# Ableton or Bitwig?



## dylanmixer (Mar 17, 2022)

I'm a heavy Cubase user, however looking to branch out and learn a secondary DAW primarily for electronic music making. Now, there's no reason I can't use Cubase for this, and I HAVE been using Cubase for this for some time now. But I'm hoping learning another DAW may open up some creativity and new workflow ideas I previously didn't have. Just to be clear, I'm not switching from Cubase. Cubase will always be home, and my main money maker. But which of these DAW's would be a nice compliment to know how to use alongside of it?


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## cel4145 (Mar 17, 2022)

As a newish Bitwig user, I don't know enough about Ableton or Cubase to advise you. 

However, you can get Bitwig 8 track for free


You are limited to smaller projects compared to the Studio version (there is also a 16 track version) with a slightly smaller subset of features. See this comparison





Feature List 8-Track | Bitwig







www.bitwig.com





However, a little-known fact is that if you have 8 track version, you can switch back and forth between it and the demo version which is full-blown studio and lasts for 30 days. You just can't save anything when you are using the demo. 

So this is a good way to get 8 track, then register for the demo, and see what you think.


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## ThisFellowPlayingTheCello (Mar 17, 2022)

cel4145 said:


> As a newish Bitwig user, I don't know enough about Ableton or Cubase to advise you.
> 
> However, you can get Bitwig 8 track for free
> 
> ...



Doesn't look like it's suppose to be for more than 1 person?
Anyway. There's also the option to purchase something cheap on pluginboutique this month.
Then you will also get bitwig 8 track for free.


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## cel4145 (Mar 17, 2022)

ThisFellowPlayingTheCello said:


> Doesn't look like it's suppose to be for more than 1 person?
> Anyway. There's also the option to purchase something cheap on pluginboutique this month.
> Then you will also get bitwig 8 track for free.


 You can't even buy Bitwig 8 track edition from Bitwig. It's a giveaway edition.


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## Pier (Mar 17, 2022)

I have a lot of experience with both. I used Ableton Live for years and then switched to Bitwig about 2 years ago.

The TLDR is that Live is a much more mature and polished product. Bitwig is in many aspects a better Live than Live itself but, even though it's a 10 year old product, it remains unpolished in many aspects and is missing many bread a butter features. Ableton is a big company and Bitwig is really the product of a tiny group of extremely talented hackers.

Bitwig is really superior in terms of creative sound design features. The concept of the DAW as a modular environment started in Live, but Bitwig really took it to the next level. Stuff like modulators, midi FX, the Grid for audio and midi, etc. If you're looking for a sound design playground for doing generative music or integrating it with a hardware modular system get Bitwig, no questions asked.

You can do so many things unheard of in any other DAW. Stuff like introducing any number of effects in the delay feedback path. Even third party VST effects. Or creating your own reverb in the grid using all pass filters. Or using a resonator effect and modulate it with the midi note. Really, the sky's the limit.

But once you get outside of this experimental use case where Bitwig really shines, you will start hitting all sorts of issues. To give you an example, Bitwig doesn't show you velocities in the piano roll by default and won't let you save default settings either. Every time you open a midi clip in a new track, you have to tell Bitwig to show you the velocities. Every single fucking time. Same thing with the MIDI CC lanes. Or you want to draw automation for a long segment (say 1 minute) and the UI can't keep up with you at times. There are plenty of UX workflow gotchas like this.

Live has midi and audio comping, scale mode, etc. Plenty of features that make your life much easier. Even though it doesn't have the amazing ideas introduced in Bitwig, the features it does have are more solid and polished.

In terms of devices, personally I prefer Bitwig's devices. I think the synths and effects are really top notch. Live has good devices too, and stuff like the glue compressor which some people swear by. Bitwig has many more midi effects than Live which are great for all sorts of stuff. Arps, bouncing notes, strum notes, etc.

Live has Max4Live which is extremely powerful, really you can build anything you want with it like any DSP stuff with GEN, or synths, or plugins... but it has quite a learning curve and is not nearly as intuitive as using The Grid.

Personally, if I had to pick one of those to actually produce music I'd go with Live, assuming you're ok with its loop workflow based on tiny bits of audio and midi. The arrangement view is pretty meh compared to Cubase or Logic. Really, don't even pretend to write anything orchestral with it (nor with Bitwig). If you just want to experiment with sound design, generative music, modular sounds, etc, I'd go with Bitwig.

Of course all this is just my personal opinion. Let me know if there's any other aspect you'd like me develop.

I'll tell you something else. I'm so frustrated with both Live and Bitwig regarding actually writing and finishing music that I bought Cubase 12 yesterday 😂


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## vitocorleone123 (Mar 17, 2022)

Waveform can do a "Bitwig Lite" in many ways, but not nearly as broad or as deep from what I can tell (or as seamlessly). But it also has many of those so-called bread and butter features, as well. However, it doesn't come with any notable effects or synths in my opinion (thus it's lower cost for the basic Pro version) - 3rd party stuff is extremely highly recommended. Tracktion has been around very nearly as long as Ableton has.


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## doctoremmet (Mar 18, 2022)

I love Ableton Live. Its devices and mod capabilities are great. I also use Cubase 12 for orchestral midi.


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## arcy (Mar 18, 2022)

Ableton user here. I tried Bitwig too. For me, Ableton wins for the minimalistic UI (cleaner and more focused), for the ecosystem, third party m4live patches, hardware integration (especially the workflow with Push and Novation Launchpad), the better sounding library and, for me, a better overall plugins sound quality (especially modulation and saturation fx).
Bitwig seems a big "multi-tracked synth" for generative, experimental and ambient music. Also, I don't like Bitwig license policy...even if the software doesn't stop working if you don't renew your license, it seems like an "annual subscription".


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## Sunny Schramm (Mar 18, 2022)

Both companies offer full trial-versions of their products. just check em out by yourself und choose then


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## cedricm (Mar 18, 2022)

dylanmixer said:


> I'm a heavy Cubase user, however looking to branch out and learn a secondary DAW primarily for electronic music making. Now, there's no reason I can't use Cubase for this, and I HAVE been using Cubase for this for some time now. But I'm hoping learning another DAW may open up some creativity and new workflow ideas I previously didn't have. Just to be clear, I'm not switching from Cubase. Cubase will always be home, and my main money maker. But which of these DAW's would be a nice compliment to know how to use alongside of it?


