Creating Inversions with Node Wrapping in Bitwig Studio

Tutorial | Mar 03, 2022

I just showed how to use the node wrapping tool in Bitwig Studio to create more efficient code inversions and make it easier to have nodes closer together. I also showed how to use the wrap axis tool to change the axis of mirroring to make it even more efficient. Download the preset in the description below and leave me a comment if you have any feedback.

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Questions & Answers #

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

What is the node wrapping tool in Bitwig Studio? #

The node wrapping tool in Bitwig Studio is a tool that wraps nodes around a certain octave in order to create code inversions of nodes on the fly. This way, you can easily create chord progressions that stay within a certain range, making them sound more harmonic and closer together.

What is the wrap axis tool? #

The wrap axis tool is a feature of the node wrapping tool in Bitwig Studio. This tool allows you to change the axis of mirroring for the nodes, so you can wrap them around any note within the octave instead of just one. This way, you can create more complex chord progressions that stay within a certain range.

What is the octave wrapper tool? #

The octave wrapper tool is an older version of the node wrapping tool in Bitwig Studio. This tool uses a method of notranspose tools and a key range to pitch down everything one octave from C6 to B6. It is not as powerful as the node wrapping tool, but it is still a useful tool for creating generative chord progressions.

How can I access the #

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] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:03.540] I just created a new node wrapping tool in the Note Grid of Bitwig Studio, so it's a more
[00:08.700] like an efficient way of creating code inversions of nodes on the fly, where you just say I only
[00:19.260] want to have nodes in a certain octave and everything above and below gets pitched down
[00:26.260] to the current octave.
[00:28.260] But it's a bit hard to describe and I'll show you in a minute how this looks like in
[00:31.780] the grid or in the piano roll.
[00:35.320] So let's imagine you have here this chord progression, which is a C major chord progression
[00:40.040] sounds like this.
[00:50.600] And all these chords are correct and diatonic, and sometimes you want to have some of these
[00:56.640] nodes closer together, so you create inversions, which means you take one node here for instance
[01:01.700] and pull this one octave down or take this chord and pull this one one octave higher.
[01:10.460] So some of these nodes are being closer together, so it sounds more harmonic or more like
[01:17.680] in the same octave playing.
[01:21.060] So when I record this here to a second track with my new node wrap tool here, then you can
[01:27.860] see that all of these nodes here are now more closer together and they don't go above
[01:49.340] the second octave here.
[01:51.780] It's not like this, like this, everything happens in the same range.
[01:58.380] And the node wrapping tool or the preset I created is basically that everything that goes
[02:04.180] above F3 gets pitched down.
[02:07.460] So this was initially up here and the tool pitched this way back down.
[02:13.700] And it's the same for going down or below F2, I think here, then all the nodes here
[02:20.920] would get pitched up here.
[02:23.260] So this is perfect for when you create generative chord progressions or when you use the multi-node
[02:29.100] tool in Bitwig Studio and you want to have some kind of inversions adding to that without
[02:35.180] caring too much what happens on a node level.
[02:40.740] And when I remove this here and maybe show you some MIDI keyboard like this and we go
[02:47.580] in here and take this node here out.
[02:53.460] And you can see that above you can see basically on the bottom MIDI keyboard here that we
[03:09.860] only play or output nodes in the same octave and this one here shows the input nodes that
[03:17.300] we go straight up and down the keyboard but when the transformation is applied we only
[03:23.860] play in the same octave.
[03:25.780] So it's just a node wrap.
[03:37.420] And this is how it looks like here in the grid.
[03:40.620] I could explain what I did here but it's just pure math and I'm using the wrap tool.
[03:45.900] It wraps basically every signal into a face range but I use this tool to basically wrap
[03:53.780] nodes.
[03:54.780] So I applied here some math and some divisions and yeah it's hard to explain what I basically
[04:00.740] did.
[04:03.140] And I also implemented here a wrap axis tool which allows you to change the axis of mirroring.
[04:10.260] So for instance here in the default state I'm wrapping around C3.
[04:19.460] So everything that is above F3 gets pulled down with everything.
[04:30.380] Everything that's below F sharp 2 gets pulled up.
[04:38.780] The everything in between is basically our main range but sometimes you don't want to
[04:46.700] wrap around C3 which is the mirroring axis basically so it's the middle line, the
[04:53.260] center line, sometimes you want to mirror around I don't know D3.
[05:00.900] There's a range something like this and then you can do this by using the wrap axis and
[05:05.940] pulling this up or down to change the axis of rotation.
[05:11.500] And this one or this preset is for free.
[05:14.220] You can download this.
[05:15.220] You need of course a bit of a studio of 4.2 to have the Note Grid and to be able to
[05:21.860] use this preset of course.
[05:25.380] And there's also an older version of this by xisl which is called octave wrapper and I
[05:35.700] also link you to this in the description below.
[05:38.780] And this works in all previous versions what it uses like a method of using here no
[05:46.420] transpose tools and key range so what it did is basically did here for the range of C5
[05:54.060] to B5 then pitch down everything one octave from C6 to B6 you know.
[06:01.300] So he edits basically this here manually with no transpose tools and node filters.
[06:09.140] And this is a bit more slim here or uses the power of the Note Grid so it's a more modern
[06:17.540] way.
[06:19.340] But if you don't own the new 4.2 version then you can use this of course.
[06:25.460] Yeah and it's perfectly nice to use this here with the, let's say, what do you note?
[06:34.780] You have a lot of nodes in there maybe minor 11 and then you play on the keyboard.
[06:47.100] And you can go on any point on your keyboard all these nodes are basically in the same octave.
[07:02.380] Which gives you a nice, a nice feel for chord progressions always the filter, always.
[07:18.380] So it's always the same chord as just in all inversions applied to it.
[07:47.940] You can download the preset as I said in the description below, leave me a comment
[07:53.620] if you have some feedback, subscribe to the channel, leave a thumbs up if you liked
[07:57.220] the video and I'll see you in the next video, thanks for watching and bye.