It’s funny, but I’ve always thought of Bitwig as a somewhat younger cousin to Ableton Live – both companies were born in Berlin and share a clip-based, non-linear workflow for audio and MIDI. They serve well as writing, recording, or live performance tools. But with Bitwig Studio 6, I can see creative distinctions and a level of fit and finish that sets it apart in a crowded market. [For more on Bitwig, see our review of Studio 3 in Tape Op #138. -Ed.]
I want to focus on the automation interface first, because Bitwig Studio 6 really stuck the landing here. Automation is one of those elements in the DAW world that often feels like an afterthought – but not here. Studio 6 lets you use and edit multiple automation lanes at once and tie automation directly to clips. You can also create automation-only clips with independent lengths or parameters. From a compositional perspective, this opens up a lot of creative and polymetric possibilities. You can even repurpose automation clips inside instruments and effects as modulation curves or LFOs and save your automation curves in Bitwig’s library for use in other projects. When working with mix automation, I like Bitwig’s immediacy, including the option to single-click a plug-in or instrument parameter and have the automation lane for that parameter appear instantly below the clip in the arrangement or edit views.
The editing tools have improved a lot. You can easily taper and scale (compress or stretch over time) your automation selections by using the time selection tool and holding the Option button while moving your mouse around the edges of a clip’s selection. I also enjoyed using the spread feature to intelligently randomize selected automation points. The spray-can editing tool is something I didn’t realize I needed until I tried it for both automation and MIDI note input. It plays nicely with the snap-to-key feature too, which ensures notes stay within a chosen musical scale or key (more on that in a bit).
I’m impressed with the thought that went into the new editing features and views, especially being able to multi-select different track types for multi-threaded editing. The editing detail view lets you select multiple clips, regardless of type, so you can edit MIDI, automation, and audio together in a sort of layered "X-ray" view. This is especially helpful when using MIDI instruments to supplement audio recordings or loops. For example, you can use this view to quickly line up a MIDI kick subbass with a kick drum audio track or time-align automation swells to a vocal performance’s transients. Having the two overlaid on top of each other accelerated my decision-making in ways I never would have anticipated. When you combine this X-ray view with the edit page’s toolsets, it’s a real time-saver as well as a creative tool. This all works in harmony with song-section cue markers, so you can jump straight to editing multiple parameters within, say, just the second chorus, with a single click. You can also overlay pitch, modulation, timbre, or dozens of other “expressions” over your editing views and use the "constrain to scale" feature to visually see that represented in the piano roll (this works with both audio and MIDI).
Speaking of that, full key signature support is now available, and it can be automated and arranged by song section. Scales and root keys can also be locked at the clip level with the K keyboard shortcut (snap-to-key). Previous versions of Bitwig Studio had scale quantization, but this snap-to-key implementation in Studio 6 is far more fluid and intuitive. Snap-to-key also applies to what Bitwig calls "note FX" – a collection of arpeggiators, chord generators, and data manipulators that can be applied to tracks or clips.
There are new alias clips that allow block-editing (editing instances of the same content in multiple places at once) of linked clip content, whether audio or MIDI. Using Command-drag (for Mac – Windows or Linux commands will differ), you create an alias (a linked copy) of the copied clip. You can decouple aliased clips easily to create unique versions. Optionally, you can find duplicate bits of clip information in your arrangement and easily alias those after the fact. This is a terrific feature for arrangement editing, and like many of these version 6 improvements, it’s designed with speed and flexibility in mind.
Although not new to this version, I’ve noticed many smaller innovations in Bitwig Studio 6 that accelerate work through its applied "modular thinking." For example, many actions in the DAW become reusable blocks, and you can have multiple projects open as tabs or set up project-based controller mappings. The keyboard shortcut system is easy to manage, and a Control+Enter command opens a searchable keyboard shortcut database as a floating window above your current work. There are a lot of compelling features under the hood of Studio 6 as well as extraordinary depth – I intend to spend more time with The Grid, Bitwig’s node-based, modular, sound design environment for building instruments and effects.
Bitwig also pairs very nicely with a recent addition to my studio desk, the Melbourne Instruments ROTO-CONTROL, which gives me tactile, motor-driven, recallable control over automation, like a bank of tiny, motorized console faders. Speaking of, can I also say how welcome it is for a DAW’s settings page to prompt with well-written documentation available with one click? I was pleasantly surprised to find a full Bitwig user’s guide embedded for the ROTO-CONTROL, and similar docs exist for the many other control surfaces that Bitwig Studio 6 supports.
That said, there isn’t a full Studio 6 manual available as of yet. Bitwig says they are still working on an updated user manual, and I expect it’ll be out even before this review is published – but I found that, between tutorial content and the quick start materials, combined with the DAW's ease of use, there was more than enough instructional material to get going rapidly.
Composers, songwriters, home recordists, Linux nerds, even pro mixers, take note: Bitwig Studio 6 is a compelling and feature-rich platform that has significantly leveled up over the past few generations. Bitwig Studio 6 runs on MacOS, Windows, and Linux. If you’re looking for a new DAW, or even if you’re on the outer edges of the DAW-curious spectrum, I’d advise taking a serious look at the free trial of Bitwig Studio 6. It’s excellent.