Bitwig is more innovative than Live in my opinion, way ahead with its modulation system, and does an impressive job of importing and translating Live projects.

but Ableton is the 900 pounds gorilla and it has Max in its Suite version, although you probably won't use it for EM.

Btw I'm sure you can get a trial version of Live Suite, I'm almost sure you can get a Bitwig Studio trial, so you can decide for yourself.


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## eNGee (Mar 18, 2022)

I think Pier has explained it well. I agree about 90% with him. However, it is really difficult to choose one of them because although they are similar in workflow and concept, there are still important differences.

Personally I have both and like them both. I tend though to prefer Live slightly more because I like its devices more. I also like the GUI and design more (I like the grey colour because I'm depressed most of the times :hihi: Just kidding, but I think Live is more elegant). 

Pier has concluded right IMO. So, I won't repeat! But there are some points you might like more in Bitwig and vice versa.

What I like in Bitwig is the shortcuts. The shortcuts are logical, so you don't need to memorise them. For example, 'm' for mixer, 'd' for device, 'e' for editor ...etc. The pen tools I also like more in Bitiwg. They are similar to the ones in Cubase vs Live only 'b' shortcut for Pen. Bitwig has a better handling of windows (panes) and you don't need two windows (sessions and arrangement).

What I like in Live is I can extract a 'groove' from a drums and apply it on anything I want. I can also browse the grooves to apply on my drums. Fantastic! The contents are much better IMO. The drums kits are great while the synths (especially Operator and Wavetable) are really from the best out there (much better than in Bitwig IMO). There are also physical modelling synths which I find very useful: Collision, Tension and Electric by AAS. 
The markers in the arrangement view are better in Live, so I like to organise my arrangement better in Live.

However, Bitwig has a friendlier support because they are small company. You feel them like u-he and other small companies. They are faster in response as well and easier to contact.

Oh, and I don't like M4L devices in general because they eat a lot of CPU (it is better now with v11 though). Bitwig has a nicer solution (the Grid) IMO when you get deeper in synthesis.

You will discover more and more differences between the two DAWs with time. So, in the end it depends on what you find more useful for you. 

Personally, if I must choose one of them, I would choose Live


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## grabauf (Mar 18, 2022)

Sunny Schramm said:


> Both companies offer full trial-versions of their products. just check em out by yourself und choose then


Though it doesn't make the decision easier. 
I jumped on the Bitwig train, because of the endless possibilites of the modulators, the grid etc.; but I miss some of Ableton's functionality like scale mode/scale folding in the piano roll.


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## HeliaVox (Mar 18, 2022)

It's funny that people like the GUI of Live better. It's one of the main reasons why I can't use it. I like Bitwig so much, I use it as my main DAW. Are there issues? Yes, but very DAW has it's own drawbacks. Just keep in mind that Bitwig doesn't do Video at all, so for any type of film scoring, you'll have to look elsewhere. Now that you've taken the leap, you really want to hop on Polarity's Bitwig discord. They're a great bunch of reubins over there.


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## grabauf (Mar 18, 2022)

HeliaVox said:


> It's funny that people like the GUI of Live better. It's one of the main reasons why I can't use it. I like Bitwig so much, I use it as my main DAW. Are there issues? Yes, but very DAW has it's own drawbacks. Just keep in mind that Bitwig doesn't do Video at all, so for any type of film scoring, you'll have to look elsewhere. Now that you've taken the leap, you really want to hop on Polarity's Bitwig discord. They're a great bunch of reubins over there.



+1 for Polarity


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## Pier (Mar 18, 2022)

HeliaVox said:


> It's funny that people like the GUI of Live better. It's one of the main reasons why I can't use it.


You mean in terms of aesthetics or usability or... ?


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## Nate Johnson (Mar 18, 2022)

I’ve had both but finally ditched Bitwig and stuck with Live. Its cleaner and simpler for my tastes. Bitwig is innovative alright, but I just could not get along with certain (key) parts of the workflow. 

Both are worth exploring in depth and either will certainly open your mind, especially coming from ‘straight n simple’ linear sequencing DAWs like Cubase/Logic/Pro Tools/etc


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## Pier (Mar 18, 2022)

If you just want to noodle around and get out of the Cubase mindset for a bit, maybe you don't even need a full new DAW.

Check out Freestyle which is is a VST host, sequencer, etc.






New Sonic Arts | Freestyle - VST Host For Stage & Studio


New Sonic Arts - Innovative Audio Software




www.newsonicarts.com


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## antic604 (Mar 28, 2022)

Bitwig.

Once you get into its workflow it's really difficult to go back to Live. It's a very similar situation to Cubase vs. Studio One - if you don't need all the depth that Cubase provides, Studio One is just better in all the common and basic stuff: sleeker, less bloated, faster.

But Live also has some advantages: MIDI comping & retrospective recording, better audio FX, scene follow actions, better out-of-the-box support for hardware controllers. But it's 2x more expensive and has been on the market 3x as long and it has a huge market share, so that's understandable. Bitwig on the other hand develops quite rapidly, with 2-3 big updates every year (for free, if you have active upgrade plan) and by now it's pretty clear they focus on being the best modular, sound-design focused DAW.

Take both for a spin for 30 days and just see which one fits you better. Coming from Cubase I think Bitwig will be more familiar (I never understood this until I tried Cubase), but maybe that's not what you're looking for at all and you _want_ something completely different. You won't know until you try


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## Pier (Mar 28, 2022)

antic604 said:


> It's a very similar situation to Cubase vs. Studio One - if you don't need all the depth that Cubase provides, Studio One is just better in all the common and basic stuff: sleeker, less bloated, faster.


I tried both and ended up choosing Cubase just 2 weeks ago.

Not sure about previous versions, but Cubase 12 is fast on my PC. It also allows you all sorts of deep customizations to make your workflow very efficient. Stuff like storing presets for the CC lanes which you can't do in S1. You can go from velocities + CC1 to all the 8 CCs to control Zebra XYs by just loading a CC lanes preset.

