Bitwig Studio 6 Automation and Clip Launcher Workflow Updates- What’s New Since Beta 1

[00:00:00] So some people wanted to know what is actually different from the release version to what we
[00:00:06] had in the first beta version because I made a video about all the features of Bitwig Studio 6
[00:00:11] half a year ago and then we had this long beta period and they added small little things here
[00:00:18] and there. They never added really big features to Bitwig 6 but we have some small additions and
[00:00:25] I want to give you some insights of what changed okay. So the first one is here this global
[00:00:31] automation lock button or icon at the top so you can switch here between lock and follow
[00:00:39] which means when you have like here a note clip for instance here on the first track
[00:00:45] and we add some automations to it let's say we have a volume automation
[00:00:52] and we maybe also add here a pan automation we can make some clips out of that by just holding down
[00:01:00] alt you can see it's kind of grayed out here and then you click on the title and it creates a clip
[00:01:07] for this automation exactly the size of the parent clip also here so we have now two automations
[00:01:14] we can see there is a small icon here with the number two which means there are two automation
[00:01:20] clips attached to this note clip so you can see always when there is something attached because
[00:01:26] you can also just close down here the automation lanes and you only see the parent clip but you
[00:01:31] can see here with this icon with this number there is something attached to it and we can move this
[00:01:37] around like this and the automation clips follow the parent clip so they are always attached
[00:01:46] but you can choose here to toggle this to lock so global automation behavior is locked which means
[00:01:53] we can now move the parent clip around but the automation clips are locked in place they stay
[00:02:01] where they are and it's very important to know because sometimes you want this behavior and
[00:02:08] sometimes you don't so let's move this back here switch it back to follow and then these
[00:02:14] automation clips are attached again and you move them around with the parent clip so this is why
[00:02:20] we have also this number here because you can enable locked and you can see here down zero
[00:02:25] automation lanes attached and then two automation lanes attached when this is back to follow so the
[00:02:32] interesting thought is maybe why do we have this number because there's also an exception to this
[00:02:41] global thing here so when we unfold here the automation lanes again we go to volume and click
[00:02:49] on the automation linear on the left side in the headers and you can see in the inspector we have
[00:02:55] here a drop down so we can make an exception for this global rule on a per track or per automation
[00:03:03] lane basis so we can say the volume automation never follows so it's locked so which means we
[00:03:12] have now global follow but we have this one locked so we can move now the clip around and you can see
[00:03:20] only this pen automation follows this parent clip and the volume clip stays in place
[00:03:28] I hope this makes sense so we can enable disable this globally and we can also enable and disable
[00:03:34] this on a per automation lane basis that's why we have this number because you can
[00:03:40] see then instantaneously what's going on here right we have only one automation lane attached
[00:03:46] because there's an exception here maybe you're wondering I have this on follow why there's
[00:03:53] only one what's happening right so there's an exception here on this automation lane
[00:03:57] that we have here never follow on the volume automation we can go back to user at a setting
[00:04:03] there's also a ranger lock and always follow so we can make the other way around right you
[00:04:10] could say this volume automation is always following the clip and everything else stays in place so
[00:04:17] it's exactly the other way around I know it sounds a bit complicated and you probably don't need this
[00:04:22] all the time but it's you know it's maybe important that you know that it exists and you know how it
[00:04:30] works um also there is something here new that is uh informations on the automation lane paints or
[00:04:40] track headers I don't know how this is called you're on the left side um that you have some
[00:04:46] additional information so let's say we have an instrument I don't know a polymer synthesizer
[00:04:53] and then in there we have a reverb let's say valla supermassive and you want to automate
[00:05:01] delay time so you draw this you can see it's on top and we draw something in here
[00:05:09] and maybe make a clip out of this um you can now see when there is enough space here
[00:05:17] that we actually not only modify delay time milliseconds which actually tells you nothing
[00:05:24] we can also see below that we modulate here this valhalla supermassive inside of the polymer
