Hi! I'm very new to Bitwig, coming from Live.

I'm going through the user guide to learn my way around the software and now I'm facing this issue where I can't click on the Grid Setings at the bottom of the arranger. It seems like the actual button is behind that "zoom bar". Nothing happens when I click it.

I'm aware that the user guide available is for v5 and I'm trying v6.

Any ideas?

Here is the section of the manual where this is discussed:

https://www.bitwig.com/userguide/latest/the_arrange_view_and_tracks/

----

Note: I'm almost completely blind, therefore missing elements on the screen is a possibility.

First of all, sorry for posting such casual small talk in a serious Bitwig forum.

Koala Sampler, which is a sampler I really love, is releasing a VST version this time, and they actually mention Bitwig in their supported DAWs list. This is pretty rare for a VST instrument company, so I took a screenshot and posted it here.Since it's something you rarely see from instrument companies, I was so thrilled the moment I saw this phrase

This is definitely not a viral ad for Koala Sampler lol. Hope you all have a great day today!

Who will teach us Bitwig from now on? I am concerned.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a way to route separate midi channels to a single Drum device, to allow separation between hats/kick/snare and do polyrhythms between the parts

I have been creating a main track with Drum as the device, then using instrument tracks with no instrument and routing their midi output to the main track. This works, but when I go to write notes I can't see the pads in drum mode (they only appear on the track that contains the actual device)

Is there a better way to set this up?

As an Essentials user would I be able to download presets from Bitwiggers and use them in "player mode"? Or is that only for the official Essentials pack? Moreover, "player mode" allows to inspect the canvas/patch (read-only) or just to change the remote controls? I'm on full Studio trial so unfortunately I can't inspect this by myself. Thanks.

Suppose I buy Essentials now and a year and a day later I decide to upgrade to Producer, will it still cost 100 (that is 199 - 99) or will I need to upgrade to the latest version first?

Today, I decided to focus more on noise and sound in the Grid Patch. Instead of splashes and rain sounds, I went for something a bit more digital. To me, it kind of sounded like uranium decaying, so I just named it that. In the background, there are a few pad sounds and some white noise. It's all pretty simple, but I thought it sounded nice. Hope you enjoy it!

More patches: https://polarity.productions/dispenser/

The only thing i don´t get warm with in BW is the Piano Roll.
Few days ago i found a Plugin called MidiSketch. You can just google it.
It changes the Piano Roll and my Life with BW completly.
You have a fantastic Piano Roll like FL Studios Piano Roll inside BW AND it´s MPE.
So i can send Bends and lot more Data via MPE to BW Synths and Serum for example.

MidiSketch can be loaded as CLAP before the Instrument and sends the Data directly to the instrument in the same Track.
Otherwise you can also use it on a different Track and use the midi routing.
there are million more possibilities, but i just want to keep it basic.

Please have a look at the video :)

Just downloaded it to my Linux install. I am so happy with these frequent updates and that Bitwig seems more open to our comments.

Windows, BW v6.1.4 (x64), hitting record to get notes from my OXI One, and first kick is late, and all the other kicks are late, but by a different amount (beats 2+ are all offset by SAME amount) suggesting both an initialization problem and perhaps a separate problem explaing all the rest being off? Anyone experienced anything like this? (yes i contacted support)

Also, midiView image below verifies all notes leaving OXI at perfect times.

Implementing "native" modules in the grid is quite fun.

Superpowers adds new commands, menus and keys inside Bitwig Studio 6.1.3 – 6.1.5. It's made by one person.

What's in Beta 5

• Capture MIDI: played something without recording? Press Capture, and the last 30 seconds become a clip.
• Freeze: right-click a track or group to render it to audio and unload the plug-ins; Unfreeze brings them back.
• Export with FX: stems rendered through their groups, returns and master.
• Ramp: Start and End velocity under the Velocity lane.
• Piano roll keys: ⌘E splits at the grid, ⌘3 switches straight/triplet, ⌘D duplicates full length.
• MIDI Tools: Arpeggio, Strum, Chop, Stacks, Quantize, Rhythm Evolution.
• Audio clips: Detect Key, Separate Stems, Audio to MIDI.
• Arranger: ← / → fold groups, − / + collapse devices.