Another thing that really bothered me is S1 doesn't allow you set a custom UI scaling. It will only scale according to Windows scaling setting. I found most of the UI too small so I needed to crank the scaling of the whole OS. Cubase will also scale according to the OS but you can manually increase or lower the scaling.

In Cubase you have the Media Bay, a dedicated powerful media browser that runs in its own window. In S1 you have the minuscule browser in an inspector panel. Of course you get a dedicated app to do that, but with Cubase you don't need to.

Now in Cubase 12 there is midi controller configurator which is super powerful and allows you to control anything. No other DAW has this feature AFAIK.

Etc.

S1 reminds a bit of Bitwig. Awesome dev talent, really cool ideas, but it doesn't work for everyone and it sill needs a couple of years to become a mature product for a broad audience.



antic604 said:


> But Live also has some advantages: MIDI comping & retrospective recording, better audio FX, scene follow actions, better out-of-the-box support for hardware controllers. But it's 2x more expensive and has been on the market 3x as long and it has a huge market share, so that's understandable. Bitwig on the other hand develops quite rapidly, with 2-3 big updates every year (for free, if you have active upgrade plan) and by now it's pretty clear they focus on being the best modular, sound-design focused DAW.



Personally I think the audio effects are much better in Bitwig.

Bitwig releases updates more often but in many cases these are half baked. I mean, why didn't Bitwig release MIDI comping alongside audio comping? Or why did it take another whole major version and a half to release the Grid for MIDI? Or why didn't modulators have MSEGs from the first day? After almost 10 years still no MSEG modulators...

And updates are definitely not free. That's what you're paying for lol.


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## LA68 (Mar 28, 2022)

Not sure if this is helpful and correct me if I'm wrong, but I use Live Lite for creativity purposes as a 2nd DAW.

The thing is...Live Lite used to be exactly what Bitwig 8-Track is now: Too crippled to really do much with it. However, Ableton apparently changed that at some point and I believe that now the only difference to their paid Live Intro version is that you only have half the number of tracks.









Creative tools for music makers | Ableton


Live comes in three editions: Intro, Standard and Suite. Compare their features side by side to find the edition that's right for you.




www.ableton.com





I don't think the limitations are bad at all, and with 8 tracks you can still get a ton of stuff done. Working around the limitations can be quite inspiring at times. And for 5 dollars, why not - there's not much to lose. (That's what buying a key costs, but sometimes people even give them away for free)


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## Braveheart (Mar 28, 2022)

For me, S1 is already a mature product that keep adding major features without paying for them all the time. And S1 integration to hardware is probably the best (I have Softube Console 1, Faderport 8 and Atom)


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## kitekrazy (Mar 28, 2022)

dylanmixer said:


> I'm a heavy Cubase user, however looking to branch out and *learn a secondary DAW primarily for electronic music making.* Now, there's no reason I can't use Cubase for this, and I HAVE been using Cubase for this for some time now. But I'm hoping learning another DAW may open up some creativity and new workflow ideas I previously didn't have. Just to be clear, I'm not switching from Cubase. Cubase will always be home, and my main money maker. But which of these DAW's would be a nice compliment to know how to use alongside of it?


I'm seeing more 3rd party templates for Cubase. Just stick with that. My only thing about Bitwig is it's like the Waves of DAWs. They want you to pony up a yearly fee to stay current. Sure people say you don't have to but how many of us kids want to be like the other kids on the block with new shoes. I like FL Studio and never pay for upgrades and has one of the best communities for support.


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## HeliaVox (Mar 31, 2022)

kitekrazy said:


> I'm seeing more 3rd party templates for Cubase. Just stick with that. My only thing about Bitwig is it's like the Waves of DAWs. They want you to pony up a yearly fee to stay current. Sure people say you don't have to but how many of us kids want to be like the other kids on the block with new shoes. I like FL Studio and never pay for upgrades and has one of the best communities for support.


On the flip side of that, Waves charges you A LOT of money to update their plugins with very little added features, if at all over their product line. Bitwig will give you 2-3 updates a year with new features added. There a huge difference.


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## Kuusniemi (Mar 31, 2022)

arcy said:


> For me, Ableton wins for the minimalistic UI (cleaner and more focused)


For me the minimalistic UI is the biggest reason to steer away from Ableton... :D Personal tastes.


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## kitekrazy (Apr 1, 2022)

HeliaVox said:


> On the flip side of that, Waves charges you A LOT of money to update their plugins with very little added features, if at all over their product line. Bitwig will give you 2-3 updates a year with new features added. There a huge difference.


The price is far from a flip side. That's like $50 an update. It's an expensive DAW if you want to keep up to date.


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## Pier (Apr 1, 2022)

HeliaVox said:


> Bitwig will give you 2-3 updates a year with new features added.


It's true but many of those updates are quite insubstantial. The last one was a phaser, a chorus, and a flanger.

Bitwig is actually quite more expensive than other DAWs to keep updated. Cubase Pro is like $100 per year. Ableton Live is even cheaper. The update from Live 9 to 10 cost like $300 but there was a 5 year gap between major versions.

Bitwig costs $170 every single year.


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## D Halgren (Apr 1, 2022)

Pier said:


> It's true but many of those updates are quite insubstantial. The last one was a phaser, a chorus, and a flanger.
> 
> Bitwig is actually quite more expensive than other DAWs to keep updated. Cubase Pro is like $100 per year. Ableton Live is even cheaper. The update from Live 9 to 10 cost like $300 but there was a 5 year gap between major versions.
> 
> Bitwig costs $170 every single year.


You forgot the Note Grid, which is huge, and was a major request for most users.


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## Pier (Apr 1, 2022)

D Halgren said:


> You forgot the Note Grid, which is huge, and was a major request for most users.


Maybe you missed that I wrote "*many* of those updates are quite insubstantial" meaning some are not.

Another point is that many Bitwig updates are really half baked.

The Grid should have included midi from v3 or _at least_ v4. But the feature was released in v4.2 which certainly helps to keep users under the impression that minor updates are "huge" (to use your own word).

