Bitwig Connect is Fun
Tutorial | Apr 28, 2025
In this video, I showcase the Bitwig Connect 4/12 and share some creative patching ideas using it, even if you don't own an external synthesizer. I demonstrate how to convert digital signals to analog and back to digital, utilizing feedback loops for distortion and creative sound effects. The convenience of having input and output jacks readily accessible makes it easy and fun to experiment, and I plan to share more tips in future videos.
You can watch the Video on Youtube
Summary #
Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
In this video, I'm diving into the Bitwig Connect 4/12, and I'm assuming many of you already have one or are thinking about it because it looks fantastic on the desk. For Bitwig fans, it's almost a must-have, even if you find it a bit pricey or unnecessary; you can't deny its visual appeal.
I'm here to share some patching ideas you can do with the Connect, even if you don't own an external synthesizer. Let's start with Bitwig and maybe build a simple 808-style kick drum. A basic setup involves routing the output from Output 9 and back into Input 3, converting the digital kick drum signal to an analog signal and back to digital. This analog process can add some spice to your sounds.
For this setup, you'll need to use a hardware FX device in Bitwig, where the output is set to Out 9 and the input to In 3. Without much change, the sound might just get a bit louder, but you can amp up the signal using a tool and a peak limiter to ensure it doesn't go above 0 dB, providing a soft clipper effect for added overtones. You can switch sounds, and with just one patch cable, you have an analog distortion device at your fingertips.
Of course, you can do this with any sound card, but having the inputs and outputs accessible at the top with patch cables makes it so inviting and handy. You won't have to reach under desks or computers to patch cables.
Now, you can take it a step further by integrating an external synthesizer. For instance, my Moog Mother-32 (M32) has an external audio input. Instead of using the internal oscillator, we can filter the signal with the M32. However, you'll need to trigger the gate to hear anything. This can be done by switching on the internal sequencer or sending a gate signal from Bitwig using another output.
In Bitwig Studio, you can use a hardware CV out to send a modulation signal that triggers the M32. You then have the flexibility to adjust the filter and sound length with the envelope.
With a semi-modular synthesizer or something like a Behringer synth, you can do a lot with this simple setup. If we go further into the grid, you can create feedback loops, distort signals, or add effects like phasers before sending the signal out and back through the Bitwig Connect. You can experiment with mixing these signals, changing latencies, or using an amp for overdrive.
Moreover, using tools like Supermassive for reverb effects, you can set up feedback loops for more creative sound design. You can even integrate external effects pedals for some fun external patchings. These setups, although simple, encourage you to play and explore, much like having a small Eurorack on your desk.
This video aims to be different from others by focusing on creative possibilities rather than just features. More videos and tricks are likely coming soon. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more!
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.
[00:00:00] Yo folks, welcome back to another video. I want to talk a bit about the Bitwig connect 4/12
[00:00:05] And I'm pretty sure you already ordered one because I mean it just looks nice on the desk, right?
[00:00:10] If you're a Bitwig fan, it's probably a must-have. Maybe you think it's too expensive or you don't need one
[00:00:16] But you have to admit it just looks nice
[00:00:19] So I want to show you some patching ideas that you can do with the connect and
[00:00:26] If you don't own an external synthesizer, you can still manage to do something with it, right?
