The Bitwig Handbook

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Reference Links
● Baphometrix’s full set of video tutorials for Bitwig
● Official Bitwig forums on KVR
● Jurgen Mossgraber’s Push/2 controller scripts
● The big KVR thread of Bitwig tips and tricks
● Submit bugs and feature requests HERE
● Admiral Bumblebee’s reviews of modulators and devices (and other stuff)
● Baphy’s Thoughts About Loudness and Dithering
● Baphy’s Clip-To-Zero Production Strategy
● MF Twister Control Template Layout

Does Bitwig work with Push and Push 2? YES

I still get occasional comments to the effect of “Yeah but I can’t use Push (or Push 2), so Ableton is still
best for me.”

Except…. The Push and Push 2 work just dandy with Bitwig. Thanks to the amazing work of Jurgen
Mosgraber (aka “Moss”). He creates and maintains custom Bitwig controller scripts for all manner of
hardware, including the Push and Push 2.

To be honest, I never used my Push 2 with Ableton all that much except for testing/recording melody
and chord lines. All the other features? Mostly too confusing and too messy and half of them weren’t
applicable to my core workflow. I found most things easier to just do onscreen with mouse and
keyboard.

But for Bitwig? I use my Push 2 literally all the time. It’s always fired up and active when I’m working in
Bitwig, and I reach for the hardware knobs and controls FAR more often than I ever did with Ableton.
Why? Mainly because Ableton crammed too much into the Push 2, so it’s a confusing mess much like
the Maschine hardware. By contrast, Moss is IMO a brilliant usability designer and his scripts for the
Push and Push 2 have all the stuff you need all the time and none of the fluff that isn’t necessary to
core production workflow. Everything is more straightforward and intuitive to find and use, compared to
the native Ableton functionality for Push/2.

See for yourself by checking out this YouTube playlist that Moss put together. Scroll to the bottom and
start with the latest announcement about the most recent updates, and then skim the rest that look
interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqRWeSPiYQ67N0AzNAD84hD9HngDDKF3s

If you want to take his controller script for a spin yourself with a Demo copy of Bitwig, just go to this link
to grab the latest DrivenByMoss download. Unzip it and put the single DrivenByMoss.bwextension
in your Bitwig Extensions folder. Turn on your Push/2 and fire up Bitwig and there ya go!
Changing Rec button behavior on the Push2
The Rec button can be toggled to either do “Global Arm” for the Arranger (up in the transport section),
or to do “Clip Overdub” for the Launcher. However, the setup option that controls this is confusing
named. Here’s how:
● To make the Rec button toggle Global Arm on/off:
Settings > Controllers > Ableton Push 2 > Transport, then set Flip Arranger and
clip/record automation to OFF.
● To make the Rec button toggle Clip Overdub on/off:
Settings > Controllers > Ableton Push 2 > Transport, then set Flip Arranger and
clip/record automation to ON.

When you’re working in the Launcher and want to practice a riff a few times and then hit one button to
start recording in time with the loop start/end of the Launcher clip, set the Rec button to toggle Clip
Overdub on/off. Press Play, practice your riff in time with everything else playing, and when you’re
ready to start recording, press the Rec button to put that clip into Clip Overdub mode. When you want
to stop recording, press the Rec button one more time.

MIDI Mapping (to hardware controllers)

Most of the MIDI mapping behavior is straightforward and similar to how it works in Ableton. There are
two nonintuitive differences, though:

● The Mapping panel is one of the small buttons on the lower left, in the same grouping as the
Browser, File Manager, Studio IO, etc. You’ll need this panel to make specific adjustments or to
see in one view everything that is MIDI mapped in the project.
● Trying to MIDI map the track record arm button and the track solo button will drive you crazy
until you email Support thinking there’s a bug, and they tell you that you cannot map CCs to
control those two buttons, but must instead map specific MIDI notes to those two buttons. Which
personally strikes me as rather lame. o.O

My Bitwig custom shortcuts

I find these to be useful shortcuts to add to the default shortcuts in Bitwig. Experiment to see what they
do--I find they speed my workflow considerably. Note that some of them (like 0 for Toggle Active) are
meant to give me some of the same shortcuts I used frequently in Ableton.

General > Toggle Adaptive Beat Grid Shift-G

Bounce Ctrl-B
Bounce in Place Alt-B
Double Content Shift-]
Focus/Toggle Browser Panel Shift-B
Insert from Library (popup Browser) B
Scale 200% ]
Scale 50% [
Toggle Device Window (its big GUI) Shift-D
Editing > Toggle Active 0
Toggle On / Off X
 Navigation > Enter Group G
Exit Group V
Zooming > Zoom to Fit Selection or Previous Shift-Z
Help > User Guide (English) Shift-U
Project > Follow Playhead /
Fold/Unfold All Group Tracks Alt-G
Global Arm Off `
Global Mute Off Ctrl-`
Global Solo Off Shift-`
Stop Transport H
Toggle Arranger Loop Shift-L
Clip Launcher > Toggle Clip Launcher Overdub NumPad-0
Panel Management > Focus Track Header Area T
Toggle Mappings Browser Panel Shift-M
Focus/Toggle Project Panel Shift-P
Focus/Toggle Studio I/O Panel Shift-I
Arranger > Launch Arranger Cue Marker 1-10 Shift-1 through 0
Launch Arranger Cue Marker 11-19 Shift-Ctrl-1 through 9
Toggle Automation Shown for all Tracks Shift-A
Toggle Large Track Height Shift-T
Jump to Beginning of Next Bar Alt-]
Jump to Beginning of Previous Bar Alt-[
Jump Forward 8 Bars Ctrl-]
Jump Backward 8 Bars Ctrl-[

Useful Bitwig key combos (gestures)

Many of these are quite similar to Ableton, which makes the learning curve nice and short.

● Z - Zooms to selection, then zooms out to show everything in current editor or Arranger
● Ctrl-ScrollWheel - Zooms arranger/clip timeline at cursor position
● Alt-ScrollWheel - Scrolls arranger/clip timeline and mixer channels left or right
● Pen (3) tool > Alt-click and drag in automation lane - cuts square automation notches
● Double-tap O in Arrangement view - flips over to Clip Launcher view
● Double-tap L in Clip Launcher view - flips over to Arranger view
● Shift-drag an arranger clip - ignores grid snapping
● Comping Editor only
○ Shift-drag snaps the comp selection to the beat grid
○ Double-click a take to make it the full content of the Comp clip
○ Alt-drag to slide the time of an entire take
● Alt-space - Play the arrangement from beginning (1:0:0)
● Ctrl-space - Play the arrangement from where you stopped playback
● Space - Play the arrangement from where you last set the playhead
● (custom) Shift-1 through Shift-0 - Play the arrangement from specific cue points
● comma (,) - Exits Automatic grid mode and makes the grid size smaller (e.g., 16ths to 32nds)
● period (.) - Exits Automatic grid mode and makes the grid size larger (e.g., 16ths to 8ths)
● Alt-comma - Makes the grid’s beat subdivision larger (e.g. pentole to triole to straight)
● Alt-period - Makes the grid’s beat subdivision smaller (e.g., straight to triole to pentole)
 ● Insert - Opens up the big “popup browser” window without needing to click or double-click in the
Device panel. (This is a reassignable shortcut.)
● DownArrow - Moves you from the Search field in either browser to the list of results
● Ctrl-RightArrow and Ctrl-LeftArrow - (when in list of browser results) moves through the main
browser “tabs” (categories) at the top, switching out the results.

Superlooping and arranging in Bitwig

Watch a video of this entire section! (no narration but easy to follow anyway)

I do Phase 1 superlooping (and the early part of Phase 2 arranging) entirely in Bitwig’s clip launcher.
This is easy and natural in in Bitwig (much more so than in Ableton), because:

● Bitwig’s clip launcher sequencer (the launcher) matches the horizontal track layout of the
arrangement sequencer (the arranger).
● You can select any combination of clips across multiple scenes to test out a new combination of
sounds, and then simply multi-select those clips and drag them in one go to a new scene
column. This copies all the selected clips automatically into a new scene, which is a super fast
way to compose different sections and line them up in linear order as scenes that you can play
through sequentially for testing.
● Best of all, you can simply drag the scene headers from the launcher into the arranger to create
your initial arrangement sequence for the song. Shorter clips are automatically looped out to
match the full length of each scene, and you have a full linear song arrangement in 2 minutes or
less!
Basically, superlooping and arranging in Bitwig is a lot like doing it in Maschine. Only way more intuitive
and simple compared to wrestling with Maschine’s odd button combos and other quirks. In fact, the
next section explains how easy it is to bring Maschine patterns over into Bitwig’s launcher and bypass
all the arranging hassle in Maschine entirely.

Using Sonarworks with Bitwig

1. Create an Effect track and name it "Listen Bus".
2. Set the audio output of the Listen Bus to "Studio" (that's the main output).
3. Set the audio output of the Master track to “Listen Bus”.
4. Add Sonarworks on the Listen Bus. What you hear in your monitors/headphones will come out
of this effect track, but Sonarworks won't affect any exports or bounces, which are ALWAYS
made from the Master track. (This is just how Bitwig–or any DAW–works)
Using a Faderport 8 with Bitwig
Faderport 8 can only see channels (tracks) that are at the same flat level as each other (because of the
way Studio One’s mixing Console works). So the FP8 works pretty much as expected if your project
has NO groups in it, but it works in a counter-intuitive way if your project DOES have groups in it.

Key to making the FP8 work nicely with Bitwig is assigning shortcuts to Navigation > Enter Group and
Navigation > Exit Group. In my case, I’ve assigned these to G and V, respectively. It can also be
helpful to assign a shortcut to Project > Fold/Unfold all Group Tracks, which I’ve assigned to Alt-G.
These enter/exit group commands are shortcuts to navigate in this group navigator part of the Bitwig UI,
found only on the Arranger/Launcher interfaces.

The two main things to understand are that in grouped projects:

● The Track button on the FP8 shows only the peer/sibling groups and tracks at the same level,
so you must Enter Group to get that group’s children to appear on the FP8. This also means
you have to Exit Group to walk backward up the grouping hierarchy.
○ For example, if I enter the BACKING group in the above screenshot, on the FP8 my
fader channels will be for all the DROPS, CHORDS, MELODY, etc. busses. And if I
wanted to put all the tracks inside my DROPS group on the FP8, I’d then need to enter
the DROPS group.
● The Edit Plugins button on the FP8 always maps the Remote Control buttons of the selected
device on the selected group/track within the currently-entered group.
○ For example, if I wanted to use the FP8 faders to control the remote controls on a synth
on a track in the DROPS group, I’d first need to enter the DROPS group, then push the
Edit Plugins button on the FP8, then click the desired track header in Bitwig (or push
the Select button for that track on the FP8), and then click the device header of the
synth on that track.

How-to
 ● To enter a group, in the Arranger or Launcher, click the track header of the desired GROUP
track with your mouse, and then press G to Enter Group. (or whichever key you’ve mapped)
● To exit a group, click ANY track header in the currently displayed set, and then press V to Exit
Group. (or whichever key you’ve mapped). Note that you’ll always jump back to the previous
group level you were in. So for example if you’re in a level 1 group and enter a level 4 group,
and then exit that level 4 group, you’ll return to the level 1 group again.

Using Maschine with Bitwig

Importing Maschine patterns into Bitwig’s clip launcher
The general idea is to use the first 6-9 columns in Bitwig’s clip launcher (the launcher) to stem out the
patterns from all your Maschine groups in a way that puts all the closely-related sounds from each
group together into separate Bitwig clips. For example, say a group comprises a full drumkit, some
bass sounds, a sub sound, some atmospheric sounds, and some lead sounds. In this case, you don’t
really want to export each group pattern into a single clip that combines all those very different 16
sounds together! Instead, for each pattern you might want one clip that’s just the kicks from the pattern,
another that’s just the snares from the pattern, another that’s the cymbals from the pattern, and so on.

The result would be one column (scene) in the launcher for each pattern from Maschine. The track
rows in the launcher would be the stemmed-out clips. For example, say I am starting a song with 3
groups that each have 4-6 patterns I’ve developed in Maschine. Now my goal is to stem out the clips
from all these patterns and bring them into Bitwig’s launcher so I can mix and match them into different
sections of my arrangement. In this case, my Pattern 1 column would have three different track rows
just for kick sounds. One stemmed clip for the kicks from pattern 1 in group 1, another stemmed clip
beneath that for the kicks from pattern1 in group 2, and a 3rd stemmed clip beneath that for the kicks in
pattern 1 from group 3. You can see a short, un-narrated video here that demonstrates this outcome.

1. For every group in Maschine, create a corresponding track in Bitwig’s launcher. Name each
track Kick (groupName), then multi-select them and make them all the same color. Then group
them and name their group KICKS.
2. Repeat Step 1 for every typical type of stem you want to export from Maschine (and which is
present in at least some of the groups): kick, snare, hat, perc, toms, atmos, bass, sub,
synth.
3. Now name the first column in the launcher PAT 1, the next column PAT 2, and so on until you
have enough columns to fit all the patterns from Maschine.
4. In Maschine, solo the first group, make sure you’re in PAD MODE, then select Pattern 1 for that
group.
5. Solo the first kick sound in the group, then unmute all other kick sounds so that only the kick
sounds will play from the pattern.
6. Drag the audio export button up into the corresponding Kick (groupName) slot in the PAT 1
column of Bitwig’s launcher, then rename the clip as Kick 1 (which means “the kick stem from
Maschine’s Pattern 1”)
7. In Bitwig, select the clip and focus the Events panel at the bottom. Over in the inspector, enable
Loop for the clip and set the Length to match the original pattern length over in Maschine. Also
click and drag upward on Stop to set the stop point of the clip to match the loop length. Also
 consider making the Audio Event > Length shorter to match the loop length, if there’s no
rendered audio tail (from the export) that you want to preserve.
8. Now select Pattern 2 for the group and repeat this process. Continue for all the remaining
patterns in the group until you’ve extracted the kick stems from every pattern.
NOTE: If the kick sequencing is identical in several groups, don’t drag out duplicate stems!
Instead, just Ctrl-click and drag (or dupe with Ctrl-D) some clip you’ve already made into the
next column. For example, if the same exact kick sequence is used in all 6 patterns, you’ll only
drag a Kick 1 stem from Maschine’s Pattern 1 into the PAT 1 column of Bitwig. Then you’ll
dupe out (Ctrl-D) that same Kick 1 clip into the remaining 5 columns.
9. Repeat this process for every stem type present in the first group, starting next with the snare
sounds.
10. Then repeat this process over again for the second and remaining groups.

