At the beginning of the year, the Berlin based developer Bitwig presented the second version of their DAW. At the same time, it was also known that in the future users will have to pay for major updates. The euphoria were understandable not very large for this new version because many other manufacturers such as Ableton, Apple or Presonus ask users very rarely to pay for bigger updates. I was too a bit ambivalent about what I should think about this news. On the one hand, it’s certainly a good construct to pay the hard work of the updates. Normally, users buy a new version of a DAW and don’t pay anything until the big next version. In short, the developer earn only one time from the customer and all future updates are free of charge.
Of course free for the customers but for the developers, this development time cost a lot of money. So I can understand on this side that companies like Bitwig starts such updates policy because it’s hard to survive on the hard-fought DAW market.
On the other side, I can comprehend the users that have problems to pay every year a lot of money for just updates. At this point, it’s difficult to say if this money is good invested or not on a consumer side because Bitwig doesn’t have yet published any informations what you received for the money. This information gap also depends on the fact that every current Bitwig user can benefit from free updates until 2018. Afterwards, it will be interesting to see how the ratio update and price will be. A good sign of how fast updates can be delivered came today from the Bitwig Headquarter. The company announced today Bitwig Studio 2.2 Beta version.
The new version 2.2 adds Ableton Link support, new devices & modulators, a new display profile and an on-screen keyboard panel. As usual, the developer also fixes several critical bugs and improved the workflow
New in Bitwig 2.2.
- Ableton Link Support – Effortless sync across ecosystems. Since the release, Ableton Link has changed how musicians sync workstations across.
- Time Shift – This device allows for fine-grained time adjustments anywhere in your device chain, useful for getting things in time or as a creative tool in the mixing process.
- Audio Rate – Grab any audio signal in your project as a modulation source. The power of true audio rate frequency modulation at your fingertips.
- Polynom – Feed your modulation signals into mathematical formulas to achieve sophisticated and flexible transformations.
- Quantize – Reshape any modulation signal and give an edge to smooth curves with the Quantize modulator.
- Sample & Hold – the Sample and Hold modulator lets you introduce chaos and breathe life into your modulation setup – as random or ordered as you like.
Onscreen keyboard panel
This input panel is now available on more display profiles. It’s a handy way to play notes directly on screen, using touch screen or mouse. It allows for multidimensional polyphonic expression (or MPE) input and doubles as a visualization of note playback.
Dual Display (studio/touch)
Connect a touch screen to your existing setup and enjoy the best of both worlds: excellent touch input optimization on one screen, and full feature view on the other.
Sound content
Alongside the Bitwig Studio 2.2 launch we’re proud to announce a major sound content update. We’re adding 3+ GB of multi-sampled instruments and presets. Rare organs and piano will make keyboardists and lovers of harmony and melody happy, plus we’re including legendary 606 drum machine sounds sampled by our friends at Radium. This sound content update is free for all Bitwig Studio license holders with an active upgrade plan.
Bitwig Studio 2.2 is now available for beta testing for all Bitwig Studio 2 license holders. The final version is scheduled for release in October 2017.
Bitwig Studio 2.2 will be available as a free update for all Bitwig Studio 2 license holders with an active upgrade plan. A free demo version will be ready to try once Bitwig Studio 2.2 is released.
More informations here: Bitwig
Available here: Bitwig Studio 2.2
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