[00:00:32] So let's say you are in Bitwig here and you use an I don't know some kind of sound maybe a kick drum here
[00:00:40] Very simple 808 style kick drum a very basic thing that you can do is that you go out
[00:00:50] Output 9
[00:00:54] And you go back in
[00:00:56] With input 3 very basic in and out so what you do here is you convert from a digital signal of your kick drum
[00:01:05] and then you convert it to an
[00:01:07] Analog signal and then you convert it back to a digital signal and then you go back in so
[00:01:13] You go through an analog process more or less and you can spice up the sounds here
[00:01:18] And what we need to do is we need to use here in hardware fx device looks like this
[00:01:24] So the output here is of course
[00:01:26] Out 9 it says it here also on the device
[00:01:30] so output 9 and
[00:01:33] input is input 3
[00:01:35] So with this nothing really changes, it's maybe a bit louder
[00:01:43] Yeah, but we can then use a tool here and just amp up the signal maybe I put a
[00:01:50] Peak limiter at the end just to make sure
[00:01:53] Nobody gets hurt so we amp this up
[00:01:57] You can see here
[00:02:02] It's not going above 0 dB
[00:02:05] It's kind of a soft clipper hard clipper soft clipper that gives you some overtones
[00:02:13] I
[00:02:15] Mix change this here for something else
[00:02:19] V8 kick
[00:02:23] So with just one patch cable and your bit we connect you have already a
[00:02:36] New analog distortion device at your hand
[00:02:41] So it's not like you I mean you can do this with your with any sound card
[00:02:46] Basically, but having the input and output jacks at the top and having these patch cables lying around
[00:02:52] It's kind of inviting to do this all the time because it's just so handy
[00:02:57] Just you know put it in there put it in there call a hardware fx device and you're done
[00:03:02] So it's not like you need to go back right into the device or maybe at the back on your desk under your desk to your
[00:03:11] computer and have to
[00:03:13] you know
[00:03:14] Patch up cables there. So that's one simple thing you can do
[00:03:19] Oh, wait a minute. You can also do a bit more here
[00:03:22] We can do
[00:03:25] Instead of going back in we go out and then we go into and synthesizer here. So my m32 has an external
[00:03:35] Yeah input external audio inputs we go into that and then there's a knob here where you can switch or mix between
[00:03:42] the oscillator and the
[00:03:45] External audio so we put this to the right side. So now instead of the oscillator we use basically the
[00:03:51] Audio signals we can filter the signal here just with a
[00:03:55] semi modular synthesizer and then we go out of the m32 which is this cable here and
[00:04:03] Then we go into input 3
[00:04:06] So the problem here is now we can't hear anything
[00:04:09] Because this one needs to get triggered. There's a gate to open up basically the amplifier
[00:04:16] Every time you hit the key on the keyboard. So what we can do is we can just switch on here the internal sequencer or just hit
[00:04:24] Start so you can say the you can see the internal sequencer is just playing and open them open open up the gate basically
[00:04:32] And then you can hear a sound but that's not really
[00:04:35] Very nice. What we can do now is we can use the output 10 here the next output
[00:04:43] And use this signal to open up or trigger
[00:04:48] the envelope of the m32
[00:04:52] so now we need in Bitwig studio something to
[00:04:55] You know bringing up the signal or send the signal here to output 10
[00:05:01] So we can use here and hardware
[00:05:03] CV out looks like this
[00:05:07] And with this we can create a signal and we send it out to
[00:05:11] Output 10 and here we use an ADSR
[00:05:16] So every time we reason we receive a note
[00:05:21] We create a modulation and this modulation here
[00:05:25] Increases the signal
[00:05:30] Right
[00:05:32] You can see also the light kind of flashing
[00:05:35] Also here it's getting blue. So we have a gate signal and open up
[00:05:41] Basically the gate of this m32 and then we can use the filter here
[00:05:58] Switches maybe often sustained to or sustain off. So we have also the amplitude envelope we can change here so we can make
[00:06:06] Change the length of the sound with the envelope over the yeah with the envelope of the m32
[00:06:20] So you can see it's it's it's pretty fast. It's like using a neural rack more or less
[00:06:26] And if you have an external
[00:06:28] Semi-modular synthesizer you can use it in multiple ways and if you just buy a bearing ascent or whatever something cheap
[00:06:36] Yeah, you can do a lot of things
[00:06:39] So this is a very simple setup. Let's remove this here
[00:06:44] And let's go to let's go to the grid
[00:06:54] Because we can also do this inside of the grid