Dealing with clip loops that cut a tail short

Some clip stems that you bring over from Maschine into Bitwig’s Clip Launcher will have their tails cut
short by the obvious loop point. For example, a crash sound at the 3.2 mark in a 4-bar pattern will have
its tail ring out over start of the next loop when played in Maschine. But in Bitwig when you edit that
stem to loop right at the 4.0.0 mark, the tail will be cut off.

This is no big deal, because it’s easy to fix when the clip (or its parent scene) is dragged from Bitwig’s
launcher into the arrangement timeline. At first, the tail will be cut off there too, but if you use the Knife
(5) tool to split the looped arrangement clips right at the loop points, you can then:

1. Using the Pointer (1) tool, drag out the end of each split clip into the start of the next split clip.
2. Hover over the dotted loop point marker in each clip and drag it to the right until the full tail is
visible.

Point being, the tail is really still there in the looped clip, and it’s easy to bring out the tail once the clip
has been moved into the arrangement timeline. So live with the funky cut-short tails while you’re
superlooping in Bitwig’s launcher, because it’s easy to fix these rare cases when you start working on
the full arrangement.

Bitwig browser usage and library organization

Watch a video about this entire section!

Useful browser shortcuts

Popup Browser
These work when your focus is in the Arranger, Launcher, and Device panel.

● Press T B in sequence to open the popup browser and place your cursor in the search field
● When cursor is in the search field:
○ Press down arrow to move your focus to results list
● When cursor is in the results list
○ Press Ctrl + left/right arrows to switch the tabs you’re searching in
 ○ Press left/right arrows to navigate the filter columns (then up/down arrows to select
the filter you want)
○ Press S at any time to jump back to the search field
○ Press Enter to insert the highlighted thing in the results list
● At any point, press Esc to cancel and close the popup browser.

Panel Browser
These work when your focus is anywhere.
Note that unlike in the Popup Browser, there’s no way to jump into different filter categories. If you want
to expand a different filter category, you must do it with your mouse.

● Shift-B puts focus in Panel Browser

● S puts focus in search field
○ So Shift-B S is a key combo to always end up in search field
● When cursor is in the search field:
○ Press down arrow to move your focus to results list (or currently-expanded filter list if
that’s the last part you had focused)
● When cursor is in the results list
○ Press Enter to insert the highlighted thing in the results list
○ Press S at any time to jump back to the search field
○ Press left/right arrows to switch between the currently-expanded filter list and the
results list
○ Press Ctrl + left/right arrows to switch the tabs you’re searching in
● When cursor is in the currently expanded filter list
○ Press Enter to expand/collapse a folder
○ Press S at any time to jump back to the search field
○ Press left/right arrows to switch between the currently-expanded filter list and the
results list
○ Press Ctrl + left/right arrows to switch the tabs you’re searching in
● At any point, return focus to other parts of the UI by first making sure you are NOT in the search
field, and then pressing the shortcut key to focus some other part of the browser

Setting default “context states” for the Popup Browser

There are several different context states in the big Popup Browser
● ...when adding to empty instrument track
● ...when adding to empty audio track
● ...when inserting Note FX or Instrument (empty hybrid tracks, 1st slot in hybrid tracks)
● ...when inserting Note FX (1st slot in instrument track)
● ...when inserting Audio FX (all slots in audio tracks, 2nd+ slots in instrument and hybrid tracks)
● Clicking the “presets” folder on a device (any track type)

Search syntax for tighter search results

Note that you can use either = or : somewhat interchangeably. For example, creator:Baphometrix and
creator=Baphometrix work exactly the same.
 ● Single-string searches will match only instances where that string appears in camelcase or is
preceding by an obvious delimiter such as a space character, an underline character, a dash
character, and so on. For example, searching for wub will find _wub or ambient wub or
_Wubz or Wubble or BassWub, but won’t find Basswub or deepwub.
● Multiple words with no quotes (and no special keywords) = Boolean AND among all the entered
words, but the AND also searches through other metadata, such as in ancestor folder names,
creator names, tags, and so on.
○ For example, 808 tape would return every sample in a folder named Tape808 samples
○ If you wanted to limit the AND behavior to only words in a sample name, you’d instead
need to search for name:acid name:bass.
● Phrases in quotes = exact phrase (case insenstive)
○ “808 tape” would not return every sample in the above folder, but instead only those
files/folders with that exact phrase including the space between 808 and tape.
● Special search keywords:
○ name:string - string must appear in the filename, not in any ancestor folders or metadata
tags.
○ type:string - string matches a file extension, such as mp3, wav, aif, bwpreset, etc.
○ tag:string - string matches a custom or standard tag. Typically useful only for devices,
presets, and multisamples. Tip: use an underscore (or camelCase) when you are adding
your own custom multi-word tags to things like user presets, such as instrument_rack
or audioRack. This especially comes in handy when building smart collections to
organize all your user presets, as described below.
○ category:string - string matches a standard category.
○ creator:string - string matches a creator name.
● Add -exclusion words to narrow down the search results by filtering out the exclusions
○ 808 tape -orig -loop would return every sample in a folder named Tape808, but the
results would exclude any file with the strings orig OR loop in the file name.

Manual collections versus smart collections

A manual Collection is independent of any other automated filter in a Bitwig browser category, such as
the Creator or Location filters. A manual collection is basically just a hand-built filter. When you right-
click a manual collection and choose Set as target collection, then clicking the ⭐button
for any sample listed in any other filtered result set adds that sample to
the target collection.

By contrast, a Smart Collection more more like an alias for various boolean AND combinations of
other filters, such as:

● The result set of collection Growls and collection 2Best

○ in_collection=Growls in_collection=2Best
● The result set of creator Baphometrix and tag 97s
○ creator=Baphometrix tag=97s
● The result set of creator Baphometrix or creator Polarity
○ creator:Baphometrix or creator:Polarity
● The result set of creator Baphometrix but excluding the tag audio_rack
○ creator:Baphometrix -tag:audio_rack
● The result set of location SampleLib\Baphometrix\Snowflake\Unused\Faces
 ○ folder:"G:\\SampleLib\\Baphometrix\\Snowflake\\Unused\\Faces"
Note here how you must escape backslashes

Again, notice that I interchangeably used both = and : in the above examples.

Keeping my presets and multisamples easy to find and understand

Give my presets verbose descriptions and tags, and create smart collections in both the Presets and
Multisamples categories of the Bitwig browser:
● creator=Baphometrix
● creator=Baphometrix tag=audio_rack
● creator=Baphometrix tag=instrument_rack
● And so on...

Saving groups, tracks, and clips in the browser library

In Ableton, you can literally drag a track or group header into the User Library section of the browser
and it will create an ALC file with everything in the track or group.

In Bitwig, you cannot directly drag track/group headers into the browser. Instead, you do this by saving
track clips and group meta clips.

● The striped clips shown on group tracks are meta clips. When you drag a meta clip into the
bottom half of the browser (or right-click it and choose Save scene to library, it’s saved into the
Clips section of the browser with a stripey icon to indicate that it’s a meta clip. When you add
that meta clip to a project track, the entire group is re-created, with all its tracks, track clips,
track devices, and track/group routings. You can even audition the content of these meta clips
while they’re still in the browser!

● Regular track clips look and work like saving Ableton clips does. They have a different icon in
the Clips section of the browser. Drag them into the bottom half of the browser or right-click and
choose Save clip to library. You can audition the content of clips while they’re still in the
browser.

GOTCHA! - Where things can be confusing at first is when you have multiple clips on a track (or
multiple meta clips) and want to save all of them along with the track and its routing/devices!

To save a track and ALL of its multiple clips on the track

1. Use the Time (4) tool to select a region of time on the track, spanning from the start of the first
clip to the end of the last clip.
2. Use Time > Consolidate to consolidate the selected chunk of time into a single clip.
3. Drag the new consolidated clip into the bottom half of the browser and fill out the save dialog.

You can also consolidate only some clips on the track if you don’t want everything on the track.

To save a group and ALL of its meta clips (and therefore ALL of the track clips in the group)
 1. Use the Time (4) tool to select a region of time on the GROUP track, spanning from the start of
the first meta clip to the end of the last meta clip.
2. Use Time > Consolidate to consolidate the selected chunk of time into a single meta clip.
3. Drag the new consolidated meta clip into the bottom half of the browser and fill out the save
dialog.

You can also consolidate only some meta clips on the GROUP track if you don’t want everything from
the group.

A BETTER way to copy groups and tracks around to different projects

A huge strength of Bitwig is its ability to have multiple projects open at the same time. Also, the Files
tab of the browser is really powerful, because it always shows the groups and tracks of every project
listed in the Recent Projects section of the Browser’s left-most user tab.

These features make it dirt easy to copy tracks and groups from other projects into your current project,
without needing to first consolidate clips and save them to the Clips section of the browser!. There are
two basic ways you can approach copying tracks/groups from project to project:

● You can open up the other project with the track/group you want, then in that project tab just
click and drag (and keep holding the mouse button down) the track header or group header up
to very top project tabs area and hover over the project tab that you want to copy the
track/group into. When focus switches to the target project, just move your cursor to where you
want to insert the track/group and let go of the mouse button.
● You can alternatively go to the Files tab of the browser and scroll down to the Recent Projects
smart folder near the bottom. Then drill into the projects listed there and drag out the groups or
tracks you want right into your project like you would for any other sample. If the project you
want isn’t listed there, you can go digging through your file system and drill into any Bitwig
project folder. You’ll see the same obvious group and track icons and can drag them directly
into your project.

Building Robot collections and filtering out “weak” samples

We need to build a set of Robot_* collections that comprise our better samples, organized into robot
sample categories per the Ill Methodology. More importantly, we want to be able to easily make
temporary smart collections to see a “best of” subset of any one robot category.

We do this by creating a series of successively more selective good-better-best manual collections like
so:

● 1Bae = all the best-of-best Robot samples from the total set of _2 Best samples
● 2Best = all the best Robot samples from the total set of _3 Better samples
● 3Better = all the better Robot samples from the total set of _4 Good samples
● 4Good = all the “not shit” samples of any type

Then, we methodically build up these manual collections and also build up our Robot_* manual
collections at the same time, in the following order:

1. Define our total set of 4Good samples (everything that isn’t a shitty sample).
 a. Set target collection = 4Good.
b. Sweep through one sample folder at a time by using the Locations filter, and
click the ⭐button for every sample that doesn’t sound like cheap
shit.
c. Do not proceed to Step 2 until you’ve filtered out all the shitty samples this way.
2. Define our total set of Robot_* collections.
a. Create a new robot collection such as Robot_Buildup_Riser and set this as the target
collection.
b. Clear all filters and select the 4Good collection. Leave this selected throughout the
remaining substeps, so that you are choosing only from among the “not shit” samples.
c. Use a keyword search like Riser and/or use the Locations filter to sweep
through the sample folders that obviously contain samples of the
desired robot type, and click the ⭐button for every sample that
obviously fits the robot category.
d. Repeat this process for every desired robot category. Do not proceed to Step 3 until
you’ve built up all your robot categories.
3. Define our 3Better subset in each Robot_* collection.
a. Set target collection = 3Better.
b. Select the first Robot_* collection.
c. Now sweep through all the samples in the selected Robot_* collection and click
the ⭐button for the better-sounding samples that “jump out at
you” among all the samples.
d. Review the total set of starred samples for that collection and make sure there aren’t too
many or too few. You want roughly 25% to 33% of the samples in that collection to be
starred as “Better”.
e. Repeat this process for every defined Robot_* collection. Do not proceed to Step 4 until
finished.
4. Define our 2Best subset in each Robot_* collection.
a. Set target collection = 2Best.
b. Select the first Robot_* collection and create a new Temp smart collection from it.
c. Edit the Temp smart collection and add in_collection=3Better to the front of the query.
d. Clear all filters and select the Temp smart collection.
e. Now sweep through the Temp smart collection and click the ⭐button for
the better-sounding samples that “jump out at you” among all the
samples.
f. Review the total set of starred samples for that collection and make sure there aren’t too
many or too few. You want roughly 25% to 33% of the samples in that collection to be
starred as “Best”.
g. Delete the Temp smart collection.
h. Repeat this process for every defined Robot_* collection. Do not proceed to Step 5 until
finished.
5. Define our 1Bae subset in each Robot_* collection.
a. Set target collection = 1Bae.
b. Select the first Robot_* collection and create a new Temp smart collection from it.
c. Edit the Temp smart collection and add in_collection=2Best to the front of the query.
d. Clear all filters and select the Temp smart collection.
e. Now sweep through the Temp smart collection and click the ⭐button for
the better-sounding samples that “jump out at you” among all the
samples.
 f. Review the total set of starred samples for that collection and make sure there aren’t too
many or too few. You want roughly 25% to 33% of the samples in that collection to be
starred as “Bae”.
g. Delete the Temp smart collection.
h. Repeat this process for every defined Robot_* collection.

Filtering any collection type down to “good-better-best” result sets

Because we have a standard set of 4Good, 3Better, 2Best, and 1Bae manual collections, we can
quickly and easily create ad hoc smart collections that filter pretty much anything down to only the
samples that are also in one of these special good-better-best collections.

This trick works because of the way that smart collections do a boolean AND across all the filters
specified in the query for the smart collection!

Example 1: You want to see only the 1Bae kick samples in your entire library:
1. Select the 1Bae collection.
2. Search for kick

Example 2: You want to see only the 2Best and 1Bae impact samples among your
Robot_Buildup_Impact collection:
1. Select the Robot_Buildup_Impact collection
2. Create a new Temp smart collection from it.
3. Edit the Temp smart collection and add in_collection=2Best to the front of the query.
4. Clear all filters and select the Temp smart collection.

