Bitwig Studio 4

and out of a region. There’s also individual
region gain and the option to slide the position
of each or all Takes. What’s more, any overdubs
on the clip are simply added to the available
Takes – very handy. Using Bitwig’s Layered
Editing Mode you can also apply the same comp
edits collectively across multiple clips.
All these features give excellent lexibility for
those recording audio, but Bitwig Studio 4 also
provides an excellent comping option for
working with existing audio. Fold to Takes
launches comping by splitting an existing audio
ile at a user-deined length into a number of
user-deined multiple Takes. We found this was
great for reworking or inessing loops.
Operators
Next up, Operators. These add a new and very
powerful dimension to how and when MIDI or
audio events are triggered. The four options –
Chance, Repeat, Occurrence and Recurrence –
are pretty self-explanatory once you get started.
Accessed via a panel in the Inspector you can
activate them individually and have up to all
four running concurrently if desired.
The irst two options (Chance and Repeat)
control whether an event plays and how many
times. Occurrence includes nine ‘conditions’ and
inluences how an event is played with respect
to other events or within a repeated loop.
Occurrence also includes a Fill Mode condition
(on or of) that ties in with the global Fill button.
This allows you to create a bunch of events that
only play when this button is engaged, and also
deine a bunch of events that don’t play. In
essence the way a ill often works in a track. And
yes, you guessed it, Fill Mode can be mapped to
a MIDI controller or indeed automated via its
own lane. Excellent stuf.
Finally, Recurrence allows you to specify
when an event plays as part of a looped clip. You
can choose between 2 and 8 cycles of the loop
and then specify on the graphic which cycles
the event will play on. Overall, Operators provide
a new perspective on humanising, randomising,
programming and manipulating sounds.
Existing Bitwig users will be familiar with the
Expressions option, which allows you to specify
real-time changes within audio and MIDI events.
Perhaps inspired by the Operators feature, you
can now apply a randomising Spread range to
these parameters, and you will see a real-time
visual representation of this. Further v4 changes
include improved export formats; you now have
ive options (WAV, FLAC, OPUS, OGG and MP3)
with selectable bit rates. And on the import side
you can now import data from FL Studio (FLP)
and Ableton Live (ALS) sessions. In addition to
support for OSX, Windows and Linux, Bitwig 4
runs natively on Apple Silicon machines. There
is also proper language localisation for Chinese,
Japanese and German, including all the labelling,
in-app documentation and interactive help.
Bitwig Studio 4 ofers some great new
features and shows how a fresh approach to an
existing concept such as comping can bring
better functionality. In a future update we’d love
to see the Bitwig team apply this ethos to pitch
correction. Nevertheless, Bitwig’s forte remains
its creative features and v4 pushes these into
ever more weird and wonderful directions.
Web bitwig.com
Info 12 month Upgrade Plan €169
Verdict
For Excellent comping option
New Operator feature
Free upgrade for registered owners with
valid upgrade plans
Better export and import options
Against We’d love to see integrated
pitch correction
Bitwig Studio 4 is not an earth-shattering
update, but the new features are excellently
implemented and it’s a highly creative DAW
9/10
Alternatively
Ableton Live 11
294 » 9/10 » From £69
This clip-based performance DAW
ofers excellent features and
extensive soundware support
FL Studio
260 » 9/10 » From £76
FL’s loop based heritage has a loyal
band of devotees who also enjoy its
lifetime free updates.
Payment schemes for DAWs and
plugins have become increasingly
complex, and rightly or wrongly there
is clearly a trend towards subscriptions
and ongoing payment plans. Bitwig
operates a reasonably straightforward
scheme whereby any new purchase
includes all updates for 12 months from
registration, and if you happen to time
this well, this could even be a full
version update. When the plan runs out
you can keep using the software and
you will get any further minor support
updates released for that version.
At the end of the 12 months you can
also purchase the Upgrade Plan. This
will provide you with continued full
updates for another 12 months at which
point you can choose whether or not to
renew it. The Upgrade Plan is
completely optional and can be
purchased at any time. It may seem like
an unnecessary expense, however,
Bitwig releases quite regular
incremental updates, and with full
version updates roughly every two
years, it’s highly likely that you’ll get
one full version update within that
additional 12 month period.
One other advantage of maintaining
your upgrade plan is that you have
access to development beta versions
ahead of release, and this has been the
case for version 4.
Upgrade planning
Both new recordings and existing audio iles can take
advantage of Bitwig’s new take based comping system
To keep receiving
new updates and
versions after 12
months you’ll
need to invest in
an Upgrade Plan
“Operators add a new
and very powerful
dimension to how and
when MIDI or audio
events are triggered”
September 2021 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 69
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