Install (about a minute)

1. Download for your OS: Mac .dmg, Windows .exe or Linux .tar.gz.
2. Close Bitwig and run the installer. It backs up your official Bitwig first.
3. Open Bitwig. Restore Original in the installer puts everything back.

On Linux: tar -xzf Superpowers-Linux-*.tar.gz, cd into the folder, then run sudo ./install.sh. A Bitwig you unpacked yourself in your home folder works too, without sudo.

Download and guide: https://kalifrn.com/superpowers

Heads-up: this is a beta that patches Bitwig's own files, so keep the installer around to restore. Windows and Linux were mostly tested offline, so reports are very welcome: every installer has a Send Report button. Not affiliated with Bitwig GmbH.

I wanted to drive Bitwig programmatically — and, specifically, to let an AI agent actually make music in it — so I built bitwig-bridge.

The problem: Bitwig's only real programmatic doorway is the Control Surface API, and that runs inside Bitwig. There's no external socket to poke. So the bridge wires one up.

How it works — three small pieces:

script / agent ──HTTP──▶ bitwigd ──virtual MIDI (SysEx RPC)──▶ AgentBridge ──▶ Bitwig Control API

- a Bitwig controller script (AgentBridge.control.js) that receives SysEx RPC frames and dispatches them to the Control Surface API,

- bitwigd, a small Node daemon that opens the virtual MIDI ports, speaks the protocol, and exposes a local HTTP + WebSocket API,

- an MCP server so agents (I use it with opencode) get bitwig_* tools.

The protocol is JSON over SysEx (F0 7D <json> F7) — 7-bit clean, and it handles non-ASCII track/clip names.

What you can do today (host API v17, Bitwig 4.4.10): transport (play/stop/record/loop/tempo/position), list and set tracks (name, mute, solo, arm, volume, pan), launch scenes, browse a device's remote-control pages and set parameters, create/launch/write notes into a cursor clip, list drum-machine pads, and app undo/redo/duplicate. It's built to grow command by command.

The Linux gotcha, if you're on Linux: Bitwig only opens ALSA rawmidi devices (/dev/snd/midi*), not the ALSA sequencer — so RtMidi "virtual ports" are invisible to it. You need snd-virmidi to create a dummy rawmidi device Bitwig can see, and you should pin its card index (options snd-virmidi index=10 midi_devs=1) so the port name stays stable across reboots (otherwise your interface shifting the index silently breaks Bitwig's stored port assignment). All of that's in the README.

It's early and additive, but it's already genuinely fun to have an agent play/stop, mute tracks, launch scenes and draw notes while you watch.

Repo: https://github.com/CurePortal/bitwig-bridge

If you try it: issues and PRs welcome — adding a command is one case in dispatch() plus (optionally) a tool. I'd love to hear what else people want exposed.

FIRST OFF:
kalifrn6-art states right in the main README.md:

Compiled code can still be reverse-engineered.

https://github.com/kalifrn6-art/bitwig-superpowers/blob/main/README.md

What I'm wondering is. Why? It's seems to be a code-gen RE'd project in and of itself. I can see the potential negative implications of posting Bitwig's official RE'd jar file source. It's commercial software. And this is all a gray area. No one wants to see Superpowers shut down because its very neat. But I RE'd the official JAR too and all the function names are semantically obfuscated anyway like most Java projects. Nothing new under the sun, look no further than the Minecraft community for the past 15+ years.

But why not make just the functions kalifrn6-art added source code open source for others to contribute to on the Github instead of keeping it closed?

Maybe it's just me being weird about the philosophical implications of code-gen projects (all the code-gen projects I've built I keep open source because I feel like the LLMs to create my projects I'm using stand on the shoulders of giants and the only reason they work is because they've been trained on all the code in the open source community that was hand-written).

For those of you interested building your own tools based off of Bitwig Superpowers, this MCP kit worked quite well:

https://github.com/morluto/rea/

I RE'd it with:

• Claude Code and Opus 4.6 (since it doesn't balk at reverse engineering requests)
• Pi and Orca (an "uncensored" Qwen model) using Strata on my local hardware

Both got the same results.