Example 3: You want to see only the 3Better, 2Best, and 1Bae samples from the NI Expansion pack
Astral Flutter:
1. Use the Locations filter category to drill into the Astral Flutter\Samples folder.
2. Create a new Temp smart collection from it.
3. Edit the Temp smart collection and add in_collection=3Better to the front of the query.
4. Clear all filters and select the Temp smart collection.

Ability to use a Random button for selecting among a result set

For this we must use the plugin Sample Manager from ADSR. Note that this robs us of access to all
our manual collections and smart collections in Bitwig, so we’re limited to broad boolean OR tag
searches and location searches. (Sample Manager doesn’t seem to support boolean AND yet.)

Note that this will also potentially choose “shit” samples unless you first go through an entire extra step
(long and arduous) of physically separating out all the shit samples into their own G:\ShitLib folder
structure so that Sample Manager can ignore that folder entirely. This is probably more trouble than it’s
worth if we can convince Bitwig to someday give us their own “Random” button.

Browsing samples by tag name

While you can search for any string (tag name) in Bitwig’s browser, you have to remember likely tag
names to do this. Sometimes you just want to browse already-made tag lists for all your samples.
 For this we must use the plugin Sample Manager from ADSR because it automatically creates tags
from every useful category keyword found in sample names, and you can manually add other tags as
desired.

Creating smart collections of unused Snowflake sample types

The challenge here is to make used snowflake samples be automatically hidden from view so that I
don’t accidentally reuse them in a different song. We can do this by making Bitwig smart collections for
snowflake sample folders.

1. Make a Snowflake_Faces smart folder pointing at SampleLib\Baphometrix\Snowflake\

Unused\Snowflake.
2. Make a Snowflake_PurpleCow smart folder pointing at SampleLib\Baphometrix\Snowflake\
Unused\Snowflake.
3. Make a Snowflake_Sparks smart folder pointing at SampleLib\Baphometrix\Snowflake\
Unused\Snowflake.

Then make a …\used\... version of each of the above three folders. When archiving a finished
MASTER project, go find the snowflakes I used and move them from their original unused folder into
their corresponding used folder. This makes the smart collections update to no longer list the used
snowflakes.

Note that good-better-best categorization makes no sense for snowflake samples, since these are
volatile and new ones arrive all the time, and used ones get moved into folders that make them
essentially invisible to the Collections filters.

Automation
Watch a video about this entire section!

Bitwig can effectively do ALL the same automation moves as in Ableton, but in a different way, and in
some cases faster and easier. Bitwig also has a few automation drawing tricks that Ableton doesn’t
have!

The Ctrl and Shift modifiers are effectively worthless for automation drawing in Bitwig. It’s all about the
Alt modifier and the 5 different editing tools, especially the Pen (3) tool. All the common editing moves
and the best way to accomplish them in Bitwig are listed below.

● Use only the Pointer (1) and Pen (3) tool to do most of the bread and butter automation
drawing you’ll need. The Eraser (4) tool can be useful for some things, mainly for taking a
certain existing value and scrub-duplicating that specific value across to the right in a perfectly
horizontal line. The Time-Select (2) and Knife (5) tools are worthless for automation editing.
● Don’t ever bother with the Add this lane below button (+), because the Show all automation
lanes button (★) does the same thing only way better. Just click the ★ when you want to see
everything that’s been automated for a track.
● To delete an automation lane, click the Delete this lane and all its automation (x) button.
● To clear all automation points off a lane but leave the lane open, click any single point in the
lane, then Ctrl-A to select all the points, then press either the Del key or the Backspace key.
 ● To make a curved automation line, hover the Pointer (1) tool near a line, then hold down the Alt
modifier and drag up or down.
● To make a symmetrical curve on both sides of an automation point (something Ableton can’t
do), hover the Pointer (1) tool over an automation point, then hold down the Alt modifer and
drag up or down. The line on both sides of the point will curve exactly the same amount.
● To create a vertical cutout (like Ableton’s time-select > drag the line inside the time selection
either up or down), use the Pen (3) tool PLUS the Alt modifier to click-drag down/up to the
extreme top/bottom boundary of the lane to make a perfectly square “notch” exactly the width of
one grid space. Then drag left or right below or above the boundary of the automation lane to
extend that notch into a larger cutout. When you let go, you’ll have a perfect vertical cutout
made of four simple points, just like in Ableton.
○ You can then use the techniques in the following bullets to adjust the left or right vertical
pairs of the cutout to snap to the exact bar/beat you want. And to adjust the top or
bottom horizontal pairs to snap to the exact upper and lower values you want.
■ First, multi-select the pair of points bounding a vertical or horizontal line in a
cutout section by using the Pointer (1) tool to click one point to select it, then
shift-clicking the second point to add that point to the multi-selection. Or you can
use the Pointer (1) tool to simply click-drag a selection box around the two
points.
■ To adjust a multi-selected vertical pair of automation points to the nearest grid
snap, either shift-drag inside the Position box in the Inspector panel, or double-
click the current Position value and enter a new value.
● For example, just double-click and enter 32 to snap the vertical pair
exactly onto the grid marker for bar 32:1.1.00. Or enter 32.3 to snap
exactly to 32.3.1.00, and so on.
● TIP: Zoom the grid to the time resolution you want, then click the specific
grid line you want to snap to. Look at the blue transport display to see the
exact play position value. This value is what you want to enter into the
Position box.
■ To adjust a multi-selected horizontal pair of automation points up or down to a
specific value, either shift-drag inside the Value box in the Inspector panel, or
double-click the current Value value and enter a new value.
● TIP: To view the effect of this new value on the device you’re automating
without de-selecting the pair, click up in the Beat Ruler at a position
between the horizontal pair, and you’ll see the device “snap” to that value
setting.

Modulation
Opening detail panels for multiple modulators at the same time
You can have the detail panels for more than one modulator open at the same time! Use any of the
following methods:

● After opening the first modulator’s detail panel, hold Ctrl while clicking others to open them too.
● After opening the first modulator’s detail panel, hold Shift and click some other modulator to
also open the detail panels for it and everything else between it and the first one.
 ● Or just hold Alt and click and drag a selection rectangle through any number of modulators.
When you let go of the mouse button, all of their device panels will open up.

Making the Steps modulator work for Launcher clips

The Steps modulator in Transport mode always looks at the Arranger timecode. So to make Steps work
when you’re trying to loop short clips in the Launcher, make sure that the Looping control in the
Arranger is OFF, or else set the loop length in the Arranger to be longer than the longest loop you’re
using in the Launcher.

Using the Steps modulator as a static randomizer

The Random modulators are great but you can’t save a specific random state and have it be the same
every time you open the project.

The Steps modulator can have up to 32 step values, which could be used as a quasi-randomizer with
up to 32 discrete values. All you have to do is choose the “Hold” Transport mode (stops the playhead
from moving through the steps), and then modulate the “Phase” control for Steps. For example, you
could have the Random modulator set values for the Phase control, but this would always translate to
one of the steps, and be the same every time you land on that step.

Or you could make a remote control knob for the Phase control and manually choose one of the steps
that way and leave it there until you want to manually change it again. And so on and so on.

Replacing one modulator with another

If you want to try a different modulator without needing to manually re-make all the modulation
assignments and strengths, you can simply Alt-Drag the modulation arrow from one modulator to
another. (This moves the modulation routings.)

Copying modulator assignments to multiple different modulators

If you want to copy modulator assignments and strengths to another modulator, start by Alt-Dragging,
but then also hold down Ctrl before letting go on the target modulator.

Keytracking on modulators, plus notes about “Timebase” and “Rate”

controls on several modulator types
Some modulators have adjustable Rate (speed) controls that are based on some Timebase
subdivision. For example, you’ll find these Rate and Timebase controls in the LFO and ParSeq-8
modulators, among others.

Most of the Timebase options are based on the project tempo, and the Rate control additively (or
multiplicatively?) slows down or speeds up the modulator relative to the chosen Timebase subdivision.

There is one special Timebase option called Pitch. This is essentially a keytracking response, making
the speed change to match the frequency (pitch) of every incoming MIDI note. So:
 ● If you’re using the Pitch timebase option, you should not also use a Keytracking modulator to
adjust the Rate of the modulator.
● For all the other Timebase options other than Pitch, if you also want keytracking behavior then
you must use a Keytracking modulator and assign it to the Rate control with a value of 1.0.

How to keytrack Bitwig frequency/cutoff knobs

This is super easy. When you double-click pretty much any frequency/cutoff knob in any Bitwig device,
you’ll set that frequency/cutoff to its default C3 (262 Hz) position.

Then just add Bitwig’s keytrack modulator to that device, and assign it to the frequency cutoff knob with
a value of 64.00. Perfect frequency keytracking.

How to keytrack most Kilohearts modules (like Resonator)

Kilohearts’ native keytracking is based on an A3 note (440 Hz) in Bitwig’s understanding of “middle C”,
which presents a challenge because Bitwig keytracking is based on a C3 note (262 Hz).

So to use Bitwig’s Keytrack modulator on any Kilohearts frequency parameter (such as the “Pitch”
value in Khs Resonator or the “Cutoff” value in Khs Comb Filter, etc.):

1. Add the Bitwig Keytrack modulator to the Khs device. In the Keytrack modulator, set the Root
note to A4, but leave all other settings at their defaults (Relative mode and a Spread of 64.00).
2. On the Khs module, find the Pitch/Cutoff/Hz etc. value that you want to modulate and double-
click it. This sets it to its default A4 440 Hz value and also brings its parameter knob to the top in
Bitwig.
3. Connect the Bitwig Keytrack modulator to the Khs parameter knob with some small positive
amount.
4. Over in Bitwig’s inspector, double-click the modulation amount and manually enter a value of
.5334. Don't do this with the mouse dragging up or down! Ctrl-click the modulation amount and
manually enter .5534, then hit Enter.

You should now have perfect keytracking control of the Khs device.

(Don’t ask me how I figured this out. I can’t explain the math. I simply brute-forced the solution with trial
and error.)

How to keytrack modulate anything based on incoming AUDIO pitch

Want actual audio frequency tracking and corresponding keytracked modulation? For free? Here's how:

1. Go download "MTuner" from Melda Productions. (It's FREE)

2. Set up a track like shown in the following screenshot. It works perfectly, and is based on
MTuner detecting the fundamental pitch of the incoming audio, then generating an outgoing
MIDI note closest to that fundamental pitch. From there, the Keytrack modulator (with default
settings) can use that MIDI note generated by MTuner to modulate any EQ point (or anything)
you like in a keytracked way with precise jumps. The trick is to enable the MIDI OUTPUT button
in MTuner, and of course to set the amount of modulation performed by the Keytrack modulator
to a value of exactly 64 on whatever you want to modulate with it.
 For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that I played a C2 into Serum on track 1. Then
down in track 2, Audio Receiver pulls in the audio from Serum on track 1, feeds it to MTuner (who sees
it as 129.8 Hz and therefore spits out a C2 MIDI note value), and then the Keytracking modulator in the
EQ-5 sees that incoming C2 and modulates Filter 2 from it's original 400 Hz setting to 200 Hz (exactly
one octave lower), because the Keytracking modulator is rooted at C3 (MIDI Note 60). Note the
modulation range value of exactly 64 over in the Inspector panel (for the Keytracking modulator
assignment to Filter 2 in the EQ-5)

This simple chain should work anywhere for audio frequency-based keytrack modulation.

Making an Ableton-style AM/FM Sine LFO like in Ableton’s Sampler

Watch a video about this entire section! Download this preset!

(Coming soon--meanwhile just watch the video, download the preset, and check it out for yourself!)

Making circular XY crossfade modulation

Watch a video about this entire section! Download these presets!

Setting these up is too complex to easily describe in written form. Watch the linked video and download
the ready-made presets.
AUDIO Clip and Event Editing
ZOOMING
● Learn the Z key
○ Quick zoom to entire project length
○ Toggle between selection zoom and entire project length
● Map Shift-Z to Zooming > Zoom to Fit Selection or Previous
○ Toggle between new Zoom and previous Zoom

SYNCHING Arranger view with Event Editor view

● Double-click the CLIP header bar in Arranger to see entire clip in EE
● Double-click the CLIP header in EE panel to see entire clip in EE
● Select time in Arranger to zoom to that section of clip in EE
● Click to set playhead in Arranger to set playhead to that spot in EE
○ If zoomed in EE, the zoom will stay unchanged!

Play from position in Event Editor

● Click in EE ruler to set playhead start
● Shift + spacebar to resume playback from where stopped
● Alt + spacebar to playback from start of clip

Why TWO containers for audio?

● Bitwig has TWO containers for audio samples: CLIP and AUDIO EVENT
● Always understand whether you’re looking a CLIP or an EVENT
● What you think of an “an audio clip” in other DAWs is an “audio EVENT” in Bitwig
● Clips can have multiple different events, which opens a world of possibility
○ Example: Putting a reverse riser EVENT in front of a SNARE event inside the same clip, then
setting the clip start and end in a way that makes it easy to LOOP-DRAG the clip so that the
snare always hits on the 2 and 4 of every bar. You can also quickly adjust the fade or other
attributes of the reverse riser event without affecting the snare in any way.

Contextual GESTURES for audio editing:

● Every gesture has a distinct pointer shape
● Some gestures are POSITIONAL
● Some gestures are keyboard modifiers
● MOST gestures are explained in the status bar, but SOME are not

Arranger gestures and actions operate at the CLIP level

Event Editor gestures and actions can operate at the CLIP or EVENT level
Tip: Sometimes it's useful to use gestures in the Event Editor but WATCH the Arranger clip, and vice versa.
Especially when you have a different level of zoom each area.
● Example, Zoom WAY in at the start of a clip in the Arranger, but then use a Clip Stretch (longer)
gesture on the right edge of the clip in the EE.