[00:05:31] synthesizer FX box so we have some additional uh informations there what's actually going on so that's
[00:05:39] this is also or this was added after the first beta version of bitwig 6 and everything I showed you
[00:05:46] here uh with the clip or automation clip follow behavior also works of course here inside of the
[00:05:53] clip launcher it's the same thing um here it follows we can disable this and now you can
[00:06:00] move the clips around and automation clips stay in place in the clip launcher and then you do this
[00:06:06] live and you record some automation live to your whatever you created live you really want to have
[00:06:12] this behavior here by default because sometimes it can happen that you have this closed and you did
[00:06:18] some automations or you recorded some automations and then you move this around and then accidentally
[00:06:25] you just you know move only the the note clip and the automation clips stay in place and it sounds
[00:06:31] completely different than what you just recorded so in my opinion that's the best behavior that you
[00:06:36] have by default all these automation clips attached to the note clip but you can make
[00:06:43] exceptions here with this uh button of course um yeah that's that also here the flying automation
[00:06:51] lane this was added after I gave some feedback maybe it's probably not only me that gave this
[00:06:57] feedback but um this was disabled by default in my initial video uh we have or I talked about this
[00:07:05] global automation what's the name automation mode which just kind of grays out your all the stuff and
[00:07:14] then you draw in automations on top of the clip right so here we have a note clip and then you
[00:07:21] click this and then there's automation on top of this clip and you can see also automation or the last
[00:07:28] touched parameter of each track right audio two here audio three um and I had some problems with
[00:07:37] this and I know this is how it works in logic at the moment so they have this global automation mode
[00:07:42] here and we can change the volume here for this audio clip and also here so you can change automation
[00:07:50] at multiple tracks at the same time so this is the idea and I didn't really like this idea because
[00:07:55] you had to use then here um just unfold and then you had to use a plus button and then you you know
[00:08:01] you had to select what you want to automate next in this drop down menu and I didn't really like it
[00:08:07] so they added this kind of um flying automation lane so when you enable this and this is enabled
[00:08:15] by default uh you only have to touch one parameter here let's say this one and it pops up here at the
[00:08:22] top of all automation lanes so here I just touched the cutoff parameter uh of the polymer synthesizer
[00:08:30] you can see we have here a new automation lane popping up and then we can start immediately
[00:08:34] draw in a new automation then we want to automate this we draw an automation we want to automate
[00:08:40] this we draw an automation so it's very fast to add new automation lanes very quickly and I'm really
[00:08:48] really happy they added this this is how it worked in bitwig 5 and I think this much superior than
[00:08:55] having here this global automation thing it's probably just for or it's added for logic users
[00:09:01] that want to switch to to bitwig and they really prefer this kind of uh process or workflow uh
[00:09:09] it's not it's not for me uh so we have here this thing flying automation lane it's added after beta
[00:09:15] one and I'm really happy um we have to so maybe delete here all the automation lanes for now
[00:09:21] okay so that's that uh in some of my last video I also complained about the recording behavior
[00:09:30] of the clips in the clip launcher and it turns out I was completely wrong so we have now um what's
[00:09:38] the name overdub for the clip launcher here which I also have here so we can bring this out here with
[00:09:44] this pin knob if you don't know this right if you want to have this button here outside of this
[00:09:50] drop down you just click this pin and then you have it here directly in the top frame of bitwig
[00:09:58] so this is now here the overdub mode for the clip launcher it turns out when you have like
[00:10:04] here a clip running in the clip launcher and you want to record some automation to it right we
[00:10:12] have no automation here at the moment so we just click overdub and then you paint in or just wiggle
[00:10:20] around on some knobs and we create here some automation I think touch should work too
[00:10:26] yeah um the only drawback is that this clip here that was created while I'm wiggling on this knob
[00:10:38] is exactly the same size as the parent clip which is here a note clip right so um what I wanted
[00:10:47] initially was to create actually a clip that is longer than this parent clip and you can still do this
[00:10:55] by just using um not overdub we have to use your automation right and then you hit play
[00:11:07] and then you can record it but then you have this gap here in the beginning from where you press