I then re-compiled the "decompiled" stuff and Bitwig works on Linux. Added "-thewrz" as a suffix to the Arpeggiate tool for fun:

Anyway. I appreciate the cool stuff u/kalifrn has built, I just don't understand the need to keep it closed source because it would be more fun to collaborate with code-gen to make even more cool tools.

hi, i created an FX SELECTOR with e.g. 10x infiltrator VST and have this FX Selector on my master channel, i know you can trigger for example the FX Selector with a different midi channel, cool, but i want that a randomizer modulator or if not possible can trigger these different infiltrator layers in my FX Selector, is this possible somehow?

For scoring film and animation, any tips?

*Context : Does Bitwig Studio support video?

Bitwig Studio does not directly support video playback, but syncing video via a VST plug-in like VidPlayVST can work for many scoring scenarios.

also other fx plugins alternatives for producer edition, like eq, limter.etc

hi,

Why under bitwig, are we limited to banks of 8 parameters when we want to edit a vst? Is there a way to update them automatically in the remote control editor? All parameters at once?

If you started on Cubase on the Atari ST and switched DAWs since: this converts the old .ARR and .ALL files to DAWproject, which Bitwig (5.0.9+) and Studio One (6.5+) import, with tracks, parts and tempo changes in place. I've tested the import in Cubase; if you try it in Bitwig or Studio One, please tell me how it went. Free, in the browser, nothing uploaded. Link in the comments. Happy converting!

I switched to Bitwig from Studio One a while ago, and overall I'm loving almost everything about it. Honestly, the workflow in Bitwig 6 is fantastic, EXCEPT for one thing that has become pretty much my only frustration with the DAW: the new Layered Editing behavior in the Piano Roll.

Coming from Studio One, one of the things I loved most was how smooth multi-track MIDI editing felt—you always had the full track list right inside the Piano Roll to quickly toggle visibility and switch your active edit target. Bitwig 5 had a very similar, seamless setup with the full track list and the Pin / Lock / Pencil icons directly inside the editor.

In Bitwig 6, moving to a strictly selection-based workflow feels like a step backward for how I write music:

- I like staying inside the Piano Roll (especially in full-screen Edit View) and flipping between background reference tracks and my target track on the fly.

- Having to go back to the Arranger to Cmd/Ctrl-select clips/tracks every time slows me down.

- Clicking another single track in the Arranger immediately clears the multi-track layer view (even with the new "back arrow" history button, I still really miss simply pinning a chord or drum track in place).

I totally get why some people prefer the new selection-based approach, but I just really wish we had an option/toggle to always show all MIDI tracks in the Piano Roll layer list and "Pin" them, giving us the best of both v5 and v6.

For those who also preferred the Bitwig 5 / Studio One style workflow, how are you adapting to this in v6? Any favorite workarounds?

This product just dropped for Ableton Live, and I'm wondering if something like this exists for Bitwig, or if anybody has a workflow to emulate this in Bitwig.

https://isotonikstudios.com/product/my-bee-knows-by-leson-by-music-unit/

I primarily use Bitwig for live surround sound performances where I perform from outside the speaker setup, so it's very hard for me to actually monitor what the performance sounds like. I'd love to have a way to monitor in headphones.

I'm a hobbyist keyboard player on a budget, considering buying Bitwig Essentials to use in a live band.

I've been through the features list comparison, but I am not sure if I grasp all the concepts to make an informed decision - https://www.bitwig.com/feature-list/

I've tried a few synths in Bitwig and liked the sounds. I think they would work well with the style of music my band plays.

My setup would be:

- Host: Steam Deck running Bitwig.

- Main controller: Casio CT-S300.

- Secondary controller: Novation Launchkey Mini MK1.

I'd like to use the Launchkey Mini primarily for its knobs, mapping them to the volume/output level of individual instruments in a layered sound. The idea is to play the entire layer from my Casio while using the Launchkey's knobs to independently adjust the volume of each instrument in real time during a performance.

For example, I might layer a piano, a pad, and a synth, play them all from the Casio, and use three knobs on the Launchkey to balance their individual volumes on the fly.