ARRANGER actions and gestures

● Clip truncate (header bar edge gesture)
● CLIP looping (lower edge gesture)
● Clip fades (upper corner gesture)
● Clip crossfades (upper corner gesture)
● Time selection (drag over clip)
○ Drag again to split and move
○ Ctrl-E to split in place
● EVENT sliding within the CLIP container (Alt- gesture inside clip)
○ Also hold Shift- to snap slides to grid resolution

Confusing Arranger stuff

● No stretching actions possible in the Arranger
● Crossfades need additional EVENT "content" sitting out past the visible edge of the clip
● Loop bar shown in CLIP mode of EE won't update unless you drag Arranger looping gesture

Event Editor actions and gestures

Editor MODES
CLIP = Is generally centric to LAUNCHER behavior of a clip
One CLIP at a time
Can create offsets (lead-ins) for the Launcher

TRACK = Is generally centric to the ARRANGER behavior of a clip

Editor BUTTONS
● Clips button
area)
● Audio Events button
● Stretch button
● Onsets button
● Pitch and Formants buttons
mode)
= Fades/Crossfades/Event Sliding (basically just like in Arranger
= Full-width Event stretching
= Surgical/partial stretching
= Creating/adjusting/deleting onsets
= Clip automation of Stretch mode parameters (won’t work in Raw

Clips button
● Essentially identical to working in the Arranger BUT NO EASY LOOPING
 ● Most actions/gestures from ARRANGER will work here

Audio Events button

● (CLIP only) Launcher Clip truncate (ruler triangles)
● (CLIP only) Launcher Clip loop start/end (ruler bar)
○ Bar turns highlighted when clip is actually looped
○ Easy to override with gestures up in the Arranger
● Event truncate (header bar gesture)
● Event fades (upper corner gesture)
● Event crossfades (upper corner gesture)
○ Crossfade NOT visible in the Arranger clip
○ WORKS ONLY when two events in the clip
● Time selection (drag over event)
● AUDIO sliding within the EVENT container (Alt- gesture inside Event)
○ Also hold Shift- to snap slides to grid resolution
● Snapped Full AUDIO stretching (edge gesture)
○ Also hold Shift- to disable grid snapping
○ Can also do rightward stretch by Alt-Ctrl gesture INSIDE Event
■ Also hold Shift- to disable grid snapping

Confusing stuff:
● Can’t do any stretching if your clip is still in Raw mode

Stretch button
● Most actions/gestures from "Audio Events" will work here
● Red/Blue indicator line across bottom is unique to this mode
○ Red means section is SLOWER than RAW tempo of the audio event
○ Blue means section is FASTER than RAW tempo of the audio event
● Hover > Click > Drag BOTTOM EDGE near Onset line to place a stretch mark and move it
○ Also hold Alt- to ALSO automatically place Stretch markers at onsets on either side
● Double-click anywhere to place a Stretch marker
○ it will snap to nearby grid line or onset marker
● Drag stretch marker or lower half of line for snapped stretching to new grid positions
○ Also hold Shift- to disable grid snapping
● Drag upper half of stretch marker line to stretch audio AROUND the stretch marker
● Multi-select stretch markers by clicking and dragging crosshairs in lower half of Event
● Right-clicking a stretch marker and choosing Start Audio Event Here is a shortcut for starting the
Event at a specific onset

Confusing Stuff:
● Can’t place stretch markers or do any stretching if your clip is still in Raw mode
● Cannot select ONE stretch marker and do Ctrl-A to then multi-select ALL stretch markers.
Instead, you must select-drag to multi-select stretch markers
● Stretching is always anchored by the two nearest stretch markers on either side of the stretch
marker line you're dragging near
Onsets button
● Onsets are NOT based on Transients!
○ They’re based on detectable spectral shifts, not on sudden amplitude changes
○ They’re really more optimized for tonal material, such as where each syllable starts in a vocal
sample.
● Therefore, onsets often “miss” obvious transients OR look like they’re on a transient but really
aren’t
● Therefore, onsets are sometimes useless or annoying when you want to stretch per visible
Transients
○ Tip: First delete all visible onsets. Then place stretch markers at strategic grid points and then
stretch the waveform near each stretch marker to place the visible transient on the marker line.
● To delete all onsets, click ONE onset then press Ctrl-A to select all of them. Then press the
Delete key.

Tips for stretching Acapellas

Acapella samples are notoriously tricky to align to the grid, especially when stretching them to a
different project tempo. Why?
● Singing is very expressive and humanized, and therefore contains massive timing drift
● Singers typically only place one or two syllables in an entire bar “on the beat”
● Singers almost never start a phrase on the downbeat of a bar

Therefore there are several tricks to aligning and stretching acapella samples:
● ALWAYS determine the original Raw tempo first and set up the “full span” stretching first
○ If any interior stretch markers exist, you cannot do a “full span” stretch any more
● Don’t use a metronome click to judge the original raw tempo--use a common time drum track
instead with kick on the 1 and 3, snare on the 2 and 4, and a shaker on the 8th notes.
○ This enables you to feel the beat the way the singer feels the beat, and will make it MUCH
easier to feel the singer’s rhythm and flow against the down/back beats
○ Therefore, it’s MUCH easier to determine where each phrase starts in any given bar.
● Drag the entire acapella CLIP to align the very first phrase against the drum beat.
● Then DOUBLE-CHECK other downstream phrases that probably are meant to land on the
downbeat and make sure they’re sitting at an n.1 grid mark

Only AFTER you’ve fully grid-aligned the entire acapella CLIP at the project tempo should you start
adding interior stretch markers and doing surgical stretching adjustments.
● Tip: At this point, it might be easier to first slice up the full acapella sample into smaller clips

Crossfading Clips and Events

The first thing to remember about Bitwig is that unlike in Ableton, Audio clips can contain multiple audio
events. In plain English, this means that a Bitwig audio clip can contain multiple different samples inside
of it, or you can chop and re-combine/transform the clip’s original single sample into multiple sample
chops.

When trying to crossfade

Making 128s
Watch a video about this entire section!

In Ableton, we talk about making and using “128s”, which is shorthand for a multisample full of different
one-shots. In Bitwig, they’re “97s”. The difference stems from the way the Bitwig Note Pitch Shifter
device works versus the way the Ableton Pitch device works. (The Bitwig version can only select up or
down 4 octaves from the central “0” position at C4.) This might seem like a loss or downside, but it’s
really not because it is much easier to create and edit and swap out multisamples in Bitwig.

You actually can load up a Bitwig multisample with 128 different one-shots but this makes the
multisample harder to use in a Drum Machine pad, so it’s better to make 97s that are universally
usable.

1. Create a Sampler, then right-click in the waveform display area and choose Create
Multisample.
2. Expand the device window for Sampler to show the big version of the multisample editor.
3. Multi-select and click-drag in samples from the browser to fill up the range from C0 to C8
○ Keep holding the left mouse down and move the cursor up closer to the top of the
multisample editor until the samples are as narrow-looking as possible. Drop the first
chunk starting at C0.
○ Do it in chunks if that’s more convenient, because it’s easy to place each chunk next to
the previous chunk.
○ C0 to B7 is 96 samples, and then adding one more sample to the C8 slot makes 97
total.
○ TIP: Don’t worry about all the samples having KEYTRACK enabled. It’s superfluous in
this type of multisample because the zone for each sample is exactly one note wide.
4. Click Save to Library in the upper left of the multisample editor, then name the file 97 -
(filename) and tag it up.
○ You don’t save the Sampler, you save the multisample. You can swap multisamples in
and out of existing Samplers anywhere. And you just drag a multisample to the device
panel on an instrument track to instantiate it in a Sampler.
○ The Category and Description are the only things you’ll see in the browser, but setting
good tags will really help with search results.

Wrangling that damn Select knob for melodic 128s

So, in 2.4, the Select knob makes melodic 128s possible, but they’re kinda unfriendly to use. Why?
Because the Select knob is not an indexed value from 0-127, but just a flat percentage knob from 0-
100%. So visually, you have no freaking idea which exact sample in a big multisample you’ve actually
got selected with that knob.

The next big problem is that Bitwig currently has no keyboard shortcut for stepping through knob values
in small increments! In Ableton, you can map a macro knob to the SEL index selector in their Sampler,
then if you simply click that knob once with your mouse to select it, you can use arrow-up and arrow-
down on your keyboard to walk through the indexed values of that knob one sample at a time. It’s
VERY friendly. Bitwig can’t do this yet.
 So sure, you can hold Shift while dragging any knob in Bitwig to slow it down and make it have more
fine-granular movement, right? Except that requires two hands. Where’s the 3rd hand available to press
pads on Push or keys on a keyboard to actually trigger the samples so you can audition which one you
want? And even then, the granularity of Shift + drag is not really granular enough, and it’s easy to jump
over some samples as you’re trying to move through the total set of 128 one by one.

So what are some adaptive techniques you can use until Bitwig makes that Select knob more user-
friendly?

One way is to not load up a multisample with a full 128 samples. Fewer samples = more granularity for
the Select knob.

But the BEST way is to get your hands on a Midi Fighter Twister, and then go download the controller
template for it (from the KVR Bitwig > Controllers forum) made by Pawnbroker. (Link to forum post
with the latest download) They’ve got that template set up so that you can toggle the twister knobs
assigned to the Sampler's default remote control panel, so that any one knob assigned to the visible
Remote Controls panel can flip into a very granular and fine control mode.

So basically if you have a Twister, you can just press down on the knob assigned to Select (and let
go--it’s a toggle), and now you have to turn that knob by quite a bit to jump between each sample in a
fully-packed 128 multisample! It makes it dirt easy to step through one-by-one while you're banging a
pad on your Push (or whatever) to audition each sample in the 128. Oh, and I have a nice graphic
shortcut doc explaining the mapping of Pawnbroker’s control scheme on the Twister that you can use
for learning and reference.

Even Moss's great controller template for the Push/Push2 can't do this. There's a default mapping for
the Select knob there in any Sampler device you drill into, but it's not nearly granular enough and you’ll
jump over samples like crazy in a fully loaded melodic 128.

Recording arp note output from VPS-Avenger

1. Create a new Instrument track.
2. Set the input of the empty track to
TRACKS > origInstrumentTrack > VPS Avenger
3. Paint the loop marker over the section with the clip you want to resample the MIDI notes from.
4. Enable punch-in and punch-out AND turn off Loop transport.
5. Arm the empty track and press play.

Slicing to Multisamples
The magic number is 92:

● If the total number of slices is 1-92, the multisample zone will start at C1.
● If the total number of slices is 93-128, the multisample zone will start 3 octaves lower at C -2.
Slicing to Regions (Simpler style)
For making “loop menus” from a mudpie, it’s useful to take a long 2-7 minute sample and slice it to a
multisample (or drum rack) using an option not natively provided for by Bitwig: 64 equal regions of the
original sample. This enables you to use a Push controller (or any 64-pad controller) to “play” the
regions and create interesting chop grooves from the original mudpie. This is an easy process in
Ableton’s Simpler instrument because it has a handy “slice to regions by gate” feature, but Bitwig’s
slice-to features does not have an “equal regions” option. So here’s how to do it manually with a few
steps in Bitwig.

1. Ensure your project is running at the tempo the mudpie was made in.
2. Drag the mudpie sample into a new Audio track.
3. Click the audio clip and choose the Stretch. This is a neutral operation at the sample’s original
tempo. We enable a warping mode to make the Onsets and Beat Markers available in the Event
Editor.
4. Double-click the clip to open it in the Event Editor, and make sure you’re in CLIP mode.
5. Zoom out the timeline in the Event Editor until you can see the entire clip/event.
6. Click the event header so that the interior event is selected.
7. Click the Onsets button and zoom in on the event until you see some blue onset markers.
8. Click any one marker to select it (turns white), and then press Ctrl-A to multi-select ALL the
onsets, and then press Del to delete ALL the onsets.
9. Do Event > Scale 50% exactly 6 times (it helps to have this assigned to a shortcut key). This
reduces the clip length to exactly 1/64 of its original length. (Depending on the length of the
original mudpie, this will be roughly 2-6 bars long.)
10. Resize the END of the clip’s loop marker to match the length of this shortened clip. This will be
your “ruler” going forward to set the remaining onset markers.
11. Click the event header and do Event > Scale 200% exactly 6 times to scale the event back out
to its original length. The timeline ruler’s start/end markers AND the loop marker should stay
unchanged near the bar:beat:tick value where the end of the shortened 1/64 clip was just a
moment ago..
12. Near the end of the loop marker “ruler”, zoom all the way in, then double-click at the nearest
beat grid to the end of the loop marker to place an onset marker there. Next, hold Shift while
dragging that onset marker directly to the end of the loop marker
13. Now zoom out in the Event Editor until you can see both the start and end of the loop marker
AND the first onset you made. Then grab the middle of the loop marker and slide it to the right
while holding Shift, and place the left edge of the loop marker on the first onset. (Holding Shift
will make the loop marker’s left edge snap to onsets.) Then scroll over to the right side of the
loop marker and place a new onset there. Repeat this process until you’ve placed 62 onset
markers and the event is divided into 64 equal segments.
14. Now up in the Arranger timeline click the clip header and choose Slice to Multisample. (or
Slice to Drum Machine). Slice to 32-bit and choose to slice at Onset.
15. Now you have a playable multisample or Drum Machine that you can use for making chop
grooves (loop menus). You can adjust the sample start for each “slice” as desired after this
point.
Sample Name Metadata Conventions
Bitwig will consider certain strings in a sample’s file name as “metadata”, and will automatically set
certain properties in the Sampler instrument accordingly. Bitwig will also automatically set audio clip
stretching behavior accordingly!

For Bitwig to recognize a sample’s Tempo and automatically set the original tempo for the clip, you
must put any of the following strings in the file name: (tempo)bpm, (tempo) bpm, (tempo)BPM, or
(tempo) BPM. So for example: 132bpm or 172 BPM, etc. It does not matter where in the sample name
this string occurs.

For Bitwig to recognize a sample’s root note and automatically set that root note (and KEY zone
distribution, if you drag a set of samples into the Multisample Editor window at the same time), you
must put a MIDI note value such as C3, Gb4, F1, A#2, and so on. It does not matter where in the
sample name that the string occurs.

