A DAW with Built-in Modular Synthesis — Bitwig Studio 3
17 January 2019
Bitwig Studio’s developers have always had a dream to make the DAW fully modular. In Bitwig Studio 1, that meant Nested Device Chains, where, for instance, any device or plug-in could be used in a multiband configuration. Bitwig also worked hard to allow an unlimited number of modulation sources. With the two combined, the DAW got off to a free-wheeling beginning, but at the cost of having to nest any devices you wanted to connect together.
Bitwig Studio 2 opened that choice back up by incorporating modulation slots in each device that cut back on the need to keep nesting more and more devices together. It also opened up the hardware world to this modular environment.
With Bitwig Studio 3, the developers have added a whole new paradigm — The Grid.
The Grid is actually broken up into three types of Grids — Poly Grid for polyphonic synthesis; Mono Grid for monophonic; and FX Grid for churning up and spitting out audio.
The Grid environment is a node-based patch builder similar to something in-between the standard NI Reaktor and its Blocks look. You insert a Grid device and then work in the Grid environment. In that environment you’re free to patch, tweak, and combine little modules to build your patch. Unlike Reaktor, where you’re either in it’s very plain aesthetic or its pre-determined Block paradigm, all the Bitwig modules look like part of the DAW, with all their functions on display.
Bitwig Studio 3 will debut at NAMM 2019.
More info: www.bitwig.com/en/19/bitwig-studio-3
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