[LAU] What I learned from Bitwig

From: Aurélien Leblond <blablack@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Thu Apr 03 2014 - 16:56:55 EEST

I used Bitwig demo for 30 minutes - from the video presentations I
found it looks like a tool that could really fit my workflow (I hope
by saying that I'm not going to start another massive discussion about
what is a real musician or not...).

I just hope that these 2 cents would show why I decided to try the
demo, why I didn't stick with it (and spent the 300 EURO) and why I wish I
could have.

--== Why I tried the demo - because there are lots of videos of it on
Youtube! ==--

Trying software takes time - as Fons and others mentionned before,
using music software to see if they fit what I want takes time and
effort... And I admit, I'm lazy...and I like to spend my time at other
things than trying software for hours to realise it is not what I
want... So I checked demos on Youtube... In 10 minutes I can see a
summary of what it can do, how is the workflow, how it sounds and I
make a decision if I'm going to try it or not (please please not
judgement here, and I can't really be the only one!).
A colleague of mine who is an amateur musician (Windows) as well told
me the last software he bought, he chose it because it had more
Youtube tutorials than others (again, we can judge all we want that
process, but that's the way people roll...).

I have started to do that with ams-lv2 and other plugins that I have
have worked on... 5-10 minutes video on youtube, takes me 2 to 3 hours
to do (and I'm sure I'm going to get faster at it... or hope anyway)
but I had a few friends comment that it gave them a good idea as to
what can be done with Ingen and that they would like to try it (I'm
sure with a gentle push I'll get one to install GNU Linux and try the
audio suite!).

So yeah... my first 0.66 cents... we should make more
videos/demos/tutorials of our tools/workflow/sound to show case.

--== Why I didn't stick with it - wait...what??? no jack transport!!! ==--
I can do without LADSPA.... I can do without LV2 if I know it's
coming... but no jack transport...nope...sorry...need that... I knew
Jack is powerful... I knew it by using it, I knew it because other
musicians who used it on my machine were impressed. And now I know it
even more because I can't live with it for more than 5 minutes!
I use Hydrogen, Seq24 and other tools I sync through Jack way too much...

So yeah... Jack is awesome... All Hail to Jack!

--== Why I wish I could use it - GOD this thing is simple ==--

I'm not ashamed to say it - when I record/play/compose music, I want
to focus on the music, not the software!
After a few minutes in Bitwig, I had a few synths running in midi,etc...

Despite my second point about Jack, one thing that always annoyed me
is the connections between software... Hydrogen Snare going to Ingen
for sound processing while the rest goes through Rackarrack for more
processing and then recording that back... takes a lot of connection
to setup! And if one of those app crash, I'm back to recreate every
connection.
(Now, I can see you behind your screens "HEY WE HAVE TOOLS FOR
THAT"... keep reading...)
So I thought to myself "Damn, Bitwig is easy and slick and intuitive..."
And then I thought a bit more "there must be a solution for that"...
I checked on Google... Cool Gladish, that looks like what I want...
Let's check on Youtube a demo....ah....none (except one in Spanish...
a language I don't speak)... So back to my first point there!

Now since then I have installed Gladish and tried it out and after
20-30 minutes found out that's what I need.

DISCLAIMER - This is only my opinion... And YES, I do admit it, I'm
lazy... Being a musician is not my job... It's a hobby... That I do
after long day of work... But then again... I'm probably not wrong by
saying that a lot of musician user base is in that case...
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Received on Thu Apr 3 20:15:02 2014

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