Iso-Rhythms with Bitwig the easy way

Tutorial | May 28, 2025

In this video, I explain how to create easy and interesting rhythms in Bitwig Studio using the Poly Grid, by sequencing pitches and controlling their playback with triggers, counters, and various clock modules. I show how combining different rhythms and voice stacking can quickly lead to complex, evolving melodies, and demonstrate how to record the resulting MIDI for use elsewhere. Overall, the workflow is flexible, allowing for endless creative possibilities with just a few simple modules.

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Summary #

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

Yesterday, someone on my Patreon asked me how to create Iso-Rhythms inside Bitwig Studio using the Poly Grid. Although I’m pressed for time today (it’s my mother’s birthday!), I wanted to make sure I got this explanation out because it’s actually a pretty simple and fun process.

Getting Started

I open up Bitwig Studio and show a simple Poly Grid setup. I have a sine oscillator (for the sound), an amplitude envelope (for shaping the sound), and an audio output to hear it. The main idea is to sequence notes rhythmically, not just play them evenly.

To do this, I add a “Pitches” module to create a sequence of pitches—let’s say five notes, for example. Bitwig’s Poly Grid lets you set up these pitch sequences really flexibly. By default, the Pitches module runs through these notes evenly, over one bar, because it relies on the module’s “phase” input. But I want to take control over the rhythm.

Replacing the Clock with Custom Rhythms

The trick is to break out of that straight, one-bar sequence and trigger note changes with my own rhythm. I do this by using a “Triggers” module. The Triggers outputs pulses—some on, some off—so I can set up any rhythm I like (even random patterns).

To synchronize the rhythm, I use a “Counter” module. The Counter outputs a phase signal, which I patch into the Pitches module. If the Pitches module has five notes, I set the Counter to five steps too. Every time the Counter receives a trigger, it advances the phase by one step—so each trigger steps to the next note.

Now I can drive the melody forward with any rhythm I want using the Triggers module, instead of just letting the Grid run automatically over a fixed bar.

Making it Interesting – Layered Rhythms and Voicings

At this point, I can further enhance the patch. I trigger the amplitude envelope every time a trigger steps the sequence. I add audio effects like convolution reverb and delay to keep things musical.

To get more interesting rhythms (polyrhythms), I can duplicate the whole setup: copy the sequence, but give each instance a Triggers module with a different pattern. This lets different note streams play the same melodic sequence with different rhythms. I can shift the octaves between the streams for harmonic interest.

Advanced Variations: More Rhythms & Motions

I show how to swap the Gates module for an Eight Triggers module, providing even more custom rhythm options. With a Clock Divider, I can create anything from straight quarter notes to odd subdivisions.

Using Bitwig’s voice stacking, I can send the same melody to multiple “voices” (layers), each at a different rhythm, count, or octave. This creates complex, interlocking rhythms that sound intricate but are easy to set up.

If I want, I can use a Wavetable Oscillator rather than just a Sine. I can set each voice to use a slightly different PWM or wavetable index. It creates even more color and movement between the voices.

Modulation Tricks: Forward & Reverse Sequences

To make things more dynamic, I set up a switching system between playing the steps in order and playing them in reverse. Using a “Select” module and a “Latch,” I can switch between forward and reversed sequences based on triggers—maybe after a certain number of steps, or on a certain rhythmic subdivision. This keeps the sequence evolving as it plays, without being repetitive.

I also experiment with more advanced routing, like bending pitch, using filters, or varying attack/decay on the envelope per voice.

Recording the Output

Once I get a melody or rhythm that I like, I show that you can send the note and gate outputs of the Poly Grid to a MIDI track and record them as MIDI notes. This is useful if you want to use them with other instruments or edit the rhythms further.

Wrapping Up

My main point is that in Bitwig Studio, the Poly Grid gives you an extremely flexible environment for sequencing rhythms and melodies. You can quickly set up easy (or complex) rhythmic ideas, layer them, modify their timing, pitch, and movement, and keep everything evolving musically.

If you have questions, let me know in the comments or on Patreon. Don’t forget to like and subscribe if you found this helpful. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one!