IMPORTANT: If the sample name does not have a MIDI note value specified somewhere in the file
name, then Bitwig will default that sample to a C3 root note when you drag it into the Sampler. (In
Bitwig, “middle C” (MIDI note 60) is C3.)

So for a sample name to both Stretch properly and to have the correct root key set in the Sampler’s
KEY zone, you could name the sample like any of the following examples:

● BassGrowl F1 140bpm
● 140 BPM Pluck F#2
● Ab3 97 bpm Grand Piano
● 80bpm Reese C5 Noisy

Converting Synths to Multisamples

Polarity made an excellent video about an extremely fast way to convert any synth to a multisample
very fast. There is one mistake in the video: Bitwig knows what to do with the note number in the file
name, but not what to do with the velocity number. There’s also a conflict with the way Bitwig interprets
a whole integer number in the file name as being “metadata” indicating the original tempo of the sample
(for stretching purposes).

So keep this in mind as you watch the video. You can (and probably should) name the original MIDI
clips as:

(vNN) (patchName) (midiNote) (TEMPObpm) (RRstring) --where (vNN) is the velocity

For example, v25 MySynthPatch C2 140bpm RR1

IMPORTANT: When dragging multiple samples at the same time into the Sampler, EVERY sample
must have midiNote metadata in the file name if you want Bitwig to correctly set up the KEY zone
distribution as expected. If even one sample doesn’t have a MIDI Note name specified in the sample
name, Bitwig will get confused and might not set up the KEY zone distribution correctly.
 When you drag the resulting samples into the Sampler, Bitwig will still set up the multisample
automatically as shown in the video, but you’ll need to manually define the velocity for each sample.
This can be made easy and fast in two ways if you used the above naming convention:

● You can simply drag in one “velocity group” at a time, select them all, and manually set their
velocity to the indicated (vNN) value (use the Inspector panel to do this). Then drag in the next
“velocity group” and so on.
● Or you can drag everything in together and then use the “sort by” button (the hamburger button)
above the sample list to sort the samples by their vNN values, then multi-select each set of
related samples and manually set their velocity.

Here’s the video link: https://youtu.be/WOxo3Yseu7w

Using Serum wavetables in Sampler (Cycles)

The following details are based on doing this in a Grid device (Bitwig 3.0), because of the need to set
up quantized wavetable scanning precisely, which requires a math module in the Grid. I’m not sure you
can do this precise level of quantization outside of The Grid.

To use Serum wavetables in Bitwig's Sampler, the exact pitch for 2048 sample waveforms is F-1 and
23.4424138308938 cents. Once you have that set up in a Sampler, you can then use a Value module
through a Quantize module with a Constant (module) of the 1/(number of individual wave cycles) to
have it jump between waveforms discretely (I use Audacity to get the exact number of samples of the
wavetable and then divide that by 2048)

To make the Cycles playhead stop at the last frame (and not push past it into the middle of the last
frame in the wavetable), you need to add a macro to the POS knob when the sampler playhead is
frozen, and set the max value of the macro to 0.9697 instead of to 1.0

Rack Building
Watch a video about this entire section!

Drum Rack Stuff

Bitwig Drum racks don’t reveal the pad chains and note routing for each chain and the choke groups
set for each chain. You can set choke groups only at the pad level. So tricksy “Multi” pads like Ableton
allows must be done in a completely different way in Bitwig.

How to create a “DrumPad 97”

Watch a video demonstrating this “DrumPad 97” technique (video starts at specific timestamp)

Also watch this video showing a common use case for DrumPad 97s
A regular 97 is meant to be dropped on an instrument track and then the MIDI you compose for the
track simply triggers the various one-shots in the 97 at desired moments in the arrangement. There’s
no need to create a sample selector for the 97 because you’re using the MIDI clip to trigger what you
want.

In a Drum Machine, however, each drum pad only ever plays one MIDI note, so you need to build a
way to easily twist a knob to scroll through all 97 one-shots and select the specific one you want to be
triggered by that drum pad. This requires using some Note Pitch Shifter devices and a Keytracking
modulator as follows.
TIP: After building this, save it to your User Library and you can then just drag it onto a drum pad and
swap out the multisample inside it as desired.

1. Start with a Chain container, and name it something like DrumPad 97.
2. Load a Sampler into the chain.
3. In the Sampler’s Note container, load TWO Note Pitch Shifter devices.
4. In the Sampler’s shortcut panel, add a custom shortcut panel and map one of the knobs to the
Semitones control in the SECOND of the two Note Pitch Shifters, then name the shortcut
knob “Selector”.
○ Because all “97” multisamples are populated from C0 through C8, the full range of the
Selector knob will scroll through all the samples.
○ If you want to copy any default shortcut controls from the default sets for Sampler
devices, just drag them up one by one into the remaining 7 slots of the custom shortcut
control.
5. Now go to the FIRST Note Pitch Shifter and toggle the +3 Octave button.
○ What you’re doing here is taking the C1 note sent by the first Drum Machine pad and
transposing up to C4 before sending it on to the SECOND Note Pitch Shifter. (which is
shifting that C4 up or down by 48 semitones to trigger any of the samples in the
multisample).
○ But what happens when you play other drum pads? Each of those incoming MIDI notes
will be transposed to C#4, D4, and so on, which throws the SECOND Sampler’s Note
Pitch Shifter range out of whack. How do we fix this? Next step!
6. Open the FIRST Note Pitch Shifter’s modulators panel and add a Keytrack modulator.
7. Expand the Keytrack modulator and set it to Relative mode, with a Root value of 36 and a
Spread value of 16.
○ Root 36 = MIDI note number 36, which is C1, which is the first default pad in a Drum
Machine.
○ Spread 16 means that the 16 notes from C1 to D#2 will be affected by the Keytrack
modulation.
8. Now we make the Keytrack modulator shift the notes sent by the Drum Machine downward by
exactly the same number of semitones above C1 each note is! We do this by mapping the
Keytrack modulator to the Semitones control of the FIRST Note Pitch Shifter, dragging
downward to set a modulation range of -16.
○ Spread 16 plus this modulation range of -16 means that the Keytrack modulator will
track C1 and the 15 notes above it, which is the entire default 16-pad grid in a Drum
Machine. When C1 comes in, it sends C1 out. When C#1 comes, it shifts down one
semitone and sends C1 out. When E1 comes in (4 semitones up from C1), it shifts down
4 semitones and sends C1 out, and so on. The entire idea is to make every pad of the
drum machine send only C1 on to the Sampler, which allows the SECOND Note Pitch
 Shifter to always stay in the proper range to select one of the 97 samples in the
multisample.
9. Load a 97 multisample into the Sampler and test it out. Then Save the entire chain as a preset
called something like DrumPad 97.

From this point on, when you want to use a 97 in a Drum Machine pad, just drag your DrumPad 97 onto the
pad, then use the Replace button in the chain’s Sampler to swap in the desired 97 multisample. Then you can
use the Selector knob in the Sampler’s shortcut panel to scrub through all of the one shots in the 97. Easy!

How to do “Breaks Layer” multi pads in Bitwig

A “breaks layer” multi pad in Ableton is hard to describe architecturally, but you can see an example in
the original ill.Gates Studio Template. What it sounds like is easy to describe, though. A breakbeat
loop is layered on top of the kick, and a different breakbeat loop is layered on top of the snare. The
snare and kick don’t choke each other (allowing, for example, a snare tail to ring out even while new
kicks are happening), but the two breakbeat loops DO choke each other. The result of this setup is a
kick with a lush, “rhythmic tail”, and the tail is choked and restarted by each new kick. When the snare
hits, it not only chokes the kick’s rhythmic tail, but it triggers its own rhythmic tail, which is choked by the
next kick, and so on.

In Ableton, this type of multi pad is a confusing PITA to build and requires careful note mapping, chain
nesting, and setting of choke groups. In Bitwig, it’s actually super easy to set these up. The basic idea
is that instead of trying to set all this up inside of one single drum rack like you might do in Ableton, you
instead layer two Drum Maschine instruments in a single track and do the kick and snare in one drum
machine, and put their respective breakbeat loops on the same exact pads in the second drum
machine.

The tricky part in Bitwig is warping the breakbeat loops to match the tempo of the project. In Ableton,
the breakbeat loops are usually put into a Simpler instrument so that you can use Simpler’s Warp
button to automatically warp the loop to the project tempo. Bitwig’s Sampler has no similar feature, so
you need to manually warp the loop first, bounce it to a new clip, and then load the warped sample into
the drum machine pad. This manual warping is done most easily if you have Serato Sample.

1. Add Serato Sample to an instrument track. You’ll be using this to quickly determine the tempo
of breakbeat loops and make your time-stretching painless and fast.
2. Add an Instrument Layer container to the “Meat” track, then stack two Drum Machine
instruments into it. Name the first layer Meat, and name the second layer Breaks. Also name
the track itself as Drums - Meat.
3. Add your chosen kick and snare to pads in the Meat layer. (If you need to fatten these up with
more layers later, you can easily add an Instrument Layer in each pad’s chain, move the
original kick and snare samplers into the pad’s internal instrument layer, and then add other
samples or e-Drum instruments to those instrument layers.)
4. Create a MIDI clip to trigger the kick and snare pads, and Ctrl-L the clip to set the arrangement
loop to match.
5. Find a breakbeat loop that seems to mesh well with the kick. Tempo will not match at first━just
focus on timbre and content.
6. When you find a loop that seems promising, drag it into Serato Sample to find its tempo.
7. Now drag the loop into a new track in your arrangement view, set the audio clip’s stretch mode
to Elastique, and set the clips original Tempo to the exact value (e.g., 175.17) that Serato gave
you. Be sure to include any decimal point values like that.
○ Leave the clip name at its default value (the original sample name), because it will help
you find that original sample later if you ever need to. However, rename the track as
Breaks loop for Kick. You’re going to deactivate this track and keep it in the project in
case you need to fine-tune or change the stretching timbre for any reason later in the
project’s lifecycle.
○ Depending how the breakbeat loop was recorded (e.g., ripped quickly from a old song
and not processed to be a perfect loop in the original song’s tempo), you might need to
trim the end of the clip and then Consolidate the clip to make a good loop.
8. Now solo the Drums - Meat track AND the new, warped Breaks loop for Kick track, then play
your arrangement loop. At this point, you probably want to switch the breaks clip to the
Elastique Pro stretching mode, and play around with that mode’s Formant and Resolution
settings to find a timbre that meshes really well with the Kick.
○ Spectral stretching often adds gain to the sample and can make it clip the track over 0
dB. Carefully double-check the track meter to ensure it’s not flashing red at any point. If
it does, take the clip’s Gain down enough to prevent it clipping over 0 dB.
○ You probably want to warm up the loop and take its bite down a bit by trying negative
Formant values and larger-than-default Resolution values to focus on the low
frequency energy in the loop.
○ You can also click-drag the clip’s original Tempo value while watching the clip’s
waveform in the arrangement view, to try out other beat resolutions. For example, if your
meat pattern is in half-time feel (snare on the .3 of every bar), but your breakbeat sample
has the snare on the .2 of every bar, you can click-drag the Tempo until the loop’s snare
hits are landing on the .3 of every bar.
9. Once your audio clip is sounding exactly how you want it, Bounce the clip to a new track, then
Save the project to put the bounced clip inside the project folder. Do not rename the bounced
clip because it’s named to match the original clip name, which helps you understand what’s
what in the Project’s total set of collected samples.
10. Flip to the Project Panel, then view its Files tab, and then drag the new bounced sample into
the Breaks layer of your “Meat” track, onto the same exact pad as the kick over in the Meat
layer.
11. Solo only the Drums - Meat track and play your arrangement loop while you switch focus to the
Breaks layer pad where you just dragged the bounced sample. Expand the device window for
that pad’s Sampler, then set the Voices to Monophonic so that each kick note self-chokes and
retriggers the breaks loop from the start.
12. Repeat Steps 5–11 to create a breakbeat loop that meshes well with your snare.
○ To get a better feel for the snare’s “tail”, You’ll probably need to drag the clip to line up
the first snare hit in the clip with the first snare hit in your MIDI clip for the Drums - Meat
track, and then temporarily loop the arrangement on the breakbeat clip.
○ During this part, you’ll probably want to mute the entire Breaks layer and also mute the
kick pad on the Meat layer. The idea is to hear just your main “meat” snare plus the
breakbeat loop you’re testing.
13. After you have good breakbeat loops sitting in the Breaks layer (on the same pads as their
matching kick and snare samples in the Meat layer, you can play with the yellow loop-start-
brace in each of the Samplers in the Breaks layer to find the best-sounding starting point for
each loop.
 ○ What you’re looking for is the nicest-sounding segment to serve as the “tail” for the kick
and the snare. You should be looping the entire MIDI pattern and hearing the choking
and triggering in context along with each kick and snare hit in the full context of your
drum pattern.
○ Now you can play with the relative levels of each breaks loop against its matching kick or
snare.
14. Now level the combined Kick and Snare sounds to your gain-staging target for these important
framework sounds in your mix.
○ First switch to MIX view, then expand the Meat and Breaks instrument layers inside the
Drums - Meat track, and then further expand each of the layers into their component
drum maschine pads.
○ Make sure the track fader on the Drums - Meat track is set at 0.
○ Now solo the Kick pad and its corresponding breaks loop pad.
○ Play the drum pattern and adjust the track fader on the Drums - Meat track itself until its
reading -12 dB max peak.
○ Look at the fader value on the Drums - Meat track and note the new value.
○ Subtract this same amount from both the kick pad’s fader and its corresponding
breakbeat loop pad’s fader. For example, if the fader value in Step 14.e was -6.8, you’ll
set both of these pad faders to -6.8 too.
○ Reset the fader on the Drums - Meat track back to 0, then repeat this process for the
snare (so that the combined snare sounds also peak at -12 dB).
○ Reset the fader on the Drums - Meat track back to 0. Your Drums - Meat track is now
fully set up and gain-staged properly for the rest of the mix to build up into.
15. Your final step is to collect and save all the original samples into the project, and then
Deactivate the Break loops for kick and Break loops for snare tracks.
○ You want to keep those original tracks on ice, with all their current warp settings that you
used to make the bounces in your Breaks instrument layer. This enables you to easily
go back and tweak the sound of those breaks loops if you find that necessary later in the
project and you find your breaks loops aren’t cutting through the full mix well enough.
You can simply re-activate the track, dupe it, play with different settings in the dupe,
bounce out that dupe, and replace the original bounce with the new bounce down in the
Breaks layer of your Drums - Meat rack.
○ You can safely delete the two bounced tracks you made during this process, because
the bounced samples are safely tucked away inside two Sampler instances in the
project.