[00:06:57] So here we take let's say a noise signal and
[00:07:04] We go through an envelope that we can trigger with our MIDI keyboard and then we can use an hardware out
[00:07:12] Or we can use a CV out. There's not much difference. I think
[00:07:20] It's kind of the same thing here, you can switch between AC and DC
[00:07:24] AC/DC
[00:07:27] So we go out here
[00:07:29] With the signal the audio signal
[00:07:31] Let's see it's out nine so we choose here output nine
[00:07:38] so we come out of this and
[00:07:41] Then instead of the m32 we use just this
[00:07:48] First set up again. So we have kind of a feedback loop now
[00:07:51] Not now, but pretty soon. So we go back in here with in three
[00:07:57] Then we go out here and then we use a blend
[00:08:02] And we blend in the input so this is kind of an feedback loop now here as you can hear
[00:08:13] And
[00:08:15] The latency here with this is the buffer size
[00:08:23] 32 samples latency is four milliseconds. You can choose something different. That's the lowest one here
[00:08:29] So if you want to have higher pitches, of course, you need to go down with the latency
[00:08:34] Here the lowest one is four milliseconds. That's the round trip more or less
[00:08:41] So, yeah, but you can change this dynamically here with the delay
[00:08:48] So you can play around with this maybe create feedback sounds or just use it for delay effects
[00:09:08] And everything goes through this digital and analog conversion. So it gives you a bit of grid
[00:09:13] Kind of you can also overdrive it like I did with the kick drum earlier
[00:09:18] Maybe let's do this use an amp here
[00:09:23] Also we can use an oscillator
[00:09:43] Maybe make this a bit longer here and
[00:09:50] Then instead of let me see you go out here. Maybe we don't need all of this
[00:09:56] We use the input here as a phase distortion
[00:10:02] Let me see all this sound so we go out here with the signal out
[00:10:08] Into the bit we connect and back in and then we use it here to distort the sign
[00:10:14] All right
[00:10:19] It's too much
[00:10:24] This is cool and all and you can maybe use just some effects on that say phaser
[00:10:36] For you before you go out, right?
[00:10:40] But you can also instead of going out here
[00:10:57] You go into the FX and use maybe a super massive
[00:11:04] Something like this maybe too much and then use again hardware out CV out maybe not not this one
[00:11:14] Hardware FX that's just this one
[00:11:18] And say output is
[00:11:20] output nine
[00:11:23] Then you mix it right so the signal goes out here into the reverb and then we go into the bit we connect
[00:11:30] Into the stable and then back in and then we send it here at the front in to distort the sign
[00:11:36] That produces the sound that goes out so we have a feedback loop more or less
[00:11:40] So again as a digital analog conversion in between that we can also do this with the initial setup external audio here
[00:12:09] Synthesizer goes back in
[00:12:12] We use a trigger signal which is out 10 to open up the gate here
[00:12:18] and
[00:12:20] Then we send out here
[00:12:22] CV
[00:12:25] CV out so this one is the gate signal the gate signal goes to output
[00:12:31] 10 so this is the second cable here which triggers the gate there and
[00:12:36] We open up this one here the filter of the m32 more or less
[00:12:40] [Music]
[00:12:42] [Music]
[00:12:44] [Music]
[00:12:46] [Music]
[00:12:48] [Music]
[00:13:16] Maybe you can use the LFO for something here. I don't know with the mod amount
[00:13:24] [Music]
[00:13:50] So very simple setups I admit you have to use an external synthesizer for this trick
[00:13:56] But without the external device you can use feedback you can use it as a distortion device or limit your audio
[00:14:04] in a different way
[00:14:07] and some of the external FX or pedal FX are kind of cheap so you can buy something like this and then have some fun with some
[00:14:17] external patchings and like I said these external input and output jacks kind of make it
[00:14:23] Inviting to play around with this. It's kind of having a small little
[00:14:29] Eurorack or Nanoo Nanoo rack on your desk, so it's fun to play around with
[00:14:37] So this is what I want to show you maybe I do some more videos on this topic and show you more tricks that you can do
[00:14:45] But I think that's kind of it. I want to show you basically a different Bitwig Connect video than all the other creators in
[00:14:52] Showing you just the features and you probably already know this how it works, right? So I don't need to show you this
[00:14:59] So this is the Bitwig Connect. I have a lot of fun playing around with this and there are probably more videos coming soon
[00:15:06] Thanks for watching and I also have a new microphone probably in the next days. Thanks for watching and see you next time. Bye
[00:15:13] Bye.