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] Hey folks, welcome back. So yesterday on Patreon status or asked me how to do Isorhythms inside of Bitwig studio
[00:00:07] And I want to do a video on this explain it to you
[00:00:10] But my problem is I have not much time because it's my mother's birthday and I have to go to a party. Okay
[00:00:16] Anyway, I want to explain it to you because it's very simple
[00:00:19] So here in Bitwig studio, we can create just very simple
[00:00:26] Poorly grid. It's the easiest way to do it. We have already here synthesizer a sine oscillator
[00:00:31] Amplitude envelope and an audio output and all we need to do is we need to create a
[00:00:37] Pitches module because we need a bunch of pitches. Okay
[00:00:42] I have 99 problems but a pitch ain't one. Okay, so I create here more or less a pitch sequence
[00:00:52] Let's say five steps. So five notes inside of a scale
[00:00:56] Okay, and that's fine and you can see the sequence here is already running from one note to the other note because it uses here the
[00:01:05] face input pre chord of Bitwig studio
[00:01:07] So the playback of this whole sequence here is or lasts exactly one bar because the device phase is
[00:01:15] Exactly one ball on that's reason, but we want to disable this here
[00:01:20] so it stops and we want to drive this
[00:01:23] with our own face signal and we create this by using an
[00:01:28] Yeah trigger sequence here. So we have multiple triggers and you see the pulse outputs
[00:01:35] We have some zeros in between here each
[00:01:38] each step and
[00:01:40] We have some kind of random rhythm here and we want to drive this rhythm to
[00:01:46] Advance inside of this pitches module and you can do this by using a counter
[00:01:52] So the counter outputs a face signal
[00:01:55] You can see this here. It's purple
[00:01:58] And we want to connect these two so the pitches module and the counter module and the only thing you need to
[00:02:05] Do here is we need to see the steps the sub count of the pitches module is five
[00:02:11] so we have five nodes so the counter also needs to have five steps and
[00:02:16] Every time the counter receives a gate or an event a trigger. We advance this face here
[00:02:24] you can see this face signal by one step and
[00:02:26] Then we advance inside of the pitches sequence are here by
[00:02:32] One step so one note to the other so we go from one note to the other every time we have a trigger down here
[00:02:40] So that's the easy explanation
[00:02:42] So now we can use here the playback or we trigger actually actually the amplitude envelope with this
[00:02:48] Maybe use a different envelope here
[00:02:54] That's better and maybe use a convolution reverb here and a delay why not
[00:03:02] So
[00:03:04] That's not maybe not super interesting, but we can change the rhythm now here
[00:03:15] And with this we advance in a different manner through the pitch sequence, right?
[00:03:30] We have two triggers here, and then each trigger is not the same note. It's just the next note basically
[00:03:37] and
[00:03:39] This makes it more interesting because we can
[00:03:41] Combine this with different or multiple of these ideas here so we can say just duplicate this whole thing
[00:03:50] something like this and
[00:03:52] Use a different rhythm here
[00:03:55] And do another one different rhythm
[00:04:03] Right so the note sequence is more or less the same thing
[00:04:21] But you get some kind of pulley rhythms with this very easy
[00:04:25] You can also do something like an octaver here and say this is
[00:04:31] One octave higher. This is one octave lower
[00:04:50] Already sounds interesting
[00:04:52] Kind of like it
[00:05:07] Anyway, so we can also
[00:05:11] Do something different we can say
[00:05:14] Instead of using here just one gates module we can exchange this for triggers so eight triggers
[00:05:20] And every event here triggers the counter and this advances inside of the note sequence
[00:05:28] So we can say we want to have a divide
[00:05:31] Clock divide so now it triggers here
[00:05:39] Let's use this here every second note which is basically four four notes per bar. So it's the same as this
[00:05:48] Kind of yeah, but you can choose odd numbers. Yes, we can say this is maybe three
[00:05:56] And then we can use voice decking say play this two times
[00:06:07] This is deck modulator here and say for the second voice use your four
[00:06:13] Right and then you have your two melodies with the same
[00:06:22] Sequence with the same pitch sequence, but it plays in different pulley rhythmic ways
[00:06:28] It gives you interesting
[00:06:32] Yeah, interesting sequences we can also use here a clock divide a clock one tizer and use a triggers module here
[00:06:41] Connect these two say 16 notes here and then say for the second trigger thing here use also different rhythm
[00:06:49] And maybe use also octave shifts here
[00:07:02] So the second one goes one octa fire
[00:07:04] And then we do here three voice decks and the third one goes one octave lower
[00:07:12] Here we use a different rhythm
[00:07:16] Oh
[00:07:18] And of course you can change here the note sequence at any time and
[00:07:42] Yeah, it plays back in different ways
[00:07:46] Have used for now. So this one goes to octa slower