The Grid (Tips and Tricks)

Various “how do I…?” tips and tricks for building Grid devices

Creating feedback loops

You can create feedback loops by putting a Long Delay module in the loop, set to the fastest possible
delay, which is .02 ms. In a 44100 project, this is roughly the length of 1 sample, so it’s effectively
instantaneous to our ears, while also respecting Bitwig’s design goal to prevent runaway feedback from
instantaneous loops.
Building a simple delay with a feedback tail
Because the feedback loop has a gain reduction before being mixed in with the dry signal, you get the
classic feedback tail.

(More soon)

Mixing Stuff
Routing (track-to-track)
Routing at the TRACK level can be confusing until you wrap your head around Bitwig’s idiosyncratic
way of doing it. In many cases, it’s easier to simply use their fabulous Audio Reciever and Note
Receiver devices as virtual patch cables to pull audio or MIDI data to the exact insert point you want in
any track insert chain.

But if you want to do it the traditional track-to-track way like in Live and other DAWs, the main concept
to understand is that setting only the INPUT on the target track does NOT feed the signal through the
target track’s device inserts! If you do this, you can record the MIDI/Audio output of the source track
into clips on the target track, but that’s it!

And setting only the OUTPUT on the source track will bypass the clip-recording on the target track, and
instead simply pass the audio/MIDI output from the source track through the target track’s device
inserts!

To get the typical behavior you’d expect, you must set the OUTPUT of the source track and also set the
input of the target track. Yes, it’s weird and counter-intuitive, so skip the whole confusing mess and just
use those two great virtual patch cables. The following diagram shows what I’ve tried to describe with
words above.
Sidechaining
Sidechaining is a dream in Bitwig.
● Every VST that has sidechain input channels has a dedicated “down arrow” button near the
upper left of the device container. Click it and choose any signal from anywhere to feed into the
sidechain input.
● There are three specific sidechain modulators that enable you to create positive or negative
(inverted) sidechain modulation on ANY device or plugin control: Audio Sidechain, Audio Rate,
and Note Sidechain.

But oddly, the basic Compressor doesn’t have a sidechain input. All the basic compressor-style
sidechain ducking that you’ll want to do requires some 3rd-party compressor.

Also oddly, the basic Gate has a sidechain input, but not an inverted gating style. So all the sidechain
input can do is open the gate. It can’t be used to duck the gate. Again, if you want inverted ducking
style gating, you’re stuck using a 3rd-party compressor.

Fake panning vs true panning

Just like in Ableton, Bitwig’s Pan control on every channel is a pseudo-pan that is really more of a mix
blend between the left and right outputs of a stereo track. It will not actually hard-pan the signals on
either track.

Ableton gives you a right-click option to display some dual-pan controls that do true panning, but Bitwig
does it differently. If you need to do true panning in Bitwig, just drop the Dual Pan FX device into the
track.

VST multi-output routing

Watch a video about this!

Bitwig makes it super easy to work with VSTs that have multi-channel outputs of some sort. For
example, Native Instruments’ Maschine or Vengeance Sound’s VPS-Avenger synth both have internal
routing to special bus output channels. Bitwig makes it super easy to set up the routing so that you can
have individual channels in Bitwig’s mixer for full control over the leveling, pan, solo/mute, etc. of
various sounds coming from the VST. Bitwig also exposes independent device insert channels so that
you can perform any desired audio processing on the various output channels coming from the VST.

This can be a huge workflow time-saver, because you can leverage the useful features of the VST for
your sound design or arrangement and not feel compelled to some how export individual tracks/stems
out of the VST and into Bitwig just so that you can have the granular control during mixdown that you
typically need.

The basic process is simple, and I demonstrate it in a mercifully short video (ha ha) linked just above.

1. Look for the little double arrows in the top left of the VST container in the device chain. These
indicate a VST that has multi-output channels.
2. Click the double arrows to open the output-chain routing configuration.

3. Click Add Missing Chains. It’s faster to add all available chains in one go, and then later you
can delete the output chains you don’t need.
4. Now in the VST itself, configure its internal routing so that its various channels are being sent to
its various available output channels instead of all being routed up to the VST’s own master bus.
5. If you ended up not using some of the available output channels from the VST, you can go back
to the configuration window from Step 2, then select each unused chain and press Delete.
Bouncing - Bitwig’s equivalent to Ableton’s “Freeze” and “Flatten”
Watch a video about this!

Also watch this video!

Although Bitwig has many features and workflow patterns that are very similar to those in Ableton, it
takes a distinct and deliberate departure from Ableton’s practice of freezing/unfreezing tracks, or
freezing then flattening tracks. At first this difference might seem annoying. I felt that way myself at first,
and I’ve certainly seen multiple feature requests from (usually newer) Bitwig users asking Bitwig devs to
provide a basic “freeze/unfreeze” feature like in Ableton.

However, once you wrap your head around this deliberately different approach that the Bitwig devs
implemented, you start to appreciate the genius and flexiblity of the Bitwig way all this is done. I’m
going to keep this section pretty short and simple even though there are a ton of different goals you can
accomplish with Bitwig’s various bouncing features. Instead, I think the two videos linked just above can
do the best job of demonstrating why you’ll come to love the Bitwig way of doing things.

TL;DR - I do not miss the “freeze” feature at all. In fact, I’ve come to greatly prefer the Bitwig way of
doing things.

Notes about Ableton’s Freeze | Flatten

● Freeze and Flatten are all or nothing. They affect an entire track.
● You cannot change any of the devices and plugins on a frozen track. You must first unfreeze it,
make your changes, and then freeze it again.
● When you Freeze and then Flatten a track, this is a totally destructive operation and the original
MIDI track--and all the devices and plugins on that track--are deleted. You simply end up with
one audio clip on the same track that was formerly frozen.

Notes about Bitwig’s Bounce | Bounce In Place | Deactivate

● Bounce (and Bounce in Place) are clip-specific or time-specific. To bounce an entire track or
group, you would first need to select the entire timespan of that track/group, consolidate the
selected things, and then bounce the consolidated clip.
● When you Bounce in Place, all of the devices and plugins on the track are still active and
usable. Even the synths!
● When you Bounce a track, this is 100% non-destructive. The bounced audio clip is placed onto
an entirely new audio track immediately beneath the original track. The original track, and all its
MIDI clips, and all its devices and plugins, is still intact and untouched.
● If you want to do the same thing as Freeze > Flatten in Bitwig, you simply Bounce the entire
track, and then select the original MIDI track and Deactivate it. There is a toggle button in the
UI that will automatically hide all deactivated tracks and groups. Out of sight, out of mind. Also,
deactivated tracks incur no CPU hit.
● The real power of Bitwig’s approach to bouncing comes when you start using it surgically at the
individual clip level, and when you use it in conjuction with Bitwig’s hybrid tracks that can have
both audio and MIDI clips on them! Any audio clips on the track simply bypass any MIDI
 devices/plugins that are on the track. But MIDI clips on the track still run through the full device
chain from end to end. Watch both of the above videos linked at the start of this section to see
all the ways this can be useful!

Mouse bouncing with Alt-dragging

Starting with Bitwig 2.4 you can now also mouse bounce any single or multiple clips:

● Click and start dragging the header bar of any clip but don’t move it very far. Then press and
hold the Alt key while you keep holding the left mouse button. You’ll see a “bouncing” dialog in
the upper right of the Bitwig window. When the bounce is finished, you can continue moving the
now bounced audio clip anywhere you want in the project and let go. You can even drop it over
in the Clip launcher. (Or start by bouncing clips from the clip launcher and drop them into the
Arranger timeline.
● You can do this same action to multiple clips at a time. Regardless of how you multi-selected
them.

Pros and Cons of Bitwig (vs Ableton)

Watch a video about this entire section!

Feature Pros Cons

Top 12 1. Browser is a powerful librarian that 1. No support for AU plugins.

greatly speeds up sample- and preset-
digging.
2. Incredibly powerful and modular
system for creating sophisticated instrument
and audio “racks”.
3. Tons of fast QOL workflow shortcuts
not available in Ableton.
4. Ability to specify exact values for
automation points.
5. Ability to have multiple projects open
at the same time and easily copy/move
clips/tracks/groups/devices between them.
6. Unique architecture provides very
fast startup and project loading times. And
it’s nearly impossible to crash the main
project window because the audio engine
and plugins all run inside of sandboxes.
7. Sidechain routing is very simple and
straightforward, and some special
modulators enable you to literally sidechain
anything to anything.
8. Warm, attractive, readable, high-
contrast UI compared to Ableton’s washed-
out ugly eye-blurring mess.
9. Tight integration between the
Arranger and Launcher sequencers
enables some workflows that are impossible
in Ableton.
2. No time-stretching algorithm
quite as creatively nice as Ableton’s
Texture and Tones warping types.
(But the creative warping in Bitwig’s
Sampler makes up for this.)
3. No MP3 export.
4. Only one dithering option
(Triangular).
5. Nothing like Simpler with its
built-in warping
6. Nothing quite like the ease
of use seen in Simpler’s Slicing
mode. You can slice to multisample
with a lot of very useful and
granular control of the slices, but it’s
not as visual and immediate as in
Simpler.
7. Nothing at all like Convert
Harmony/Melody/Drums to New
MIDI Track.
8. Not easy to collect external
samples from other folders and
projects while at the same time
excluding external samples that
come from 128s and other
Sampler/Simpler presets like
Ableton allows.
9. Default track meters make it
 10. VST 3 support, and can point at
multiple plugin folder locations and can run
any combination of older 32-bit and newer
64-bit plugins.
11. Project management is MUCH
simpler and easier than in Ableton. None of
that confusing mess that Ableton’s
automated backups tend to create.
12. Automatic, easily-accessed routing
and mixing features for multi-output Plugins.
No need to manually create special tracks
and chains and set up complex routings.
Automation Can set specific values for any automation point or
for multiple automation points all at the same time
Can “humanize” automation points so they have
some natural drift from their original snapped or
values
Automatically cleans up recorded or pen-drawn
automation to the fewest points possible that still
maintains the same shape
Simple, uncluttered expand to show all automation
on only a single track. (Unlike Ableton that always
expands automation lanes for all tracks--even those
with no automation.) A key combo can also expand
all tracks just like Ableton.
No need to create pinned lanes to remember or
hunt for what you automated, because there’s a
great “show all automation lanes” button that will
toggle all of a track’s automation lanes into view.
Export Export dialog warns you visually if you’re about to
overwrite previously exported tracks.
Several different and useful file naming and folder
creation patterns during export.
Rack building Bitwig’s unique and powerful set of modulators,
plus the ability to create multiple shortcut panels
for the same rack, enable extremely powerful and
sophisticated racks
FAR more control types than just macro knobs. The
design options are massive. The special modulator
types are usually far more dependable and
consistent than using M4L devices in Ableton, and
far less CPU overhead for each. M4L is a pig, and
a lot of M4L devices are buggy AF.
a little harder to get a solid reading
on RMS and Peak values. You
might find a need to run 3rd party
metering plugs during mixing and
mastering and careful gain-staging.
Some very common muscle memory
automation drawing moves in
Ableton━especially those related to
drawing vertical cutout moves━don’t work
or only kinda work, and often with
unexpected side-effects. So at first you’ll
think “automation sucks!”, when in fact it’s
really more powerful and easier than in
Ableton. You must learn different ways
of doing the exact same drawing moves.
You absolutely can perform all the same
common drawing moves as fast or nearly
as fast as in Ableton, but some of these
rely on multi-selecting pairs of points and
then using the Time and Value boxes in
the Inspector panel to adjust the line
segment between those two points.
No dithering options. So if you want
anything more than simple Triangular
dithering with some unknown type of noise-
shaping, you must use a 3rd party dithering
plugin or the dithering features of your
mastering limiters.
No MP3 export.
Setting a range for each of the device
values that a single macro knob controls is
MUCH less straight-forward and more
fiddly than in Ableton. Ableton’s “mod
matrix” (the Mapping button for a macro
panel) allows you to set both Min and Max
values. Bitwig’s mod matrix only sets the
Max value. You must manually set the min
value on the device knob/etc. itself. The
upside is that you have unlimited macro
knobs to play with, and the total set of

Can design racks with far more than Ableton’s max
8 macro knobs
Macro knobs can have bi-polar behavior, centered
on any starting value in the original device
knob/etc. Ableton macros are always full linear
through the assigned min/max range.
Can build multiple custom shortcut panels for a
rack and easily select any of them while using the
rack
Can add long, useful descriptions that explain what
the rack does and how to use it
Any control can affect other controls--not just
device parameters. For example, macro knob A
can control Macro knob B.
The Polynom modulator enables non-linear macro
knob movement through a value range. Ableton
macros are always linear through their mix/max
range.
things you can pull off with the Bitwig
Macro modulators in combination with
other modulators interacting with the
Macro runs circles around the things you
can do with Ableton Macro knobs.
With great power and flexibility comes a
steeper learning curve and more
experimentation when building a rack to
get the crazy thing you’re envisioning in
your head. Really sophisticated and
smooth racks are possible to build, but it
can take more time to puzzle them out and
test that they are behaving properly.
The meat and potatoes LFO modulator
does not make it simple to visualize what
actual the LFO shape looks like. You must
learn how to “see” the actual LFO shape
and swell in your head. The tradeoff is that
the Bitwig LFO modulator runs circles
around the tiny set of things that Ableton’s
M4L LFO device can do.

The Qua modulator enables stepped macro knob

movement through a value range. Ableton macros
are always linear through their min/max range.

Browser AMAZING tagging and categorization features, With flexibility and power comes a steeper
even for samples. Bitwig basically has it’s own learning curve
built-in library management application━there’s no
need for a 3rd party sample library organizer.