Same could be said about comping. How come they released v4 with audio but not midi comping?

Or MSEG modulators. Or creating submodules in the grid. Or loading VSTs into the grid. Etc.


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## D Halgren (Apr 1, 2022)

Pier said:


> Maybe you missed that I wrote "*many* of those updates are quite insubstantial" meaning some are not.
> 
> Another point is that many Bitwig updates are really half baked.
> 
> ...


I understand your point. From my perspective I was a Live user from 8 on and switched to Bitwig after waiting for MPE forever. Maybe Bitwig is stringing out the updates for financial purposes, but I don't get that impression. It's just a small dev team and early in it's existence. I also have used Logic, and still use Cubase, but Bitwig feels right for me 🤷‍♂️


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## HeliaVox (Apr 1, 2022)

And if you're paying full price for a Bitwig update, than you're doing it wrong. You wait until it goes on sale and save yourself some money. And no one is ever forcing you to purchase an update. If you're happy with the feature set that Bitwig has in your current version, just wait until features/bugfixes come along until it's enticing enough for you to update. As an aside I only have 13 or so Waves products and my update price was close to $300.00. No thank you.


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## HeliaVox (Apr 1, 2022)

D Halgren said:


> I understand your point. From my perspective I was a Live user from 8 on and switched to Bitwig after waiting for MPE forever. Maybe Bitwig is stringing out the updates for financial purposes, but I don't get that impression. It's just a small dev team and early in it's existence. I also have used Logic, and still use Cubase, but Bitwig feels right for me 🤷‍♂️


Exactly, I thougt I was happy in Logic Land, until I started to really do a deep dive into what Bitwig can do. It just clicked for me, and is my main DAW. On the rare occasion I have to do any video scoring, I just hop back into Logic and do my thing.


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## eNGee (Apr 1, 2022)

Just 2 unrelated points I would like to mention about Bitwig!
First, I usually wait for a discounted yearly upgrade and that is $129.
Second, the Keylab MK ii integration with Bitwig is fantastic and actually much better than in Ableton Live! For example, in mixer mode, the faders gives you the info in dB while in Live its glitchy and gives you useless numbers (from 1 to 100).
Anyway, it seems everyone's priorities are different, but things are getting close in both DAWs with time.


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## Pier (Apr 1, 2022)

HeliaVox said:


> And if you're paying full price for a Bitwig update, than you're doing it wrong.


All DAWs have sales...


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## kitekrazy (Apr 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> It's true but many of those updates are quite insubstantial. The last one was a phaser, a chorus, and a flanger.
> 
> Bitwig is actually quite more expensive than other DAWs to keep updated. Cubase Pro is like $100 per year. Ableton Live is even cheaper. The update from Live 9 to 10 cost like $300 but there was a 5 year gap between major versions.
> 
> Bitwig costs $170 every single year.


FL Studio, Bandlab doesn't cost a thing. One has to be aware that buying the complete package of Live or FL Studio is extremely over priced. FL Studio should be considered since it has one of the best piano rolls out there.


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## Braveheart (Apr 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> It's true but many of those updates are quite insubstantial. The last one was a phaser, a chorus, and a flanger.
> 
> Bitwig is actually quite more expensive than other DAWs to keep updated. Cubase Pro is like $100 per year. Ableton Live is even cheaper. The update from Live 9 to 10 cost like $300 but there was a 5 year gap between major versions.
> 
> Bitwig costs $170 every single year.


Ableton 10 to 11 was 3 years apart. There are usually some free gifts from Bitwig during the year to make it worthwhile (free plugin from another company or discount). Right now, the upgrade to Bitwig is regular price 169$, but comes with XLN Audio XO for free (129$ value). So it depends on what you get for the price too.


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## Guido Pannekoek (Apr 2, 2022)

Ableton has it own hardware controller, Push 2 and it is still amazing what you can do with it. You can map almost any parameter of a Vst with it and in no time you can control 16 parameters of different instruments in one track and even different parameters of different tracks in one bank. Changing to another Daw would mean for me going back to the stone age. Push 2 is simply amazing.


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## Pier (Apr 2, 2022)

Braveheart said:


> Ableton 10 to 11 was 3 years apart. There are usually some free gifts from Bitwig during the year to make it worthwhile (free plugin from another company or discount). Right now, the upgrade to Bitwig is regular price 169$, but comes with XLN Audio XO for free (129$ value). So it depends on what you get for the price too.


3 years and the update price for the Suite version from 10 to 11 is $229 ($76 per year). Much less than what a yearly upgrade to Bitwig costs.

I will say it's quite frustrating that you never really know when Ableton is going to release a new major version. I updated to 10 less than a year before 11 was released and was quite pissed at the time. Now that think of it, this was actually one of the reasons I got into Bitwig.

The yearly renewal from Bitwig has its pros and cons. You know what you're paying for and you can get back on and off the train at any moment. But OTOH it forces Bitwig to keep releasing stuff constantly to keep the cash flow running. Even when the updates are not substantial or not completely polished.


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## cel4145 (Apr 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> 3 years and the update price for the Suite version from 10 to 11 is $229 ($76 per year). Much less than what a yearly upgrade to Bitwig costs.


Certainly, Bitwig entices people to upgrade more frequently, thanks to the smaller, interim releases. But you could wait 3 years (Ableton 11), or even 5 years (for Ableton 10), and then take a big upgrade all at once. 

Do the math. Ableton's only cheaper than Bitwig if you don't want to wait like you have to with Ableton. Plus, one has the benefit during the first year of a Bitwig upgrade of still getting a few updates. 

So I don't see how Ableton is cheaper for anyone that is OK with waiting that long for a bigger release. If that's what you really prefer. 

But yeah. I guess if someone's budget doesn't support yearly updates for Bitwig, and they have trouble with self-constraint, Ableton is the better choice in that regard


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## Pier (Apr 2, 2022)

cel4145 said:


> Plus, one has the benefit during the first year of a Bitwig upgrade of still getting a few updates.


Live also gets small updates during the lifecycle of a major version.



cel4145 said:


> Do the math. Ableton's only cheaper than Bitwig if you don't want to wait like you have to with Ableton.


