Exploring New Features of Bitwig Studio 3.2

Tutorial | Apr 24, 2020

In this video, I share some tips and ideas on how to use the new features in Bitwig Studio 3.2. I show how to create a bassline using the new arpeggiator and expression modulator, how to create layered instruments with instrument selectors and round-robin, and how to create evolving chords with note FX selector, arpeggiator, and diatonic transposer. I also demonstrate how to create sounds with Poly-Grid, create a reverb effect that only activates when the key is released, and how to create a strumming effect with note delay. These new features offer a lot of possibilities for sound design and creating patterns and chord structures. Using my code "polarity" in the shop can save you 10% on the price while supporting my channel.

You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon

Summary #

Hey everyone, welcome back to another video! Today I want to give you some inspiration and ideas using the new features in Bitwig Studio. There are a lot of exciting updates, so I’ll show you how you can use them creatively and solve some problems you may have faced before.

First off, if you want to save 10% on Bitwig Studio, you can use my code 'polarity' in the shop to support my channel. Now, let’s dive in.

We’ll start with something simple. I’m using Bitwig’s E-Hat device to create a quick hi-hat pattern. I’ve added an arpeggiator, which has been updated in the new version, and I reduced the steps to four. Then I dialed in some velocity changes to vary the hi-hat lengths using the Expression Modulator. You can now humanize the pattern directly from the arpeggiator, making it easy to add variation without manually editing the notes or using the groove function like we used to.

Next, I’m using the Instrument Selector to create a bass sound. I’ve added multiple layers to the Instrument Selector and used Round Robin so each time a note plays, a different layer is triggered. This keeps the bass line evolving and ever-changing. You can do the same with lead sounds or melodies for added depth. By duplicating and tweaking the layers, you can create subtle variations that add interest to your track. I also added Bitwig's new Saturator at the end to give the sound a bit of warmth.

Another cool feature I’m exploring is the Note FX Selector. I’ve set up a Polysynth and created a chord progression using a pitch shifter and a Multi-Note to create a minor chord. I added an arpeggiator in front of the Diatonic Transposer to create a simple chord progression. By using Round Robin in the Note FX Selector, you can change chords automatically with each note played. Then I customized each arpeggiator layer for different playback patterns, giving more variety to the rhythm and feel. This is great for experimenting with evolving chord progressions and melodies.

Let’s move on to some sound design. I opened the Poly-Grid and used a Sine-Oscillator and an AD envelope with the new loop function to create bell-like sounds. By adjusting the looped decay time, I generated interesting, glitchy sounds. I also added random modulation to the decay, which gave each note a unique timbre. You can stack multiple Poly-Grid tracks with different envelope lengths to create polyrhythms—perfect for complex rhythmic textures.

Now, let’s talk about something I haven't seen many people mention: using the new AHD on Release modulator. I applied it to a Polysynth with reverb, and it only activates the reverb after you release the note. This gives you clean sounds while holding a note and brings in the reverb when the note is released, which adds a really cool dynamic to your sound. You can even apply this in Poly mode so each voice has its own modulator, though it’s still a bit buggy in the beta, but I’m sure it’ll be fixed soon.

Another new feature I want to highlight is the ability to modulate the Note Delay. This was a big issue before when trying to create a strumming effect, but now with the Note Delay, you can modulate the delay of each note in a chord. I set up a simple piano patch, created a chord progression, and added the Note Delay to stagger the notes slightly, making it sound like someone is playing the chord live. You can also add a random modulator to change the timing each time you press a key, giving a more natural feel.

I think that’s enough for this video, it’s already getting quite long, but I hope these ideas give you some inspiration to try out the new features in Bitwig Studio 3.2. If you enjoyed the video, please leave a like, subscribe, or even consider supporting me on Patreon. You can also use my code if you’re thinking of buying Bitwig—it helps me out and saves you some money too. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye!