You can make very sophisticated and deep

collection tagging hierarchies for your sample
library without ever needing to create physical
folders and move samples around (thereby
breaking your older projects and also creating
many duplicate samples)

Ableton has 7 generic collections with very short

names. By contrast, Bitwig has no limit to the
number of collections you can create, and the
names can be much longer. Also, every browser
category has its own independent set of collections.
For example, “Devices” vs “Presets” vs “Samples”
can be categorized with totally different collection
heirarchies.

Bitwig has “smart collections” (based on filter

criteria) that automatically update themselves

Warping The “clean” stretch modes in Bitwig (Elastique and There’s nothing quite like Ableton’s Tones
Elastique Pro) sound slightly better than Ableton’s and Texture warping modes. Bitwig’s
cleanest modes (Beats, Complex, and Complex Cycling stretch mode comes close to the
 Pro) as you stretch a sample towards its practical Texture mode, but it doesn’t have quite the
limits. They also have practically no CPU impact. same range and subtlety.

So if you’re fond of the “throw Texture on

an audio clip and set the tempo to 999”
trick for making great glitchy cutouts, you
still need to export a stem over to Ableton
to do that, then bring an exported stem
from Ableton back into Bitwig.

That said, the new 2.4 Sampler has a

Textures mode that is essentially Ableton’s
Texture warping mode, but inside of
Sampler. This opens up some fantastic
possibilities you cannot achieve with
Ableton’s Texture warping for audio clips,
and you can simply bounce out an audio
clip from Sampler for chopping and
interjections.

128s You can build 128s chunk by chunk, edit them and No cons
easily replace specific samples in the 128, start
building one with 10 samples in it, save it, come
back days later and add 30 more samples to it,
save it, and so on. Ableton forces you to fill up its
Sampler with 128 or more samples before you do
“Distribute ranges equally” for the very first time.
After that, it’s very difficult to edit or modify the
128’s total set of samples.

128s are saved to the User Library as a single

.multisample file type. This is really great for
several reasons:

● You can tag and categorize each

.multisample file, and give them long,
verbose descriptions. This makes it far
easier to search through your total set of
128s and choose the best “palette” for your
needs.
● You can easily swap out the current
multisample loaded into a Sampler instance
with another multisample from your user
library. For example, if you have twenty
different 128s full of “spice” noises in your
user library, you can easily swap those out
into an existing track that already has MIDI,
a Sampler, and audio processing.
● When looking at the total set of
samples in the Project Panel (or in your OS
file browser), you see only one single
.multisample file for the entire 128.
(Ableton instead lists all the 128’s individual
samples.) This makes understanding the
total set of samples in your project much
easier.
Sampler and The Bitwig modulators can make Bitwig’s Sampler There is no analogue to Ableton’s Simpler
Simpler behave in some very tricksy ways that Ableton can’t device. If you love Simpler and use it all the
match. time, you will feel the loss in Bitwig. That
said, you CAN easily take any sample clip
And yes, you can easily make both one-shot 128s and instantly Slice to Multisample or
and melodic 128s. Easier than in Ableton, because Slice to Drum Rack, which gives you back
you can build them up a chunk at a time, edit them some of the lost functionality from Simpler.
later and add more samples or replace other
samples, and so on. The Bitwig Sampler at first glance looks
very barebones and missing many
By contrast, in Ableton you have to be careful about important features you use all the time in
how many total samples you drag into the Sampler Ableton’s Sampler. However, these
because there’s no easy way to tell whether you features are ALL there in Bitwig too━but
have too many or too few samples. you accomplish them by adding Bitwig’s
many powerful modulators to the Sampler.

TL;DR - Bitwig’s Sampler can do

everything the Ableton sampler does, but
you have to learn the Bitwig approach to
modulating devices and instruments.

Project/File Simple Project Panel interface that is one
Management keystroke away at all times.
No crazy confusion about the difference between
the set’s files and the project’s files like in Ableton
No ridiculous automatic backup bloat that makes
the above confusion even worse
“External files” does not distinguish
between those in the User Library versus
those in other project folders or in your
custom sample library. This makes
exclusion of samples in 128s and other
Sampler presets more difficult than in
Ableton.
Basically, if you’re used to NOT collecting
samples from 128s when wrapping up and
archiving a finished project (to minimize the
total project size), you must develop a
different project management workflow to
compensate for this Bitwig shortcoming:

● A - You can stop caring how

large your Bitwig project folders
might be and just collect all those
big multisamples from the User
Library each and every time.
● B - You can learn to have
multiple different project folders that
each represent different stages of a
project. Mainly, you can have one
or more “before flattening to audio”
project folders and then a set of
“after flattening to audio” project
folders. This way, only your early
“before flattening” project folders
are bloated with copies of the 128
multisamples from your User
Library, while your “after flattening”
folders are lean and mean.

Plugin support Can read multiple plugin folders. Ableton forces you No cons
 to choose only one.

When plugin crashes, the DAW itself does not.

Recovery is as simple as restarting the Audio
Engine for the project.

Can use both 32-and 64-bit plugins, and also both

VST2 and VST3 plugins. Ableton forces you to use
either 32- or 64-bit, and does not support VST 3

Mixing Big huge beautiful track meters in the mixing view. Drum rack chains can be expanded only in
Can totally remove the clip launchers from the the Mixer view, not also in the Arrangement
mixing view. view

Background Always shows when the indexer has found No cons

Indexer something new and is indexing it, instead of being
totally invisible like in Ableton

Grid zooming A few more shortcut keys than Ableton for quickly No cons
and scrolling returning to the 1:0:0 playhead, zooming out to see
full project, focusing the zoom on the entirety of one
clip, etc.

Amp and Really powerful combined Amp device that covers Less “visual” than Ableton’s two devices.
Cabinet all the same bases as Ableton’s Amp and Cabinet
devices. Video

Multi-output All VSTs that have multiple output channels (more No cons
VSTs than just one main stereo out) are handled
brilliantly and seamlessly by Bitwig.
● No need to manually create rack
chains and manually set routing. One button
click automatically does it all, and you can
then remove any output chains you don’t
want.
● All processing devices and
modulators you add to any output chains
are automatically included when you save a
new preset for that multi-output VST in your
Bitwig User Library.
● The Mixer view can easily show/hide
the individual chains for internal leveling,
etc.
● All VSTs and devices that accept
sidechain inputs have easy menu options to
select a specific output chain as the
sidechain trigger.

Ableton has nothing like this. You can do all this,

but you must manually set up your chains and
routing.

Video

Sidechaining Bitwig’s approach to sidechaining is superb. On None

any device or VST, there’s a little “down arrow”
 button on the Bitwig container that lets you choose
the source track (and multi-output VST chain or
specific device in the track’s insert chain) that
should be the trigger sent to the device/VST.

In Ableton, by contrast, you must use a “push”

routing from the trigger track, and you must think
carefully about the routing and sometimes make
difficult tactical decisions.

Bitwig counterparts to Ableton devices

There are some really cool devices and modulators that Bitwig has but Ableton doesn’t. And vice-versa.
And there are a lot of devices that are essentially the same in both DAWs, and serve the same function.

Cool Bitwig features that don’t have an Ableton counterpart

Instruments listed first. Then Operations. Then Devices.

Bitwig has 2 instruments, 37 devices and 32 modulators that Ableton does not.

Device/Modulator/Instrument or Operation Notes

Organ A basic tonewheel/drawbar organ synth.

Phase 4 The starting oscillators in Phase 4 are fairly unique and

based on phase distortion, which in practical terms is an
additive synthesis process that adds harmonics without
reducing the energy of the fundamental.

Then you can have all the 4 oscillators modulate each

other through phase modulation, which is similar to
frequency modulation (FM), but subtly different.

Audio Receiver Plop this device anywhere in a channel’s signal chain

and pull in audio from any other track or device channel.

Blur Comb-filter diffusion. Does what the name implies.

Comb A standard comb filter. You know, that cool filter type
from Serum or VPS-Avenger that is integral to so many
“metallic” mid bass sounds? Now imagine using all of
Bitwig’s crazy modulators on the filter frequency and
bipolar feedback controls. A hidden gem for sound
design of sample-based tracks.

DC Offset Literally pushes positive or negative current to your

speaker cones to push them in or out. Modulate this with
an LFO at musical frequencies and you have an
oscillator. Yes, you can build an entire Eurorack synth
inside of Bitwig using only its own devices and
 modulators.

De-Esser A standard de-esser

Dynamics A very flexible compressor that does both upward and

downward compression simultaneously and
independently on both the loud parts and quiet parts of
a signal.

Imagine ONE of the compressor channels in Ableton’s

Multiband Dynamics device (or OTT). That’s what this
is, only more flexible. MBD and OTT can only do upward
compression on the quiet parts of the signal and
downward compression on the loud parts of the signal.
But Bitwig’s Dynamics can do either upward or
downward compression on both parts of the signal.

Toss one of these in each channel of the Multiband FX-

3 device and you have a more flexible version of OTT
right there inside Bitwig.

FX Layer Two first class container devices that are essentially like
FX Selector adding multiple chains to an Ableton Audio Effect Rack.
The FX Layer gives you parallel processing of multiple
audio processing devices/plugs. The FX Selector
toggles among the various channels in the container.
Each channel has a unique index number and you can
create automation lanes that toggle among the various
indexed channels during arrangement playback.

Granted, the SEL control that’s hidden deep in Ableton

rack chains can do the same basic thing, but Bitwig does
it waaaaayyyy better in two important ways.

First, as you toggle to a new chain, any audio “tails” from

the previous chain continue to ring out! Ableton simply
cuts all audio from the previous chain short!

Second, the automation points on the automation lane

clearly display the index number and even the custom
name you gave to each channel in the container. By
contrast, Ableton only displays the index number and the
lines are very close together and hard to snap onto. So
setting up automation for chain-toggling in Ableton is a
really slow PITA.

HW Clock Out Bitwig is designed to interface with--and control--and

HW CV Instrument receive--signal from modular eurorack devices. Bitwig
HW CV Out even has their own proprietary hardware interface to
integrate Bitwig into a rack system. These three devices
are part of that integration.

Instrument Layer Same deal as above, only these are for MIDI
Instrument Selector instruments. Ableton’s analogue is the Instrument
Rack, but again, automation is a PITA to set up and the
“tail” of the previous synth preset is cut short the moment
 you toggle to a different synth preset.

Ladder An emulation of the classic Moog “ladder filter”, but on

steroids. It has a built in ADSR envelope that can be
triggered from a MIDI sidechain input, a built in LFO, and
a built in audio envelope follower. Even better, any
combination of these three internal modulators can be
used to modulate the filter frequency, and you can blend
the relative strength of modulation from each one.

MIDI CC Mostly useful in conjunction with the HW Instrument

MIDI Program Change device for sending these common MIDI messages to
MIDI Song Select external hardware synths.

Ableton can send these messages too, but typically only

at the launch of a MIDI clip. Having these first class
devices be independent like this enables a lot more
flexibility with external hardware control!

Mid-Side Split A standard (and very useful) mid-side signal splitter, with
independent processing chains for both signals, which
are summed together again on the output of the device.
To accomplish the same thing in Ableton you have to
build a fairly complex rack.

MODULATORS!!! One of the two “killer features” of Bitwig. Too many of

MODULATORS!!!! these to describe in detail here. Basically, you can
MODULATORS!!!!! modulate nearly anything in any device--even in 3rd
party plugins. It’s INSANE. If you like distinguishing your
sound design with a lot of subtle (and not so subtle)
movement and dynamic behavior, then Bitwig is a
CANDY STORE for your sound design.

Admiral Bumblebee does a decent job of explaining all

the modulators in plain English, so no sense in my
reinventing the wheel here.

http://www.admiralbumblebee.com/music/2017/06/23/
Bitwig-Modulators.html

Multiband FX-2 A 2-band and 3-band frequency splitter, with

Multiband FX-3 independent processing chains for all two or three
signals, which are summed together again on the output
of the device. To accomplish the same thing in Ableton,
you have to use a mostly-deactivated version of
Ableton’s Multiband Dynamics or EQ Three, or you
have to use an M4L device like Invisible Frequency
Splitter.

Of course, ALL of these Ableton and Bitwig devices

(except for Invisible Frequency Splitter) use minimum
phase high/low-pass filters to accomplish the frequency
splitting, so they’re all prone to creating phase issues
and need to be used with care on full mixes or bus
groups. (But they’re perfectly fine for sound design of
individual tracks!)
 The Invisible Frequency Splitter device doesn’t have
significant phase issues (hence the “invisible” moniker),
but it does use extremely gentle filter slopes (like -12 dB
or less), so there is more spectral bleed through across
the three bands.

If you want to surgically split frequency bands AND also

minimize phase issues (for use on the mix bus and on
group busses), you need to build a custom rack in both
Ableton and Bitwig, that uses high-quality linear-phase
EQs to apply the high/low-pass filters. With the downside
being possible transient smearing issues.

Note Echo A single-tap delay for each MIDI note that goes through
it. Polyphonic (each new incoming note is delayed based
on its trigger time and duration). CRAZY.

Note Filter You set a range of MIDI notes and a range of velocity
values. Any note number or velocity value outside that
range is stopped cold and doesn’t get passed through
the filter to the other side.

Note Harmonizer This is kinda/sorta like a vocoder for MIDI notes! Or you
can think of it as “autotune for melodies”. You send in a
sidechain of MIDI notes from another track (preferably
chords). You can think of these as a harmonic carrier
signal. Meanwhile, the “modulator” notes passing
through the device are constrained to specific chord
tones that match the chordal notes currently running
through the sidechain input.

So…. stuck for a melody? It’s a cheap trick, but you can
just bang out a bunch of random up-then-down “motif”
notes in a rhythmic pattern you like and plop them into a
MIDI clip. Then toss this device on the track and feed
one of your “chords” tracks as the sidechain. Instant
melody based on your chord tones!

Note Latch An interesting device that will latch (hold) notes in

various ways until the next note from the underlying MIDI
signal path appears. Useful to combine with the
Arpeggiator or Note Harmonizer device.