[00:11:12] start on the clip so this is still in place but you can still make it work and then you hit stop
[00:11:19] and then you have a clip that is much longer than the initial um note clip so this one here is two
[00:11:27] bars long and this one is six bars long so the automation is six bars long and the note clip
[00:11:33] is two bars long so it's possible um but it's a bit you know it's not exactly how I imagined it
[00:11:39] would be but it's working so overdub is to add automations or automation clips to a clip in the
[00:11:47] exact same length of the parent clip and you can use automation right to write actually
[00:11:57] automation clip to the note clip with the different length as long as you record
[00:12:03] and you can also see here there's a simple the small little guy running which means this automation
[00:12:08] clip has free time enabled and this is also a new feature I want to show you so when I remove
[00:12:16] here this automation clip and go to my parent clip let me say this is four bars long so we have a
[00:12:21] note clip that is four bars long and I double click here this automation uh launcher pad and you
[00:12:28] can see this one is also now four bars long it always takes the length of the parent clip so
[00:12:34] automation clip four bars long note clip four bars long and then we want to say oh uh I don't want to
[00:12:41] maybe make the automation longer than this than this note clip so maybe six bars and it's it doesn't
[00:12:49] work you can see it's grayed out when you try to change it we enable basically here free time
[00:12:55] but you can also click on free time and then all of these settings are not grayed out anymore so
[00:13:01] you can change the size the length the starting point uh into individually from or differently
[00:13:09] from the parent clip so you can make this here eight bars long so the note clip is still four
[00:13:15] bars long automation clip is eight bars long so this is free time which means the automation is
[00:13:21] a different length has a different time setting or different you know time span and yeah this
[00:13:27] was also added after beta one is completely new um yeah let's hit play they also added here these
[00:13:36] kind of um progression rings progression circles uh with some numbers in it so you can see this
[00:13:45] clip here now played two times and you can also see when it's repeating or when it's
[00:13:52] re-triggering um there's also something like I think when you dial in the um let's say a next action
[00:14:02] or we have multiple clips here like this and this automation lane here gets an action next action
[00:14:10] on the left side in the inspector switch it on and we want to loop this two times and then play the
[00:14:17] next clip okay so we can do this and there is now here this small little outer ring on the circle
[00:14:28] and this indicates when it's actually switching here to the second automation clip so it gives you
[00:14:34] an idea when something is happening right when this circle is full then it switches to the next
[00:14:40] automation lane so when you have a next action defined on a clip there's an outer ring on the
[00:14:47] circle on this play circle that indicates when it actually switches to the next clip so this is also
[00:14:54] something they added um in some of the betas or after my initial video um then there's also an alt
[00:15:03] modifier for re-triggering so when I hold down alt key and I go over this symbol here or over the
[00:15:11] circle you can see there's a re-trigger symbol so we can re-trigger whatever is playing here on this
[00:15:17] lane so in this case here it's this clip because this clip is granted playing and here it's the first
[00:15:24] clip so it's not playing all the clips it's just playing or re-triggering the current clip um it
[00:15:30] also takes here the record quantization I guess uh into account so yeah we can also re-trigger
[00:15:39] everything that's currently playing by using here this button also holding down the alt key
[00:15:44] and you can can re-trigger what's ever currently playing from the beginning um I don't know how
[00:15:52] this is called um maybe re-triggering or something like this yeah it's probably called re-trigger
[00:16:00] launcher clips or something like this maybe there is here um
[00:16:06] re-trigger re-trigger playing launcher clips this is the project level uh name for it okay
[00:16:18] so that's that this is also new uh a new feature that's what this was added okay
[00:16:23] then we have something that's very important to me um let's say we have here I create some new audio
[00:16:33] tracks here we have an audio track and there's a tool device on it and maybe we create here a test
[00:16:41] tone for some white noise we want to play and we have here an audio clip and we want to modulate
[00:16:52] here the volume very very edgy so we draw in here more like a saw as an automation and the problem
[00:17:04] with Bitwig 5 was that we had a lot of smoothing so when you bounce this out we had a lot of