[00:07:50] We can also say this is maybe an wavetable oscillator here
[00:08:13] I
[00:08:15] Use one of my random
[00:08:20] My random wavetables here
[00:08:25] And maybe disable here the fundamental and use a sub oscillator
[00:08:34] It goes into the pitch and then use a blend
[00:08:42] Yeah, and then we use here another note counter difference different count
[00:08:57] modulator out
[00:09:00] And this drives to the index and
[00:09:04] You can see it's different on each voice deck because it's different rhythm
[00:09:10] Trigger it differently and here it's different counter size
[00:09:14] It gives you pretty fast very complex
[00:09:18] Rhythmic
[00:09:22] Yeah sequences
[00:09:26] You
[00:09:28] So this is one idea
[00:09:44] We could do probably much more complex thing
[00:09:55] I think
[00:09:57] Let me try one more thing here. Let's go back to a sign a D
[00:10:03] And use again pitches module here
[00:10:10] Connect this
[00:10:13] Use something simple only three notes
[00:10:16] Something like this this which is off
[00:10:22] Use triggers here for triggers and the counter
[00:10:25] We have three notes, so we choose three here, so I feel like this
[00:10:34] And then maybe use what's the name a switch or
[00:10:43] Select it's called select here in the trick
[00:10:47] Select in
[00:10:52] So use your maybe different not a different counter, but
[00:10:57] Maybe we use reverse here, so we reverse the sequence and
[00:11:05] The switch logic here, so when we want to switch from back to reverse we do by
[00:11:12] Using a latch
[00:11:16] So the latch out outputs either a zero or one and we can change from zero to one or from one to zero
[00:11:23] But just by giving here trigger into the middle input
[00:11:26] So we can do this by using another counter maybe or clock divider
[00:11:34] Yeah, clock divider is better
[00:11:36] So every second note we go
[00:11:42] So one note is one input next one is another input and so on so maybe we do longer here
[00:11:48] Let's say six or nine or ten
[00:11:51] something odd, so we play a lot
[00:11:54] You know forward and then we play backwards after ten triggers
[00:11:59] And then we play play ten triggers backwards and then the next ten triggers forwards again
[00:12:06] So you can create interesting awesome movements with this maybe make this a bit longer
[00:12:12] Let's say six
[00:12:14] Six notes
[00:12:17] That this could be this could be cool
[00:12:21] Okay, and then we output here triggers there
[00:12:28] A bit faster or use a clock one ties again
[00:12:55] Right, so the same idea a bit more fancy
[00:13:13] Maybe use another select here
[00:13:24] Do the same idea but here the clock divide is different. Let's say seven
[00:13:32] And yeah, this is also a face output here and here we do the wrong maybe
[00:13:45] Oh, let's say shift shift is not interesting
[00:14:01] Maybe it was a bent
[00:14:14] So you land on different notes in different points in time, but it's still the same pitch sequence
[00:14:20] So you get more out of your notes in a way
[00:14:24] Okay, again, let's use voice stacking here. Oh, we have four voices already. So let's go to two. So the second note
[00:14:35] Goes an octave lower
[00:14:41] And place back a bit slower and attack or the case bit more open
[00:14:53] Maybe that louder
[00:15:09] Let's use a third voice
[00:15:32] Right so easy melodies that are kind of sound complex, but are not complex because it's just one pitch sequence
[00:15:40] My opinion pretty dope to use
[00:15:42] Maybe a filter here
[00:15:56] Oh
[00:15:58] Oh yeah, maybe I used up a little bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a
[00:16:28] bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of
[00:16:46] the base here. Yeah, that's that's how it works. Let's say you like the melody, right?
[00:17:04] You like the melody and you want to record it. You can also do this. So I showed this
[00:17:08] quickly here. So we have a note output and we want to use the pitches that go into this.
[00:17:15] We use that and also this is the gates output here and we probably want to change the MIDI
[00:17:26] output. I think we just have to use this for note channel 2 and this is note channel 3. Maybe it
[00:17:41] could be not working. But we output now here notes or MIDI notes. We can use your second
[00:17:50] instrument track and just record everything. Polygrid output.
[00:18:09] And then you play it with other instruments or just record it. So you have it in a kind of a
[00:18:15] MIDI way. I don't know. So you can record it. That's the point because people always ask me
[00:18:22] this. If you can record it, you can record it. So yeah, that's how you create these
[00:18:27] Iso-Rhythms inside of Bitwig Studio. Pretty easy. Like with everything in Bitwig, you can go in so
[00:18:37] many different directions. No boundaries. There's just a small kind of explanation for the concept
[00:18:43] and how we can evolve it. But there's so much more. Okay. So that's the video on Iso-Rhythms for
[00:18:49] me. If you have questions, please let me know in the comments. Maybe ask me on Patreon. I have no
[00:18:54] idea. Leave a thumbs up. Leave a subscription. Thanks for watching and I see you in the next video. Bye.
[00:18:59] (upbeat music)