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] So with the new version of Bitwig Studio, we have a lot of new features and in this video
[00:04.840] I try to give some inspiration on what you can do with all the new features and maybe some solutions to all problems. So let's start
[00:17.160] Use my code polarity in the shop to save 10% on the price and support my channel
[00:23.520] So let's start a bit easy and we start to create a new track
[00:29.240] with an E-Hat device by Bitwig Studio. We create a clip inside the clip there is just one node and
[00:38.880] in front of the E-Hat we have an
[00:41.960] arpeggiator which is the new version of the arpeggiator and now we have some kind of pattern
[00:49.240] Okay, we reduce here the number of steps to four dial in some
[00:53.680] Different amounts of velocity, maybe so feel like this and
[01:01.360] Then we add here on module later
[01:04.120] Expression module later use the velocity to change the length of the i-hats
[01:09.120] And now you can click the arpeggiator here and dial in humanize
[01:25.920] So this way you can easily spice up your pretty static patterns. You don't need to actually
[01:32.600] Use here the crew function of Bitwig studio to change a bit of the arpeggiator like before
[01:41.440] You also don't need to go into the
[01:44.520] node editor here
[01:46.760] Use multiple nodes
[01:49.160] Select the nodes go to the
[01:51.400] Quantize function here and use the humanize there. You don't need to do that
[01:55.520] You just use the arpeggiator use one node and you can dial in all the features you want
[02:01.040] Okay, let's try out some instrument
[02:05.360] selectors
[02:08.080] instrument selector. Okay, and
[02:10.880] This one we have no instrument, but we create a clip first and this clip I'm going for
[02:19.200] some nodes
[02:21.760] Epi C1
[02:25.280] duplicate it
[02:27.840] Easy stuff and
[02:29.840] Inside this instrument selector we create now and face four device which should be
[02:36.880] Place on base sound. Okay, maybe go for a sign. So dial in some kind of preset or some sound you like
[02:47.920] Maybe dial in here a bit of dirt
[02:49.920] Maybe use also a bit of white noise
[03:10.880] Okay, so now we have something like this and then we just
[03:15.200] Go on with our layers here. We duplicate this so we have a second layer in the second layer. We change the sound a bit
[03:23.840] So like this and then we go to the instrument selector select the device itself and go here to round robin
[03:46.000] So now we have every time we play a node a different layer selected
[03:50.000] Okay, sounds like this and we can go on here and duplicate the last layer and create a new sound
[03:59.200] And duplicate again use a new sound maybe change it away from
[04:29.680] And again, duplicate this and maybe on the last one here
[04:48.080] You maybe use some kind of small reverb at the end
[05:02.080] As you can hear
[05:06.720] We have now a nice nice kind of pattern
[05:11.440] You can even change the melody here
[05:30.640] What you also can do is you can exchange the notes here for one note
[05:36.480] And also use again the arpeggiator in front of the instrument selector
[05:43.280] Now we can change timing
[05:51.280] Also use the humanized function now
[06:07.440] So it's maybe nice for wonky hip hop something like this
[06:11.840] Or just a touch to make it a bit more organic
[06:16.800] As you can hear we have now a nice bass bass line that's ever changing
[06:30.400] See how it looks with the rhythm
[06:35.040] Let's close this down here use a tool device we can make it
[06:39.840] Now you can go into each layer and change the sound a bit and it has a drastic effect on the pattern
[06:57.760] And maybe at the end here we can use a new saturator
[07:57.920] So this is an idea you can do for bass lines
[08:10.960] It also works for lead sounds or melodies something like this
[08:18.160] And that they lead everything and we go on to the next idea
[08:21.680] Okay, so next idea is we create an instrument track and we use again a note selector, note of x selector
[08:32.480] After this we use a Polysynth so we have a sound and we dial in some kind of sound here
[08:39.600] That's okay inside the Polysynth will be a reverb
[08:52.400] dial in and we use in delay
[09:08.400] Inside the note of x selector we create now some note fx and we use and pitch shifter note
[09:18.960] So we can shift the initial note around after this we use a multi note so we can create a chord
[09:26.080] And I'm creating here a minor chord where
[09:33.760] Yeah a minor chord then after this we create a diatonic transposer and I know I use the scale of the sharp minor
[09:42.800] And that's it for now so now we create a clip here in this clip I'm using a note