Note Receiver Plop this device anywhere in a channel’s signal chain

and pull in the MIDI stream from any other track or
device channel.

Note Velocity A device that constrains the incoming MIDI note

velocities to a 2-part segmented range of velocities.
There’s also a “Randomize” knob that can be used to
humanize the incoming velocities.

Oscilloscope Not just a single-trace scope, but a dual-trace scope that

can superimpose the waveforms for two different signal
sources!
Replacer Listens to the audio signal flowing through the audio
channel it’s placed on, and generates a single, specific
MIDI note whenever the amplitude (transients) in that
audio signal pass above a threshold. The longer the
amplitude stays above the threshold, the longer the
generated MIDI note is.

This MIDI note is then passed to an internal MIDI chain

inside the Replacer device, where you can place a MIDI
instrument and any number of Note Effects.

The most obvious use for Replacer is to beef up a

specific drum sound in a drum loop. For example, if the
kick in the loop is weak sounding, you can place a drum
rack or E-Kick device in the Replacer’s MIDI chain and
have that new kick sound layered into the drum loop
automatically every time the original kick hits.

BTW tricks like this are possible because of Bitwig’s

Hybrid Tracks that play audio and MIDI on the same
track!

Ring-Mod A standard ring modulator. Ableton has a super-basic

ring modulator in its Frequency Shifter device, but the
Bitwig version is more flexible and powerful.

As you’ll see, Bitwig is heavy on ring modulator devices,

so it’s important to understand that a ring modulator is
similar to a vocoder, in that both devices blend two
signals: a carrier and a modulator. The carrier is typically
a sound with harmonic/melodic content, and the
modulator is typically a sound with a clear rhythmic
character like drums or speech.

So, in a vocoder, the carrier and modulator both remain

somewhat distinct, so the modulated speech or drums
still sound like drums, but also like the melodic or
harmonic sound in the carrier signal.

In a ring modulator, by contrast, the carrier signal is

usually a simple (or slightly complex) sine wave, and the
carrier and modulator are truly blended and become one
new sound in which it’s hard to distinguish either the
original carrier or modulator.

Rotary A standard “leslie” speaker emulation. Ableton’s Auto

Pan can emulate this one to some degree, but not with
the same level of realism.

Step MOD A very basic step sequencer (with a max of 16 steps)

that you can put various audio devices inside of and then
modulate any parameters in those devices with the
bipolar value of each step in the sequence.

This device has a lot of overlap with the Steps

modulator, and the Parseq-8 modulator, but the main
 strength of this specific step sequencer is the ability to
quickly add dotted or triplet timing to the beat value
driving the sequence, plus the ability to apply the Global
Groove feel to the beat value driving the sequence.
Neither of the other two step-sequencer modulators can
do this.

Test Tone Outputs a sine wave test tone at any frequency and gain.
Too bad it can’t also output a pink noise test tone.

Time Shift Shifts the incoming audio or MIDI signal earlier or later.
You can specify the shift in either milliseconds or in
samples.

This is a fantastic improvement over Ableton’s global

timeshifting that is set only at the track level itself. So
you can not only use this to create more humanized and
“in the pocket” timing of different drum tracks (or
individual channels in a drum machine), but you can also
use this to surgically correct phase alignment issues.

The dual-tap Oscilloscope is perfect in tandem with this

amazing device. You can see two low frequency waves
superimposed and just line them up while shifting one of
the signals in sample increments of 1. Mind blowing!

This device also nicely informs you if the time shift is

affecting the latency of only this track or is causing all
other tracks in the project to be delayed to compensate
for this one being pushed earlier than everything else..

Transient Control A very capable transient shaper, but with a sidechain

input that can trigger an internal FX post-processing
output from the transient shaper. Interesting possibilities!

Treemonster A crazy ring modulator where the carrier sine wave can
be filtered to match any pitch in the modulation signal
and to only trigger when the modulation signal passes
above a certain threshold. Then you have knobs that
affect the pitch and speed of that basic sine wave, and a
third knob that affects the total amount of ring modulation
of the two signals.

By attaching any of Bitwig’s crazy modulators to the

Pitch, Speed, and Ring knobs, you can create some truly
spooky/weird/twisted sounds. Or you can use them
subtly to give drums (for example) a degree of intensity
and “bite” similar in ways to Ableton’s Drum Bus device.

Tremolo A really cool and useful “vibrato on anything” device. In

Ableton, you have to build a fairly complex rack to
achieve this effect, but it’s a simple, first-class device in
Bitwig.

XY FX This is an incredibly cool device! It’s basically an FX

Layer with exactly 4 different audio channels you can
 place any string of audio processing you like into.

But then you can cross-fade in an XY fashion among the

outputs of all 4 channels.

Best of all, you can use any of Bitwig’s crazy modulators

to do the XY cross-fading! Note that you have to click
the little “settings” gear in the lower left of the device to
expose an X knob and a Y knob that you can attach the
modulators to.

XY Instrument Another incredibly cool device. It’s exactly like the XY

FX, but with all four channels containing MIDI
instruments (and associated Note FX and Audio FX).

Cool Ableton features that don’t have a Bitwig counterpart

Instruments listed first. Then Operations. Then Devices.

Ableton has 5 instruments, 3 operations, and 17 devices that Bitwig does not have.

Device/Instrument or Operation Notes

Collision Who actually uses this? Most 3rd-party mallet instrument

plugins are better.

Electric Who actually uses this? Most 3rd-party piano/keyboard

plugins are better.

Impulse Who actually uses this? Most producers use Drum

Rack.

Tension Who actually uses this? Most 3rd-party guitar plugins are
better.

Wavetable Who actually uses this? Most producers have and use
Serum (or other 3rd party wavetable synths) instead.

Convert Harmony to new MIDI Track These are very cool. I wish Bitwig had a similar feature.
Convert Melody to New MIDI Track
Convert Drums to New MIDI Track

Auto Pan Bitwig’s Rotary device can emulate the softer “leslie”
style auto-panning behavior, but not the harder “gating”
behavior you can get out of Auto Pan. You’ll need to rely
on 3rd party gating plugins or build racks with Bitwig’s
various “step sequencer” modulators to achieve the
same hard gating effects.

Beat Repeat 3rd party plugs can fill this gap, such as Replica 2 from
Audio Damage.
Corpus No Bitwig analogue.

Drum Bus Bitwig’s TreeMonster covers some of these bases, and

arguably some 3rd party plugs like Beatformer or
Scheps Parallel Particles, etc. do an equal or better job
than Drum Bus

Dynamic Tube No Bitwig analogue.

Glue Compressor The SSL-G Master Bus Compressor from Waves is

frequently on sale for only $29 and is functionally the
same and arguably better sounding.

Grain Delay No Bitwig analogue.

Looper 3rd party plugs can help fill this gap, such as Augustus
Loop by Expert Sleepers.

Overdrive Bitwig’s closest analog is Distortion, which more of an

extreme hard clipper.

Pedal Bitwig overlaps here a bit with Distortion and Bit-8.

Ping Pong Delay You can get some ping-pong like sounds out of Bitwig’s
Delay-2 and Delay-4, but they’re not strictly the same as
a true ping-pong delay.

Resonators Bitwig’s Resonator Bank is nearly identical

Saturator No Bitwig analogue. You’ll really miss this one, and you’ll
need a 3rd party Saturator plug to make up for the loss.

Tuner Need a 3rd party VST like GVST - GTune (Windows

only) or bx_Tuner (Windows and OSX).

Vinyl Distortion No Bitwig analogue.

Vocoder No Bitwig analogue, although some users have built

fairly sophisticated FX racks that do a passable job of
being a vocoder. One such rack made by user Taika-
Kim is even available in a free, featured FX device pack
you can download directly from inside of Bitwig.

Wavetable No Bitwig analogue, but honestly why did Ableton even

bother? Serum is the gold standard for wavetable
synthesis, and everyone (should) has it.

Features that exist in both DAWs and are essentially the same
Instruments listed first. Then Operations. Then Devices.

There are (roughly) 11 instruments, 4 operations, and (roughly) 29 devices that serve identical
purposes in both Bitwig and Ableton.
 Ableton Bitwig Notes

Analog Polysynth

Drum Rack Drum Machine

DS Kick E-Kick Basically the same, but Ableton has

DS Snare E-Snare a few more such instruments than
DS Clap E-Clap Bitwig.
DS Tom E-Tom
etc. etc.

External Instrument HW Instrument

Instrument Rack Chain Bitwig runs circles around Ableton

Instrument Layer here.
Instrument Selector
Note FX Layer
XY Instrument

Operator FM-4 blah

Sampler Sampler Both rhythmic 128s and melodic

128s are possible in Bitwig’s
sampler too. The Bitwig Sampler
has some creative warping modes
that Ableton cannot match.

Simpler Sampler Simpler’s Slicing mode cannot be

done on the fly inside of Bitwig’s
Sampler. Instead, you must use
Slice to Multisample on an audio
clip, and this is not quite as flexible
and tweakable as Simpler’s Slicing
mode, but still very powerful.

If you want a very close analog to

the capabilities and user workflow of
Simpler’s Slicing mode, just pick up
a copy of Serato Sample. It’s great
and has other uses besides as a (in
some ways better than)
replacement for Simpler’s Slicing
mode.

Also, there is no clean warping

feature in Sampler that achieves the
same results as Simpler’s Warp
button. But it’s very easy to drag a
sample out onto a track, use the
great clip warping modes as
needed, and then drag the warped
clip back into Sampler. And it’s also
very easy to use Serato Sample for
super clean and super easy warping
and pitch changing in a Sampler
context.
Freeze Bounce in Place Bitwig’s Bounce in Place is not
Freeze + Flatten Bounce exactly identical to Ableton’s
Freeze, but doing Bounce and then
deactivating the original track has a
very similar outcome. You simply
reactivate the original track if you
ever need to tweak the original
MIDI, presets, and audio
processing, then re-do the Bounce
and deactivate the original track
again.

This might seem like a PITA and

“too many steps”, but the amazing
flexibility of Bitwig’s two bouncing
operations plus the flexibility of
using hybrid tracks in Bitwig far
outweigh any downsides.

Slice to new MIDI track Slice to Drum Machine Nearly identical

Slice to Multisample

Amp Amp Bitwig’s Amp device is the

functionality of Ableton’s Amp and
Cabinet devices baked into one
device.

Arpeggiator Arpeggiator Nearly identical

Audio Rack Chain Bitwig runs circles around Ableton

FX Layer here
FX Selector
XY FX

Auto Filter Filter

-plus-
LFO modulator (or any
modulator)

Cabinet Amp Bitwig’s Amp device is the

functionality of Ableton’s Amp and
Cabinet devices baked into one
device.

Chord Multi-Note Nearly identical

Chorus Chorus

Compressor Compressor Bitwig’s Compressor is an analog-

modeled version of the UREI 1176
FET-style compressor, so it’s bright
and punchy and very suited for
Drums.

Confusingly, though, Bitwig’s

Compressor does not have
sidechain input! This is because this
 is essentially an 1176 (which never
has sidechain inputs in any
modeled emulation).

For sidechaining, you need to use

the more “digital” Dynamics device.

Echo Delay-2 Echo is simply a 2-tap delay with

some creative modulators built into
it, plus a nice visualization of the
delay spacing and decay.

Bitwig has 3 different delay devices

and you can add any of Bitwig’s
crazy modulators to each one.
Therefore, you can build racks that
emulate some or all of the features
of Echo, but as with many things in
Bitwig, you have to be comfortable
building racks and understanding all
the various ways you can use
modulators for creative processing.

Erosion Delay-1 Similar to Echo, this is simply a

single-tap delay with three specific
built-in modulators to create
interesting bitcrushing-like effects.
You could easily build racks in
Bitwig to simulate the same basic
effects.

EQ Eight EQ-5
EQ Three EQ-2
EQ-DJ

External Audio Effect HW FX

Filter Delay Delay-3 Similar to Echo, this is simply a 3-

tap delay with high- and low-pass
filters in front of each tap. Easy to
build a rack like this in Bitwig.

Flanger Flanger

Frequency Shifter Freq Shifter

-also-
Ring-Mod

Gate Gate

Limiter Peak Limiter

Multiband Dynamics (OTT) Multiband FX-3 (or FX-2) Super easy to build a rack preset
-plus- that duplicates the behavior of
Dynamics Ableton’s Multiband Dynamics
exactly.
 Bitwig’s approach also allows
downward compression (gating) of
the quieter part of the signal, and
allows upward compression of the
louder part of the signal. Ableton
can do neither.

Note Length Note Length Ableton’s version can optionally

alter the note length in a “key
tracking” manner, but Bitwig’s
cannot.

Phaser Phaser

Pitch Note Pitch Shifter Nearly identical, but the “Pitch” knob
itself has a 128-note range in
Ableton’s version, but only a 97-
note range in the Bitwig version.

Redux Bit-8 Bitwig’s Bit-8 is way more powerful

and flexible.

Reverb Reverb Every digital reverb out there is very

idiosyncratic. Both of these reverbs
serve the same function but they’re
totally different in their modeling and
configuration. You can’t transfer
much of what you know about the
Ableton Reverb to the Bitwig
Reverb. (And vice-versa.)

Resonators Resonator Bank Nearly identical

Scale Diatonic Transposer Bitwig’s Transposition Map is

Transposition Map nearly identical to Ableton’s Scale,
except that Bitwig’s device is a lot
less confusing to use and set up.

Bitwig’s Diatonic Transposer is

even more user friendly, lets you
simply pick a scale or mode by
name, instead of having to
remember the exact intervals in the
desired scale/mode.

Simple Delay Delay-2

Spectrum Spectrum Analyzer Both of them suck. There are 3rd

party spectrum analyzers that run
circles around both of these.

Utility Tool The Pan knob in Bitwig’s Tool is a

pseudo-panning “LR balance”
control like the default behavior of
Ableton’s Utility.

However, while in Ableton you can

toggle Utility to provide additional
knobs that can perform a true
stereo field panorama, you can’t do
this in Bitwig’s Tool. Instead, you
simply use a first-class Bitwig
device called Dual Pan to perform
true stereo field panorama.