Same thing with any DAW or even Komplete.


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## cel4145 (Apr 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> Live also gets small updates during the lifecycle of a major version.
> 
> 
> Same thing with any DAW or even Komplete.


You mean small updates 

But seriously, a lot of this is one half dozen or the other. Trying to estimate the value of the updates over a few years between DAWs is a very individual thing anyway.


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## Quasar (Apr 2, 2022)

Pier said:


> All DAWs have sales...


Not quite. Reaper doesn't have sales.


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## Braveheart (Apr 3, 2022)

Bandlab has no sales too. Hard to beat free


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## JCold (Apr 3, 2022)

My primary is Studio One, but before that I started with Ableton Live. I still use it, use them both, I find them extremely complementary(which I'm sure would map over to the Cubase user). As mentioned by others, Ableton is extremely polished, and apart from the obvious paradigm shift in working with loops(which frankly isn't done as well by anyone else), I think of it as sort of a mad scientist audio lab. It's really great.


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## Pier (Apr 4, 2022)

Quasar said:


> Not quite. Reaper doesn't have sales.


But Reaper is free, right?

😂

In all seriousness, Reaper doesn't even have yearly renewals. IIRC it's the passion project of the Cockos founder so he doesn't even need it to be a profitable business unlike Steinberg, Ableton, Bitwig, etc.

Same with Logic. Apple pretty much gives it away for free since it gets the money back on the hardware.



cel4145 said:


> But seriously, a lot of this is one half dozen or the other. Trying to estimate the value of the updates over a few years between DAWs is a very individual thing anyway.


I definitely agree.

It's very difficult to determine the subjective value of each update which is why I was comparing the money paid by year which is objective.

Ultimately I guess it comes down to being the target audience for a certain product. Like if you're into generative stuff, many features introduced by Bitwig in the past 2-3 years make perfect sense. But if you're looking for more of a generalist DAW these might seem more like gimmicks.


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## cel4145 (Apr 4, 2022)

Pier said:


> But Reaper is free, right?
> 
> 😂
> 
> ...


But it's flawed objectivity. Because Ableton does not have a pay by the year plan which includes more frequent updates. So you're comparing very unlike things.

On a side note, Bitwig's model is potentially better for development. This strategy of release early, release often has been championed in open source development. And it makes a lot of sense even with commercial products where people don't have access to the source code

"Release early, release often is a well-known mantra in open source development. Some of the more compelling reasons for this are that it:

*encourages early and frequent feedback
*provides easy access to the latest and greatest feature
*builds developer confidence
*shows genuine project activity
*facilitates a manageable upgrade path for users"






Best practice in release management for open source projects







oss-watch.ac.uk





So, for example when an organization releases most DAW updates in one chunk every 3 to 5 years, then it's 3 to 5 years before the feedback they got from users results in an improved product for users.


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## Pier (Apr 4, 2022)

cel4145 said:


> But it's flawed objectivity. Because Ableton does not have a pay by the year plan which includes more frequent updates. So you're comparing very unlike things.
> 
> On a side note, Bitwig's model is potentially better for development. This strategy of release early, release often has been championed in open source development. And it makes a lot of sense even with commercial products where people don't have access to the source code
> 
> ...


As someone who's been in the software industry for quite some time, I'm well aware of the things you mention.

The simple truth is that everything has pros and cons and there are no silver bullets. As an example, just look how the quality of macOS degraded when Apple moved to a yearly release cycle.

And running a company is very different from developing and OSS project.

And btw it's false Ableton doesn't get feedback between major releases. They get feedback at many stages of their release cycle and their beta program is public. It would be ludicrous for a company as big as Ableton to move forward blindly.

Edit:

In fact Bitwig are arguably not very great at knowing what their users want. To the point the community had to create a site for feature requests.

You'd think Bitwig users want more generative and modular features... but if you look at Bitwish that's not really what users are asking for.

Here are the top 5 most voted features:














Features


Vote for your wished features




bitwish.top





Edit 2:

I will say this though, I really wish Bitwig had a public roadmap like many OSS projects have. It would have made my decision to leave Bitwig much easier.


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## cel4145 (Apr 4, 2022)

Pier said:


> As someone who's been in the software industry for quite some time, I'm well aware of the things you mention.
> 
> The simple truth is that everything has pros and cons and there are no silver bullets. As an example, just look how the quality of macOS degraded when Apple moved to a yearly release cycle.
> 
> And running a company is very different from developing and OSS project.



Of course an OSS project is not the same as commercial software development. But at the same time, you should be able to value the points in that quote.

And no. Apple's experience with their OS is hardly a representative sample of the software industry.



Pier said:


> And btw it's false Ableton doesn't get feedback between major releases. They get feedback at many stages of their release cycle and their beta program is public. It would be ludicrous for a company as big as Ableton to move forward blindly.


I never claimed that. Your position seems so biased either for Ableton or against Bitwig, that you just made a straw argument.

Bitwig has betas. But release early, release often means more than that.




Pier said:


> In fact Bitwig are arguably not very great at knowing what their users want. To the point the community had to create a site for feature requests.


One does not necessarily imply the other.



Pier said:


> You'd think Bitwig users want more generative and modular features... but if you look at Bitwish that's not really what users are asking for.


I wouldn't assume that's all that they want. But I try not to jump to conclusions.

But now that the Note Grid has been implemented, it could make sense that users might shift towards wanting other composing features.


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## outland (Apr 5, 2022)

Pier said:


> Bitwig costs $170 every single year.


There are sales when the price drops to $129 for the subscription. Also, although I'm not sure of the mileage for most, Antelope is (or was) bundling Bitwig Studio (and their Edge Solo modeling mic) with a few of their interfaces.


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## Pier (Apr 5, 2022)

cel4145 said:


> Your position seems so biased either for Ableton or against Bitwig, that you just made a straw argument.


Honestly, it seems you aren't even reading my comments. I've criticized both Ableton and Bitwig in this very same thread.


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## cel4145 (Apr 6, 2022)

Pier said:


> Honestly, it seems you aren't even reading my comments. I've criticized both Ableton and Bitwig in this very same thread.


