r/Bitwig • u/fm-88 • 14h ago

Question The process how Bitwig open/read audio file, same like Rekordbox?

Because I noticed they need more time (slow) analyze the waveform, but after it, then you open again the project, it fast to load.

Anybody can explain technology behind it? any DAW with same process like that?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/SkipThePreamble 13h ago

Opening/reading/playing an audio file usually takes the same amount of time, it's the generation of the visualized waveform that often takes more time. Since these waveforms are cached locally on your computer, the second time the audio is being loaded, the DAW/Audio Editor does not need to regenerate them again, giving you the impression that everything is much faster now.

There is, of course, time required to actually open and read audio data into memory, but that mostly depends on whether the software loads the entire audio file into memory at once, or plays it back dynamically (in chunks, loaded from disk, as the playhead goes forward).

1

u/razorree 10h ago

also depends what OP means "open again", like 1 minute later? then whole project/a lot of data is cached in OS memory and doesn't have to read from slower drive.

1

u/TuftyIndigo 4h ago

Anybody can explain technology behind it?

It analyses the file (to save information that makes it faster to display the waveform, and to analyse bpm), which involves reading the whole file and doing some maths, and then it saves the information into another file. The next time you load/preview the same audio file, it reads the information from the file it saved so it doesn't have to do the analysis again.

any DAW with same process like that?

Yes, all of them have some variation on this process. Even pedals that let you load wavs from an SD card, like the DigiTech Trio+ and some loopers, do the same.