[10:02.000] So just the chord played three times in this clip nothing special
[10:16.640] And now we use an arpeggiator in between the multi note and the diatonic transposer
[10:25.840] So an arpeggiator so just a regular trans riff
[10:39.360] Okay so I think we're going down in your minus 4
[10:44.560] Semitones with the initial note so the whole chord is shifted for Semitones down
[10:48.960] Okay sounds sweet then we duplicate this we go to minus 2
[10:57.920] And the last one is then the root note so we're going to zero so we have three chords now okay
[11:08.080] And now we can select the note selector here and go to round robin
[11:12.960] And now every time a note plays we change the chord basically
[11:30.240] Which is cool and now we can go into each of these layers here and make some modifications to the melodies
[11:36.960] So for instance here I can maybe shift this note once Semitone up
[12:06.960] Maybe we go in the middle layer here and also make some adjustments to the arpeggiator
[12:37.040] What we also can do is we can go to the arpeggiator here in each of these layers
[12:56.000] And change the playback pattern so we can choose this here and maybe go low and up here
[13:02.320] And the bottom layer we go maybe
[13:06.080] Um what some down some like this up and in okay
[13:36.560] So with the note is the effects selector and all these layers here you can make
[14:04.160] A lot of adjustments for each chord you can dial in the pitch shifter where you shift the root note around you can
[14:12.320] Select different chord type when you use the moody note then you can play a different pattern with a different speed and different rhythm
[14:20.240] And at the end you can choose with the diatonic transposer if you want to
[14:26.640] Switch to a different mode basically with some of the chords
[14:30.720] So you can all do this with uh with the note fx selector and the new
[14:38.000] Modes here you can of course choose to
[14:41.200] Uh choose the multi to case which is so you can use multiple different keys to switch to a certain layer in some
[14:49.840] Part of your song if you want. So this is possible now and
[14:54.320] And yeah, you can just go in here and extend this maybe duplicate the whole sequence
[15:00.960] And maybe dial in here some additional
[15:04.480] Uh differences on each of these patterns so you can
[15:09.680] Even more bring in some nuances of
[15:13.440] Change over time
[15:15.440] Hmm
[15:19.440] So let's switch to one drop in
[15:49.520] Oh
[16:00.720] What you also can do is of course use to humanize here again in different amounts in each of the layers
[16:08.080] Should be sound okay
[16:10.080] And some random amount
[16:40.240] Oh
[16:53.360] Maybe use an amp at your end front let's see how it this sounds
[17:01.520] Oh not so nice
[17:03.520] What what it's possible, okay, so this is idea number three. I think okay
[17:14.400] Okay, next idea is uh to bring up the Poly-Grid and place something with the Poly-Grid and
[17:21.680] Poly-Grid is empty and I create an empty clip here
[17:25.360] Also just one note inside this clip pretty simple
[17:30.080] And inside the Poly-Grid it's empty. Okay
[17:34.720] Now we create maybe a Sine-Oscillator and one of these new
[17:43.680] Ad and there's a loop function here. So we turn this loop function uh switch it on and then we go for an
[17:54.400] Uh low pass
[17:56.400] This
[18:00.240] Down
[18:02.320] Out
[18:04.320] And now we have one tone when the loop function is on we have multiple tones, right
[18:34.640] Oh
[18:36.640] When you make the
[18:39.120] The end will all pretty short you get some kind of self
[18:44.000] Resonance or
[18:46.000] Self
[18:47.200] Oscillation
[18:57.200] So you can create
[19:12.800] Glitch sounds or maybe some kind of some bell sounds
[19:30.000] So when we use an ADS R at the end
[19:33.120] So you can kind of create a bell
[19:43.520] Maybe use a random modulator here and change the decay time a bit
[19:53.840] So now we have different bells every time we play this in front we use an operator here
[20:00.160] And so now we have this maybe use a multi-node root node and the fifth
[20:10.240] The seven semi-tones for the fifth
[20:16.720] Okay
[20:18.720] Let's pause a sharp minor and after the arpeggiator so we can shift just some notes around
[21:19.360] So
[21:37.040] So you can create sounds just with the with the short envelope amplitude and the loop of the AD
[21:43.520] And the looping activated you can of course use this to make some kind of Poly rhythms or
[21:51.360] Maybe we just delete this here
[21:58.480] We remove the arpeggiator
[22:00.480] And we remove the ADS R here
[22:22.320] Now we can duplicate this track and use different settings for the ADS
[22:27.040] AD here for the AD and the loop on this track
