Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Audio-FX Mixing Track from Scratch Tips-Tricks Synths

10 Tips and Tricks for Bitwig Studio: Bounce, Key Track, and More

Tutorial | Apr 28, 2020

In this video, I share some additional tips and tricks for using Bitwig Studio. I first show how to use the browser tab to import recent projects or specific groups within a project. Next, I demonstrate how to use the key track to modulate the frequency of an EQ or filter to correspond with MIDI inputs. I explain how to bounce audio with or without effects included and why I prefer using the bounce option over bounce in place. Finally, I share how to deactivate tracks for faster loading time and how to hide source material tracks. Overall, these tips can improve your workflow in Bitwig Studio.

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

Questions & Answers

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What are some additional tips and tricks for Bitvic Studio shown in this video?

In this video, the presenter shows some small tutorials for Bitvic Studio, including how to use the browser to access recent projects, how to implement key track on EQ or filter, how to include effects in audio bounces using groupings, and how to deactivate tracks to increase project loading time.

How can someone save 10% on the price of Bitvic Studio and support the presenter's channel?

To save 10% on the price of Bitvic Studio and support the presenter's channel, someone can use the code "polarity" in the shop.

How can someone access more tips and tricks for Bitvic Studio?

To access more tips and tricks for Bitvic Studio, someone can visit the KVR forum and go to the Bitvic sub forum where there is a thread specifically for tips and tricks. Additionally, someone can join the Bitvic Discord and visit the sub channel called Bitvic tips and tricks for more helpful information.

How can someone bounce audio or instruments to audio, and what is the difference between "bounce in place" and "bounce"?

To bounce audio or instruments to audio, someone can right-click on a clip or select a longer area in front of the clip, right-click on the blue area, and select "bounce." If they want to include effects in the rendering, they should select "post-fader" and choose 32-bit floating point, unchecking dither and real-time. The difference between "bounce in place" and "bounce" is that "bounce in place" only renders the output of the instrument and does not include any effects after it, while "bounce" includes all effects, but creates a new audio track instead of overwriting the original track. Grouping tracks or making effects part of the VST can help include the effects in "bounce in place" rendering as well. Deactivating tracks can also shorten project loading time.

