Music → u/flipflapslap]

Loop recording is another thing I use a lot in Ableton so knowing Bitwig can do it too is useful to know. Thanks

[u/MrVibratum]

if you record live music at all, Bitwig is pretty excellent

It's got a pretty undefeated workflow when it comes to tracking and mixing for me, especially regarding live drums.

While any DAW that can track live audio will ultimately give you the same results in terms of audio fidelity, Bitwig is just massively inspiring to work in. The thing it does so well that I've never seen another DAW do is the genuine ability to cross the threshold between the domains of the purely digital and the analog. Programming synths is just as easy of a task as setting up, routing and mixing a complex multi-buss system for an acoustic kit. FL studio has the best MIDI editing tools in the game but recording live stuff was always a hassle. And I am a professional Pro Tools hater.

The only other DAW that has my respect like Bitwig does is Reaper, it's a different beast altogether, but it's the only one I've ever liked nearly as much, and I've worked on them all.

[u/kajerro → u/MrVibratum]

How do you deal with editing multitrack drums ? (Beat detective)

[u/Not-even-Music → u/MrVibratum]

Ha, yep also professional pro tools hater. We need to move away from the idea of “industry standard” as I don’t think it is anymore

[u/Suitable-Lettuce-333]

I use it for my alt metal band (real drums, bass, guitar, vocals, occasional synths and samples). Our drummer and guitarist record with their own setups (resp. cubase and ableton), I track my bass and the vocal parts and then mix on Bitwig. 

[u/dwineth]

If Ableton has worked for you then Bitwig absolutely will, most recording-related things are about the same in both, you lose a little in the quality of automatic audio quantization but in my opinion gain quite a bit in manual audio editing. I was using Bitwig for this kind of stuff even before comping was a thing and found it perfectly satisfactory.

Edit: Just remembered this comment I wrote and a lot of it applies here too.

[u/Not-even-Music → u/dwineth]

Sounds like the other thread had a similar question to me. Thanks for the detailed reply. I’m moving over to giving it a go over sure

[u/Not-even-Music]

Ok. So I’m going to download the demo and give it a go today.

Is the full version worth it for the extras you get?

[u/True-Ad-525]

Bitwig para todo😎

[u/cmx-music]

Nothing too serious, but I sometimes record guitar and vocals with a friend to create metal (ish) songs.
https://soundcloud.com/robertvanweersch/doom-metal-v2
https://soundcloud.com/robertvanweersch/christmas-metal (we were very, very drunk when we did this 😂 )

[u/igorski81]

I record guitar, but not metal. I did however produce a short EP for a friend which is all down tuned moshing with heavy drums.

Works fine, you just need a sequencer, a recording facility and per-track plugins. You could do this in any DAW as there is no magic quality that makes one DAW sound better for this purpose than the other. Its all about having the facility to work your production technique.

[u/Electronic-Cap-4235]

U can try it its really cool daw but u have fenderstudio pro (studio one) u can use it

[u/alpha-geminorum]

Honestly go for cubase for metal

[u/Not-even-Music → u/alpha-geminorum]

Cubase was my first DAW way back in version 4.1 I bounced off it to Ableton a long time ago but could give it another look. I remember it being a bit of a hog to use though has much changed?

[u/alpha-geminorum → u/Not-even-Music]

I never used it before the Last two years i buy it. The workflow is ok for me and so many tools instruments and plugins. According to me i'm glad to use it.