[00:17:10] rounded edges but we dialed in or we draw in here some very hard edges so we bounce this
[00:17:17] bounce the audio post fader
[00:17:20] you can see it's very steep now so the smoothing is uh dialed down so if you do this here in Bitwig
[00:17:31] 5 you had like a very rounded edge um on this position here so they made the automation follow
[00:17:40] what you draw in much tighter now so you can really use this to create percussions actually
[00:17:47] and it does exactly what you um paint in the automation let's do this here
[00:17:56] yeah looks really tight now so this is also something I complained about after the first
[00:18:02] beta or after the initial release or alpha of this uh because when we have now automations here in
[00:18:09] clips and you can put the clip into the clip launcher you probably also want to have kind
[00:18:15] of the same behavior as an automation not an automation and modulation where I have like very
[00:18:23] very steep curves very hard edges and you want to use this for sound design so you also want
[00:18:29] to have the automation follow what you draw in much more tighter than we had in Bitwig 5
[00:18:35] so let's add here a new instrument and we use phase 4 to show you actually another interesting
[00:18:44] new behavior of Bitwig studio and this is when you have like um here a phase for this oscillator
[00:18:55] right and we can use a macro knob and we modulate this we can now go over what's actually in the
[00:19:04] we have 360 degrees here with just a maximum but we can go over this we can go to infinity
[00:19:12] we can go to I don't know 3000 now 3000 degrees
[00:19:17] and it just wraps around so um make this a bit bigger something like this yeah
[00:19:27] go here you can see it's minus 363 go here it's a 203 so it basically wraps around it goes back
[00:19:39] to zero so when you go over 360 it goes to minus 360 and then upwards until we hit 360 again and
[00:19:48] then goes back to right so it always repeats so you can modulate now certain parameters not every
[00:19:56] parameter but certain parameters you can modulate in this kind of behavior and just make it wrap
[00:20:04] around and you start from the beginning again and you can make really big adjustments here
[00:20:11] some interesting maybe sound design also by repeating or looping the phase here all the time
[00:20:21] so it's it's interesting it's not only here on the phase 4 also on certain oscillators on certain
[00:20:28] devices on certain parameters maybe try it out it's not everywhere okay and for some reason
[00:20:36] there is an echo effect here that has some new interesting features for instance you have an
[00:20:46] echo here and you want to go up and pitch right so if you create an echo it goes all the way up
[00:20:53] maybe I create a small little piano see what's this one so we have like here a piano
[00:21:05] and we play a note and we want to go up and pitch a semitone on every echo
[00:21:14] so I probably need to have more echo delays or echo steps
[00:21:24] a bit faster
[00:21:31] anyway you can select on the left side reflect
[00:21:41] as a pitch mode and it goes up and down in this range min max so you can say we start on D3 and
[00:21:52] then it goes only up to I don't know F4 maybe something like this and if you make the
[00:22:07] echo is longer there's a bit shorter velocity stays the same maybe go lower here
[00:22:24] okay I hope this makes sense so it goes up to G3 and then it reflects and goes down to D3
[00:22:34] and it goes back up to G3 and so on so it bounces back and forth between these two
[00:22:38] notes min max and you can change this here on the left side cycle is the default mode
[00:22:45] how it was before and reflect is new so it's pretty interesting you can use this to wrap
[00:22:52] actually notes between two specific notes and it's also interesting because you can enable here the
[00:23:02] global key all right so we have here eb minor and then it's already constrained to a certain scale
[00:23:11] we go up three semitones to a certain point
[00:23:16] it's all in a scale so yeah the note echo has a new feature
[00:23:32] that's the message there are also some other interesting features that they added I can't
[00:23:38] show you for instance touchscreen supports we have new improvements there there are also some
[00:23:42] new controller integrations that they added over the course of the beta lots of performance
[00:23:48] optimizations so lots of stuff in the background that's actually not really something I can show
[00:23:55] you but yeah they did a lot of things from the beta one to what we have now so give it a try I hope
[00:24:02] you give you some kind of interesting informations what's changed from beta one to what we have now
[00:24:10] I think it's a nice back package still what you get and a lot of people will be happy when they
[00:24:14] switch from other doors to bitwig studio six so maybe try the demo try the try version
[00:24:22] and let me know what you think okay that's it for me for now thanks for watching leave a like
[00:24:26] and leave a subscription see you next time bye