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, in today's video, I want to show you some additional tips and tricks for
[00:04.440] Pitvic Studio. Some small little tutorials you can follow because my last video
[00:10.480] I uploaded recently got a lot of love and praise from people so why not do
[00:16.120] another one. So, let's start.
[00:23.120] Use my code polarity in the shop to save 10% on the price and support my channel.
[00:29.600] So, for this first tip, I actually had to center my webcam on the screen because
[00:35.040] I want to show you something on the right side and it's called the browser and
[00:39.800] you probably use this before. So, we have here some tabs at the top where you
[00:44.400] can see the devices. You can see here all the devices. The bottom preset samples,
[00:49.840] multi samples, music, clips and on the last tab we have a tab called files and
[00:57.680] files show you all the files on your computer, different hard drives and so on.
[01:04.040] And there's a nice little folder here at the bottom. It's called recent
[01:08.480] projects and you can unfold this and you see all your projects you basically
[01:13.160] done recently. So, for instance, you can just go in here, click this project and
[01:19.880] just drag it into your current project and guess what? It loads the complete
[01:26.720] project inside your current project as a group. As you can see, it's now
[01:31.440] it's loading all the VST devices. You can unfold it and can use some of the
[01:40.120] stuff in your current project, right? Maybe it's also interesting if you do a lot
[01:45.560] of live-act stuff where you want to play multiple songs in a row. You can import
[01:52.960] all your projects here into one project, click this group and just deactivate
[01:58.720] it and only activate it when you want to play it. So, just select this here,
[02:05.080] delete it and now there's another special thing you can do. Not only you can
[02:11.040] unfold here and drag in different projects. You can also open up or unfold
[02:19.520] some of the projects itself and can see some of the groups inside this
[02:25.720] project. So, for instance here I have this project called Rounded Squares and
[02:31.080] there inside there's a drum group, some stuff inside this group and I just want
[02:37.560] to import the drum group, right? So, I just drag it in and it loads all the VSTs,
[02:43.600] all the devices and now I have used the drum group for a different project in
[02:48.160] my current project. It's pretty neat for me itself because I do a lot of projects,
[02:54.720] I start new projects every day and some of them I never finish but some of the
[02:59.800] stuff I've done in the projects are pretty great so I import some drums, maybe
[03:04.600] some bass lines, something like this. It's actually pretty neat. So, the next step
[03:09.640] is a nice tip to show to new people and people that don't use Bitvic Studio
[03:14.560] or Bitvic users probably know this already but I want to show it. So, here we
[03:20.600] have a filter and this filter has a filter type of low pass and you can filter
[03:25.840] audio. So, pretty usual but when you double click on this knob here it jumps to
[03:36.480] a third frequency and this frequency is exactly 262 Hz which is C3 as a note
[03:43.560] and you can see this by when you hover over the knob here and the bottom you can
[03:49.200] see a help text and there it says frequency 262 Hz, it's C3, okay? So, this is
[03:57.800] for a reason because now you can just go in here, click the plus and add and
[04:03.440] modulator and we add key track and when we open up the key track you can see the
[04:11.040] root frequency is by default on C3 and the spread is 64. So, all we have to do
[04:18.200] now is use the modulator handle here and modulate the filter frequency by 64
[04:26.000] units, 64 and now when you have a MIDI input device on the track all you have to
[04:36.440] do is play your melody and you can see the frequencies jumping exactly where
[04:44.440] my note is. So, you can see the filter is moving. So, the filter track basically
[04:55.240] tracks what your MIDI input is and changes the frequency to the right note
[05:02.080] frequency. So, key track easily implemented just double click here on the
[05:07.440] frequency knob, load key track and then modulate the frequency knob by 64
[05:15.440] units. You can change it of course the spread but for the default value it's 64.
[05:21.560] You can also use this of course on the EQ here, let's close down the filter and
[05:28.280] we are here on the EQ and we can go in here and just instead of typing in the
[05:35.920] frequency we can type in C3 and it jumps to the right frequency as you can see
[05:42.160] 262 hertz and type in any other note F sharp 5 maybe or F3 and it jumps
[05:54.240] always to the right frequency. You can use this on the EQ, you can use this
[05:58.600] here on the filter, you can also use this on the filter in some of the
[06:03.320] synths, basically everywhere where you can choose the frequency you can type in
[06:08.000] a note. That's pretty great and pretty nice to have you don't need to have some
[06:13.920] conversion tables where you convert frequency to notes and back and forth. So,
[06:19.640] now we have here C3 and we need to modulate this by amount by 64 units and
[06:29.600] now we basically have key track implemented on the EQ. You can see the EQ is