[22:58.000] So you can kind of create Poly rhythms this way and just by stacking up some multiple
[23:08.960] polygrids here with different envelope length
[24:09.360] So
[24:16.400] So as you can see a lot of possibilities for sound design and creating patterns
[24:22.400] chord structures and so on so this is idea number four I think
[24:30.080] Okay, so next one the next one is something I'm not here anyone talking about
[24:36.000] And so I'm creating a Polysynth here in this Polysynth of course we create some kind of preset
[24:49.040] Maybe make a chord root note
[24:56.880] Major fifth
[24:58.880] I made your third major fifth and
[25:11.360] Okay, in this preset we create a reverb and we dial in the reverb to zero so now mix at all, okay
[25:19.360] So now we want to have some kind of reverb but only at the end
[25:23.680] So we're going to add a new modulator which is called AHD on release
[25:31.680] And every time we release the key from the keyboard this modulator's active
[25:37.440] So we modulate here the mix knob at the end, okay
[25:42.160] Can you see this actually my
[25:45.920] I move it away, so
[25:48.160] Um, okay, so every time we release the key
[25:51.200] This becomes active and it dyes in the reverb, okay, so let's press the key
[26:00.080] As long as I'm pressing the key nothing happens but as soon as I'm releasing the key
[26:09.520] Okay, and you can change here
[26:11.520] And
[26:20.960] And this um
[26:24.640] This modulator also has a Poly mode so you can play multiple voices and each of these voices have its own
[26:33.520] AHD on release, but I think
[26:37.120] At the moment
[27:00.960] It's it's not working correctly at the moment as I think that's just the back of the beta
[27:05.280] But it will be fixed, but it has a it has a Poly mode and you can use it basically on every voice you create, okay
[27:12.720] That's a pretty nice feature and you can use it to choke basically the reverb or delay or other effects
[27:19.440] After you release the key or bring in effects after you release the key so a pretty neat modulator
[27:27.280] Um, added to Bitwig 3.2 and we move on to the next tip
[27:32.800] So for the next tip we have to create
[27:37.440] some
[27:39.600] We have to create something and I think we need a note fx
[27:45.200] Maybe hopefully I can recall this what I did um, I need the pitch shifter and
[27:57.440] That's a note layer, okay
[27:59.440] Um in this in this one I need a new note delay and it's that's basically what I'm talking about so you can delay
[28:10.800] Now notes note signals and you can modulate the delay
[28:15.520] Which was not possible before maybe you can recall my video about
[28:23.040] Creating chords
[28:25.040] Um with some strumming effect in it and it was not possible because you couldn't change the timing
[28:32.320] Uh with the time shift device of Bitwig studio
[28:35.520] So you had to dial in static values, but now we can change the values here on modulator values with the note delay
[28:43.440] So we have here now a root note then we go for a minor chord
[28:49.520] And seven so now we should have
[28:52.000] Go for piano, yeah, piano sound
[29:05.600] Okay
[29:13.920] So now we can delay certain layers, yeah, that's the root
[29:18.160] Um, there is
[29:20.400] note delay
[29:22.400] And then there's the second layer
[29:34.320] So you can dial in some milliseconds delay so it sounds like someone on the piano is actually playing the piano
[29:40.480] It's not like instantly every note
[29:43.360] So also you can use a random modulator of course here to change this on the fly
[29:59.360] So let's move this up here that's one delete this delay
[30:03.440] So now every time you press a key the delay is slightly different
[30:17.280] Maybe duplicate this here and go complete octave lower
[30:33.040] Wait the timing here
[30:51.760] Okay, so you can create strumming effects pretty easily with the note delay
[30:56.560] And as you can see I have a note fx layer in every note fx layer there's a pit shifter
[31:01.360] And I'm creating three or four layers every time I pitch the note
[31:09.280] Uh, two different chord note and then I'm adding a note delay so we can delay it pretty easy stuff
[31:18.000] But it wasn't possible before now we can do it nice
[31:24.880] So that's it for this video. I want to cut it down at this point because it's already 30 minutes long
[31:29.760] But I wanted to give you some new inspiration some new ideas for the upcoming weekend with the beta version of bitwig studio 3.2
[31:39.920] So try everything out give me feedback and leave us leave a like leave a subscription or for this channel
[31:46.480] Maybe think about the subscription on patreon or even buy bitwig studio itself and use my code it helps me it helps you
[31:54.720] So thanks for watching and I see you in the next video. Bye