That is a strange reply to make, after you misinterpreted what someone else said and made a strawman argument. Unless the strawman argument was intentional???

But I think now you can see that one can choose not to renew their subscription every time, and monetarily it will be similar to the benefits they get with Ableton and paying less frequently. And that the release early, release often model of Bitwig might have advantages for development.


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## jblongz (Jun 20, 2022)

I own Live 11 Suite and Bitwig 4.

Ableton Advantages 
- PUSH 2: Audio control and Note repeat is rivaled only by Machine MK3. When used, you don't need to touch the mouse or keyboard until it's time to mix or tweak arrangement.
- Larger selection of content for suite users.
- I find their project management style easier, allow multiple sets to intuitively share project resources...huge advantage to remixers or people who have multple versions/tweaks of a song.
- Smart clip recording: Ableton knows to assume you want a 4 bar loop instead of a 4.1 bar loop when you couldn't stop the clip in time. A* seriously underrated* feature that saves mouse clicks.
- Easy midi/audio routing for multichannel plugins...Bitwig has some limitations here.


Bitwig Pros 
- Bounce in place on midi tracks while keeping midi active.  This is better than anything I've seen and was the selling point for me.
- Open Controller API - Someone with great tenacity could crowd source development for a PUSH-equivalent, or repurpose existing controllers (DrivenByMoss for example).
- The Grid...a convincing alternative to Ableton's Max extension because it's in-house..Ableton relies on third party development.
- More customizable browser and search options (still needs tweaks).
- Modulation heaven...Sound designers would love this DAW more, especially for the XY effect plugin...I could make presets all day with just that.
- Crash protection methods...At least they have options of how you want to handle a potential plugin crash.
- Large VEPro templates have the advantage constricting visibility to specific groups....so you can focus on orchestral sections or whatever way you group tracks.


Personally I with hundreds of projects invested since Ableton 4, it's staying in my studio, but* I'm rooting for Bitwig* and wish they would match Ableton's advantages at some point. I really WANT to switch and have been demoing the Grid to see how it can bridge some feature gaps.

*VEPro Users:* Both lack support for *multiple midi ports* for tools like Vienna Ensemble Pro. In Bitwig, you're best workflow is one VEPro instance per track until multichannel routing is improved. I also had to use the Surround VST3 in stereo mode in Windows 11 because I couldn't load the standard plugin (Work fine on mac though).


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## Alchemedia (Jun 20, 2022)

+1 for Bitwig


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## Kslovelace (Jul 16, 2022)

I’m going to give a +1 for ableton. 

I have used cubase and live for many years but started playing around with bitwig when version 3 came out. I continue to keep it current and love to play around in it. However, my vote goes to ableton for a few reasons. 

I understand your looking to break out to cubase for purposes of making EM but one day your going to love a particular feature and wish you had it in cubase…. When that time comes, Ableton can be an outstanding companion or secondary daw to any primary daw when your back at work. Syncing live to cubase via midi clock or mtc is super solid and provides a great environment to play around with sounds in your cubase projects. I always have live running in the background and my templates for Both cubase and live are built in a way that they instantly lock and share sync and audio streams…. So whenever I’m ready to work I launch both programs and regardless if I end up using it or not, it is always there chugging along on a secondary monitor. 

While I wish bitwig could do this (which it “can”….. as in… it has the ability to sync) it simply will not sync unless it receives a super stable dedicated clock which your not going to get out of any other major DAW due to the way computers handle midi sync. Although… if you go the bitwig route, and want to use it along side cubase, I have found if I slave any hardware groove box to cubase, I can then slave bitwig to the groove box and get near perfect sync between cubase and bitwig in a pinch. (I primarily use the octatrack here as it can slave to clock and send its own clock out simultaneously) 


Secondly, ableton handles files and file management better. For example… I write a little melody in love and want to pull the midi into cubase… easy… want to mangle up a sample and throw it back into cubase.. easy…. Want to save a track setup, or rack, or plugin preset, or any type of clip… just drag to the browser and drop it where you want it. All things above are either limited or require some type of workaround in bitwig. Not that it can’t do these things… it just requires more work.. or requires you to compromise….


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## Nico5 (Jul 16, 2022)

jblongz said:


> alternative to Ableton's Max extension because it's in-house..Ableton relies on third party development.


third party? 









Exclusive: Ableton acquires Max maker Cycling '74; what you need to know - CDM Create Digital Music


Ableton is acquiring Cycling '74, makers of Max/MSP, Max for Live, and other tools. A history of the two tools, and what you need to know about the deal.




cdm.link


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## jblongz (Jul 17, 2022)

Nico5 said:


> third party?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I stand corrected. Somehow I did not get the customer memo. 

I'm still committed to Live because of sheer amount of projects. I broke my PUSH 2 (drunk night) and felt the urgent need to replace next day. That's how compelling the software/hardware workflow has been. If I had a million bucks to spare, I'd fund Bitwig to compete better.


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## Braveheart (Jul 17, 2022)

jblongz said:


> I stand corrected. Somehow I did not get the customer memo.
> 
> I'm still committed to Live because of sheer amount of projects. I broke my PUSH 2 (drunk night) and felt the urgent need to replace next day. That's how compelling the software/hardware workflow has been. If I had a million bucks to spare, I'd fund Bitwig to compete better.


I won’t invite you on drunk night


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## timprebble (Jul 17, 2022)

+1 for ableton
I think the integration with Max4Live is invaluable. There are lots of excellent (free and paid) plugins for Max4Live, that do things I haven't seen possible elsewhere... And Max itself provides a means of customising and building your own plugins, should you want to, in future...

But I don't tend to mix in ableton LIVE, so also I really appreciate how easy it is to export stems.


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## Saxer (Jul 17, 2022)

I used Live as a second DAW beside Logic for a couple of years. Especially for the session view window in Live (Logic didn't have that feature at that time) where you can start and stop loops in real time.

The reason I started using Live was a job to produce meditation music. Hours of meditation music in a rather short time. It's great to do those things in a loop based DAW. Create a couple of loops of different length and do the "switch on switch off" arrangements with fader and controller moving in real time while recording it into the arrangement. Do this for half an hour and you have half an hour of music.