[06:44.280] jumping with the frequency to the right note or note frequency. So, key track
[06:52.000] also possible on the EQ pretty easily. Only downside is that it's monophonic so
[06:59.000] when you play multiple keys it doesn't work, it always takes the first note as
[07:03.240] an input for the key track. The next tip is timings. So, here on the reverb we have
[07:09.320] a timing where you can choose how long the reverb is and this is by units of
[07:14.440] seconds. Not only you can type in here seconds maybe one second can also use
[07:19.720] this to type in small calculations. So, for instance, if you want to have
[07:27.560] a BPM here it's 1 on the 10 BPM type in 1 on the 10 divided by, you know, it's
[07:35.040] actually 60 seconds divided by 110 BPM and then you get out basically a fourth
[07:41.920] of a note as time for the current BPM. So, now it's 455 milliseconds. So, for
[07:50.600] instance you can type in here one second divided by two and you get the half
[07:57.080] of one second which is 500 milliseconds. Okay, let's talk about bouncing audio
[08:03.840] or instruments to audio because there are a lot of concepts happening and
[08:08.280] sometimes people got confused with it. Okay, so here we have a note clip inside
[08:14.160] this note clip. There is notes of course that's why we have note clips, right?
[08:19.640] And on the device chain we have a Polysynth and after this Polysynth
[08:25.240] there's a reverb. So, now we can click on the clip itself, right click on it and
[08:31.640] we can choose bounce in place and we have bounce. So, what's the difference? So,
[08:38.040] it's a bit difficult to explain but when you go for bounce in place it just
[08:44.080] bounces the instrument sound, the output of the instrument, not the reverb. So, I'm
[08:50.760] going for bounce in place here and now you can see we have a wave file. Okay, but
[08:56.680] we have still the Polysynth on the track and we have to reverb on the track. But
[09:01.200] now we have an instead of an instrument track we have a hybrid track. So,
[09:05.800] hybrid tracks are basically tracks where you can use note clips and audio
[09:10.320] wave files. But in this case we have now an audio file and when I play back
[09:14.520] this file you have the same output as before but the Polysynth actually
[09:22.240] does nothing because there is no note information happening. We can just
[09:26.880] deactivate it. We can see the reverb is used. So, when I deactivate the
[09:34.320] reverb here you only hear the sound of the synthesizer. So, with bounce in
[09:41.280] place we only bounce the instrument or the first instrument of a device chain
[09:46.520] and the effects are basically not calculated or rendered in it's still
[09:53.280] alive basically. So, when you want to include the effects inside the bounce in
[09:59.800] place rendering then you have to make the effects part of the instrument. So,
[10:06.440] let's activate this here or maybe undo. So, we're back to our original state.
[10:13.840] So, now we can just drag in the reverb into the FX box of the
[10:20.080] Polysen and now the reverb is part of the Polysen itself and now we can
[10:25.240] right click here on a clip and go bounce in place and you can see now that we
[10:31.640] have a reverb tail inside this waveform basically. So, I'm deactivating
[10:37.960] the Polysen again and now the effects are part of the bounce clip basically
[10:48.960] the waveform. Okay, that's something you have to know. Now we're going back to
[10:58.200] our original state. So, sometimes you don't have this FX box. We can't make
[11:04.200] the effects part of the instrument itself. For instance, if you have a BST
[11:08.880] instrument. So, when I exchange this here maybe for something different let's
[11:17.120] go for, let's maybe go for laps. So, soft piano. Oh, now we have a piano. So,
[11:30.200] there's no FX box. You can't make the reverb part of the instrument, right? So, now
[11:35.840] you can select both of these instruments and just hit control and G for
[11:41.960] grouping. And now you have created an instrument layer. Inside this layer there's
[11:47.640] one layer and inside this layer there's the slabs instrument which is VST and
[11:52.120] the reverb itself. And now you can also go here for bounce in place and we have
[11:59.880] now the reverb tail in render it into the audio file. So, this works too. All you
[12:10.680] have to do basically when you want to include FX into bounce in place, you have
[12:16.120] to group basically the instrument and the effects together. So, that's important.
[12:21.480] So, before we move on, I show you that the VST itself actually has an
[12:27.200] positive exchange. It's hidden behind this arrow here. You can open it up, then
[12:31.520] you select the reverb and you can drag it in. And now the reverb is part of the
[12:35.440] VST. You can save the VST as a preset to the library and yeah, make it part of
[12:41.320] the preset basically. You can also use this to bounce in place with FX. But I
[12:45.440] think it's much faster to just select everything here with control and A. Hit
[12:51.240] control and G to group it and then go to the clip, control and B to bounce it.
[12:57.080] It's much, much faster, right? So, you have basically three keyboard
[13:02.320] commands to bounce in place with FX. So, I reverted it back to our original
[13:08.440] state. We have the note clip, piano and reverb after it. And bounce places
