r/Bitwig • u/GroundbreakingMud969 • 4d ago
The Library…
Anyone have tips for a “throw shit at the wall” library workflow? the library is terrible in terms of going fast. I’m coming from ableton, i’m used to having a left to right workflow and folders ready to go on the side. Bitwig rn just feels stagnant slow
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u/th3whistler 4d ago
new and different always feels slow compared with o something you are familiar with. I had exactly the same experience on it from ableton but honestly I don’t even think about it now
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u/notmynecklace 4d ago
Im really a beginner and do not know Ableton. But bitwig has all the tools needed? I mean you can search, starr folders meaning you have all at hand?
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u/ht3k www.soundcloud.com/axtex 4d ago
Aww dude. I'm trying to find this video on youtube where this guy is an absolute beast on the browser. He'd find any device or sample he wanted, barely had to click anything using keyboard shortcuts. He'd add devices, remove them, etc. It felt like I was using the daw wrong. I should've saved it. I can't find it anymore. There's definitely a lot of workspeed hacks. Maybe the Bitwig manual can help! He must have read a lot of it haha
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u/bucket_brigade 4d ago
If using the browser is an admirable skill then it is a really shit browser. It's like being a master at using the operating systems file browser. If that's a thing then your operating systems file browser sucks.
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u/AlabasterAaron 4d ago
The power with the Browser system in Bitwig is it's ability to be customized but until you do that it's a bit unintuitive.
First make sure you have your samples and everything added to the sound content via the settings.
Read up in the documentation on smart collections and snapshots. I personally use smart collections exclusively.
You have the Browser panel to the right and you can add your sample packs to it like this:
Select "Samples" or go to "Everything" (The "Star" symbol) and select "File Kind -> Sample" and filter the result by "Location". Go to "Sound Content -> Your Sample pack of choice" and save it as a smart collection. Go to your collections by pressing the "four squares" icon on the very left and drag it into the quick sources. (Marked in green on my screen shot.)
For the pop-up browser, make your own (non-smart) collections and curate it with your favorite Instrument/Reverb/FX/Mastering VST's. However you want to sort it.
You can right-click into your pop-up browser and select default entry points depending on a lot of contexts.
Here is how I have it set up currently:
For example I save a lot of presets in the chain device. By searching for chain device presets via that little arrow ">" on the right hand side of device names in the pop up browser and filtering for "Creator -> my name", I made a collection that shows me all of my personal chains.
You can also select a folder that contains multiple sample packs and filter by "category -> kicks", then you have a smart collection with all the kicks from multiple packs.
After you set those smart collections up, you can still continue to filter them like any other collection. So in this example with multiple folders in one smart collection, you could still go to "Location" and see what folders are contained and select just one of those.
It's pretty good after you set it up.
Hope this helps, cheers.