However there are some things that really bothered me when working in the session view. It's the same in all loop based DAWs, so it's more a conceptional thing. I'm talking about the real time use of loop based composing. Like hitting a loop start button and the loop starts exactly on the next bar or beat.

1. Chord changes. Seriously: forget chord changes. In theory it's easy: some loops with one chord, some loops with other chords or longer loops with chord progressions. But in real life all the benefit of using loops is gone. Keeping track of chord changes while starting and stopping loops isn't a creative process any more. You have to rehearse the loop starting performance and it might be cool for a live performance with musicians and open sessions. But creating "songs" with parts and chord changes is a job for a timeline.

2. No loop start before the "one". I can't understand why but there is no way to have i.e. one-bar-loops that have syncopated starting times. Funky things that have accents on that last sixteenth note of a bar are cut off. No salsa basses that start on the 4. You can start loops on every sixteenth but then you have to create a loop that is cut off on both sides and start it against the grid. Not intuitive and extremely error-prone. It's such an essential thing but no DAW has a solution.

3. The session view is a trap. It's a time burner. Create loops, start stop, add things, tweak... everything while the music is running. You get lost in that process. It's a nice thing and it feels like producing music. But when you push the stop button and look what you produced there is nothing but a big single loop. Creating an arrangement out of the loops is the main work and needs time. And it can be done in any DAW.


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## jcrosby (Jul 18, 2022)

Saxer said:


> 3. The session view is a trap. It's a time burner. Create loops, start stop, add things, tweak... everything while the music is running. You get lost in that process. It's a nice thing and it feels like producing music. But when you push the stop button and look what you produced there is nothing but a big single loop. Creating an arrangement out of the loops is the main work and needs time. And it can be done in any DAW.


I've always had the opposite experience. In 15-16 years of using Live (alongside Logic as my main DAW) I've found Session View to be like a scribble pad for my stream of musical consciousness that's lets me capture related ideas quickly; the trick being to know when it's time to hang up the session view, and move to the arrangement view to 'reduce' ideas down to what matters most.

(But everyone's different, so I wont pretend to claim that Session View's a magic button for anyone.... It may very well not work for some people depending on what works for them creatively.... But it is one of the things I've always liked about Live.)


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## Pier (Jul 18, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> I've always had the opposite experience. In 15-16 years of using Live (alongside Logic as my main DAW) I've found Session View to be like a scribble pad for my stream of musical consciousness that's lets me capture related ideas quickly; the trick being to know when it's time to hang up the session view, and move to the arrangement view to 'reduce' ideas down to what matters most.
> 
> (But everyone's different, so I wont pretend to claim that Session View's a magic button for anyone.... It may very well not work for some people depending on what works for them creatively.... But it is one of the things I've always liked about Live.)


Do you still do that now that Logic has something similar to the session view?


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## jcrosby (Jul 18, 2022)

Pier said:


> Do you still do that now that Logic has something similar to the session view?


Yeah. Logic's version is pretty good, but I find working with Live's session view more straight forward and quick. It's more streamlined for capturing ideas, and the search-ability makes it really quick to find and add instruments, samples, etc while your idea plays on a loop in the background. 

Logic typically requires a lot of clicking through menus, or even just clicking into a box before you can search. With Live you just type CMD+F while things run, arrow down, hit return and you can insert a VST/AU...


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## Pier (Jul 18, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> and the search-ability makes it really quick to find and add instruments, samples, etc while your idea plays on a loop in the background


Yeah that's something that I really like about Live. Just press CMD+F from anywhere and boom you're searching for stuff.

Bitwig also has good search, and on paper it's even more powerful, but like many features in Bitwig I find it still needs a lot of polish.


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## jcrosby (Jul 18, 2022)

Pier said:


> Yeah that's something that I really like about Live. Just press CMD+F from anywhere and boom you're searching for stuff.
> 
> Bitwig also has good search, and on paper it's even more powerful, but like many features in Bitwig I find it still needs a lot of polish.


Agreed. I bought Bitwig 3, and while there's a lot of similarity I still prefer Live for a lot of Reasons. Bitwig definitely has better modularity overall, but the UI's kind of clunky, and it suffers from little frustrations like text being way too small... As I get older I find little things like that really make or break a program, plugin, etc for me.

I also found Live used less CPU, and despite BW's sandboxing I actually found Live more stable overall.


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## Pier (Jul 18, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> As I get older I find little things like that really make or break a program, plugin, etc for me.


Totally agree.

The "little thing" that made me hate using Bitwig to write music (and ultimately abandon it) is that the piano roll has some defaults and these cannot be changed.

So every time I created a new track I found myself doing this:

Disabling the note audio preview when selecting a note
Showing the velocity lane
Adding a CC1 automation channel
And if you regularly work with more than CC1 (eg: CC11) it becomes a bit of a nightmare.

Such a little thing but so overlooked. In Cubase you can set up the piano roll once and it stays that way.


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## timprebble (Jul 19, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> I actually found Live more stable overall.



This is a deeply admirable aspect of ableton. I've always found it very stable and any issues usually come from an outdated vst. A few years ago they stopped all new development and spent considerable time fixing all known bugs in LIVE v8. I wish all companies would do this.
Maybe less profit in short term, but its a blessing for users.









Ableton Suspends Development to Focus on Bug Fixes for Live 8 - CDM Create Digital Music


Killing bugs dead, as pictured in a sign in Ikaho, Japan. Photo: Rick Hall. New features are great, and yes, it’s often us users asking for them. But reliability and stability are more important to most of us. It’s therefore a welcome surprise to see Ableton’s CEO post the following message on...




cdm.link


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## Pier (Jul 19, 2022)

jcrosby said:


> I also found Live used less CPU, and despite BW's sandboxing I actually found Live more stable overall.


Sandboxing uses more resources (not sure if only memory or also CPU). You can of course add more or less sandboxing as you please.






In my experience Bitwig was rock solid. Better than major DAWs like Cubase or Logic. Only used it in Windows though. Not sure about macOS.