[13:13.960] something I never use. I always go for bounce. And instead of right-clicking here
[13:18.760] the note clip and go for bounce, I go with my mouse to the space here in front
[13:26.080] of the note clip. I click and hold and drag and select basically a much, much
[13:32.040] longer area than my clip is because I have a reverb, right? A long reverb tail.
[13:38.160] So, it stays selected as you can see. It's slightly blue. And I right-click
[13:44.080] this blue area and then I go for bounce. And then I have this pop up here and I go
[13:49.560] for post-fader because I want to want to have all the effects as part of the
[13:54.880] rendering. I go for a 32-bit floating point. I uncheck dither and real-time and
[14:01.360] just hit OK. And now, between creates a new track, a new audio track. This audio
[14:08.400] track is exactly as long as our selection on the first track here, as you can
[14:13.560] see. And the reverb is included into the rendering, which is pretty nice. You
[14:19.400] can choose how long you want to have your audio track. You can choose if you
[14:22.880] want to have effects part of the rendering. And also, your original note
[14:29.320] clip stays intact. It's not overwritten by the audio file as it was with bounce
[14:34.800] in place. So, now we have basically two tracks. And they also play together. So, in
[14:44.080] this case here, I don't need the original track to play. So, what I'm gonna do
[14:49.200] is I select track itself and go into the left pane here and go for active to
[14:54.920] the checkmark and uncheck it. And now it's deactivated. Deactivating a track
[15:02.920] means basically removing it from the memory, removing it from the CPU
[15:08.000] processing. And also, it increases the loading time or decreases the loading
[15:15.640] time, sorry. It decreases the loading time of the project. So, when you have a
[15:20.760] lot of VSTs, a lot of effects, you know, when you load the project, it takes
[15:25.080] much, much long time, the load or the plugins into memory. But when you
[15:30.240] basically bounce it to audio and then you deactivate this original track, the
[15:37.160] loading time is blazing fast. That's what I want to tell you, okay? So, it's
[15:42.120] also much, much better than the freezing option of Ableton Live or Q-Base.
[15:47.200] Of course, you can always go back to your original track. So, when you think,
[15:53.760] oh, maybe I used this piano here and maybe I need something that has a bit
[16:01.000] more reverb. You can go to your original track here. Activated. So, it loads
[16:07.520] now the VST and you can go for a longer reverb tail. Maybe something really long
[16:13.640] and just go in here and hit bounce and then just deactivated again. And now we
[16:22.320] have two separate versions of the same piano. One with much, much reverb and one
[16:32.280] with not so much reverb, okay? So, you can use this to basically go every time you
[16:38.760] want to back to your original source material and rebounce it. And as you can
[16:45.600] see, the stays basically visible in the project here. It's deactivated, but
[16:52.200] it's still visible. And if you have a lot of these source tracks in your
[16:55.760] project, you actually can hide it by clicking this small symbol here. It's a
[17:01.160] small cross symbol. So, now it's gone. So, you can hide all your source material
[17:07.080] tracks and show it back again if you want to and need to rebounce something. So,
[17:12.560] this is what I always use with a lot of tracks. When I do drum bass tracks where
[17:17.600] I need a lot of resampling, re-bouncing, I need different versions of the
[17:23.480] same sound basically in a lot of different versions. Then I go for something
[17:29.520] like this and I go always back to my original material and rebounce it, okay?
[17:35.280] That's a nice workflow inside BitVic Studio and I think it's better than... I
[17:41.400] think it's better than Freeze Enabled Live and Cubase. That's my opinion. So,
[17:49.240] that's it for this video, but don't be sad. I do another video of this in the
[17:54.200] near future, okay? But in the meantime, if you want to read up some of the stuff, I
[17:59.440] put some links in the description below so you can go maybe here to the KVR
[18:05.680] forum and there's a sub forum called BitVic of course and in there there's a
[18:11.440] thread code that you know, tips and tricks. There are a lot of small little
[18:15.880] workflow tips for BitVic Studio. Also, you can go to our BitVic Discord and
[18:21.880] inside this Discord, there is a sub channel called BitVic tips and tricks and
[18:27.760] inside this channel called BitVic tips and tricks. There are a lot of BitVic tips
[18:32.480] and tricks you can read up and yeah, small little tips as you can see. Some
[18:40.440] stuff I already told you in the video, but as I said, I do maybe another one
[18:48.640] of these videos in the future because a lot of people like it and maybe I
[18:52.760] find the better format. Maybe I compress some of the tips even more because I
[18:57.600] already spent a lot of time explaining something in today's video. So yeah,
[19:03.320] thanks for watching this video. Please subscribe to the channel, leave a like and
[19:07.680] maybe subscribe to Patreon because I have a lot of content coming up and yeah,
[19:14.280] thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.