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## jcrosby (Jul 19, 2022)

Pier said:


> Sandboxing uses more resources (not sure if only memory or also CPU). You can of course add more or less sandboxing as you please.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks Pier. Yeah I've had played with different sandboxing settings... At the time it seemed like it was more of Bitwig and macos not getting along with each other... 

I actually totally understand what you mean. I noticed the same exact issue, and overall I found editing MIDI in Bitwig kind of clunky because of essentially the same reasons, different default views with no way to influence the behavior. Overall it just felt really clunky. I'm sure in a few more versions it'll be worth a look again though.


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## jcrosby (Jul 19, 2022)

timprebble said:


> This is a deeply admirable aspect of ableton. I've always found it very stable and any issues usually come from an outdated vst. A few years ago they stopped all new development and spent considerable time fixing all known bugs in LIVE v8. I wish all companies would do this.
> Maybe less profit in short term, but its a blessing for users.
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting. I'd been on Live 9 for years, then 10 so I wasn't aware they did this. That's pretty great. I just switched to M1/Monterey finally and surprisingly Live 10 still works, and the performance actually isn't _much_ different than Live 11 running natively, and more or less identical to Live 11 running in Rosetta 2. 

Semi-related, it looks like they did some updates to Live 10 after Live 11 released. I've never been crazy about Live 11, they made a lot of UI changes that I find really awkward. So for now I plan on sticking with Live 10 as long as I can get away with it. TLDR, it's really cool they did the same with 10, ensuring it runs on M1 with Monterey...


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## machinesworking (Jul 23, 2022)

I’ve used Live since version 3, and Bitwig for a couple years. I collaberate with people using Live so I’ll always use it.

A couple things: Ableton publicly announced they were concentrating on stability because frankly they completely screwed up the introduction of Max 4 Live into Live 8. A supposed live performance DAW with stability issues, it was a bad look. This coincidently is when developers left Ableton and joined a few others to form Bitwig. As a Live user who beta tested 8, I found out the hard way that public betas aren’t useful if everyone is filled with excitement about a release.

In stress tests I’ve done Bitwig pulls ahead of Live in terms of CPU use with third party VSTs. This hasn’t always been true earlier versions were more CPU intensive. I think the UX of Bitwig is a bit better, I’ve always had a complaint with Live about mousing, always seemingly reaching for things instead of using key commands, and that‘s not debatable, Bitwig has far more. Live does have some advantages in terms of some navigation in the Session View, but in general it’s an area where Bitwig is already more mature.

I think Live does a better Job with elastic audio, and in general Bitwig will sacrifice some UX for flexibility in terms of routing, it‘s not impossible to use multi instruments in Bitwig, it’s just a menu item compared to a routing option in Live.

I have mixed feeelings about the Bitwig update plan, I bought Bitwig in Jan 2020 with 10 months of a plan left on it. bought the plan for $120 and did not activate it until the next upgrade. Essentially it’s not a year, it’s when the next .1 update hits So one year becomes more like 1.3 - 1.6 years. The initial price is almost a third as much as Live Suite, so it’s IMO a wash.

There’s no easy answer here, I didn’t even get to Lives extreme extensibility with Max 4 Live, or Bitwigs insane modularity. A quick answer would be in a bigger picture for film scoring or even making your own videos for your projects with Maxs Jitter, Live wins, and you can get ignored In both DAWs MIDI protocols like SysEx with Max. Conversely Bitwig is IMO much more fun to work in it feels much faster to Compose in. 

Both have demos.


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## eNGee (Jul 23, 2022)

I still have the plan active till December (Bitwig). I don't think I will upgrade, but I will see what will happen till then.
I also use Live 11 Suite and Studio One (Cubase 12 Pro is also installed!). Well, although I like the colourful environment of Bitiwg and of course the modulation system as a whole. It is also better with CPU than Live. Anyway, there are functions that I use always and in both Live and S1 (of course Cubase as well) they are so convenient. From those functions, the Tap for setting the tempo and also the markers. In Bitwig they made it so behind the scene! Ctrl (or is it Alt?) + clicking the play button! I needed to search the internet to know it! Second the markers are still pathetic in Bitwig compared to other DAWs. They have improved it a little but still no that care about it. While in Live I can map 'setting a marker' to a key or a midi and the same with next/previous buttons 

Drums that comes with the DAW, Ableton Live is fantastic! Bitwig is ok but I spend a long time to find really what I want and most of the times I just use a VSTi. Definitely a plus for AB Live here.

I really don't know why Bitwig insists on the time plan for upgrading?! I haven't seen or heard anyone that says "I like it"!! Even with the discounted plan ($120)!

There are other things like Grooves that makes AB Live more versatile when it comes to the essentials. But the most important factor is the general workflow. At first, or in the beginning of the project/song, Bitwig seems superiour but when I begin to insert an instrument rack to include two or three instruments, mapping and zoning, going back and forth, etc. I begin to like AB Live much more because it seems faster and smoother everything. Things are clearer also in Live when editing midi. 

To be honest, Bitwig is great for sound designers and those who love modulations. For me, I rare use the modulations in Bitwig! I use what's there in the synth or/and automation in the arrangement view! I also don't use the Grid because I'm more into composing than sound design. I can get all I want from sounds 80% from presets after little tweaking, and about 20% I do my own sounds from scratch, but usually I don't sound design during or just before composing! I already have some presets that I did and I treat them as other presets, not something special.

Anyway, I think I will keep all four DAWs but upgrade maybe only Studio One (let's see how it is first) and then maybe Ableton Live in the long run. This is my plan till 2023! After that we will see


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## Emanuel Fróes (Dec 15, 2022)

I got now Ableton Live Lite. I wonder if someone has ideas on how to link to Logic Pro some useful worflow? I use it for the TAP function, and is a great acessory.


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## machinesworking (Dec 15, 2022)

Emanuel Fróes said:


> I got now Ableton Live Lite. I wonder if someone has ideas on how to link to Logic Pro some useful worflow? I use it for the TAP function, and is a great acessory.


Well lucky enough for you Logic recently got Ableton Link capability, so you can spend a little time looking into that and be happy!


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