I've downloaded the Bitwig demo and tested a few things. Everything seems fine, but I'm not sure whether the demo runs the full Bitwig Studio edition or reflects the limitations of Essentials.

My questions are:

1. Can Bitwig Essentials handle two MIDI controllers simultaneously, with the Casio playing the instruments and the Launchkey's knobs controlling their individual volumes?
2. Can I layer multiple instruments so they all respond to the Casio, while mapping separate Launchkey knobs to each instrument's volume?
3. Are there any limitations in Essentials that would prevent me from setting up this kind of live performance?

I'm on a budget, so I'd prefer to buy Essentials rather than pay for features I won't use. I just want to make sure I won't run into a limitation that forces me to upgrade later.

Thanks!

I've looked around and asked on Discord, and it doesn't seem like there's a way to do this. Am I the only one who'd really like a way to quantize automation?

If I'm using a MIDI controller to record pressure, volume, or another parameter live, it'd be nice to have an option to reduce the point resolution and snap the horizonal values to the nearest grid point.

And perhaps smoothing. This would be really useful for anyone dealing with a little input lag or ... just not super precise with the knobs and faders.

If I want cleaner automation, I have to click all the points in with a mouse, which can take a long time.

It seems odd to me that we can quantize audio recordings and MIDI but not automation.. Am I missing something? Would anyone else find this useful?

I am very happy with Ableton Suite. 20 years ago Live essentially saved me from quitting computer music. However, I am not happy with Apple and unless there’s a major course correction, all of our future computers will be running Linux and unfortunately Ableton has yet to show any indication that Live will ever support it. So Bitwig is possibly on the horizon, but for right now, here’s my problem…

After an unusually heavy rain last month my basement flooded. Thankfully the loses were minimal but I’ve had to rip up all of the carpet, the floors need to be redone and the walls may also need work, etc... This means it will be some months until my studio (along with my office/library and family room with all my nerdy comfort things) is put back together. Which sucks and has me depressed.

The SteamDeck

This was my first thought as it’s what I have been using to cope with this mess (mostly playing No Man’s Sky). I got the Deck for Father’s Day the other year and I love it. Video games were always a big part of my life and some of my earliest music inspiration but after the PS3 I just kinda fell off and didn’t play much of anything for a decade. The SteamDeck fixed that and I use it almost daily.

Shortly after first getting it I booted into its desktop mode to install some non-Steam things and generally poke around this Linux PC. As a longtime MacOS user I’ve long respected Linux and now finally had a machine to play with. Similarly, as an Ableton user I’ve been curious about Bitwig but likewise had no reason to mess with it.

Then the idea occurred to me ::: Bitwig running on a Steamdeck, that could be awesome with its touchscreen, trackpads, and gaming controls (including gyro) …depending on the UI experience, that could be an amazing groovebox.

Ableton Move

Speaking of grooveboxes… At some point I had the thought that Move might be to music, what the SteamDeck was to gaming. Meaning that prior to this basement disaster, I hadn’t been spending much time in my studio and the way people talk about Move as an accessible sketchpad is very similar to gaming on the Deck. Just a low commitment experience that doesn’t require sitting at a desk, opening programs, etc…

Also, I am a big fan of Push. I had the original Akai version and then did the trade-in program with Push 2 launched and ever since, while all of the gear is nice, I have felt that a laptop and Push is all I really need. Unfortunately though a desk is still needed and there isn’t anywhere in the house for even such a minimal setup. But, just like the SteamDeck, I could use Move on the couch and eventually anything I’ve made with it can be transferred to Live.

— — — — — —

Right now I am leaning much more towards Move.

My feeling is Move is going to be much more immediate, just pick up and play and perhaps something my 6 year old might also like. Bitwig on the Deck is probably much more capable/versatile but my reservations are mostly its UI, especially on such a small screen.

Personally, I am more excited about the idea of Bitwig on a handheld PC …but considering practicality, Move is probably a better idea as it is a dedicated device that was basically designed for what I currently need. Also, there’s the familiarity of it being an Ableton product.

FWIW I am not “making beats” …musically I am more interested in texture, atmosphere, and soundscape. Still rhythmic, just not beat driven but I don’t assume this should matter.

— — — — — —

What do you think? — unless Bitwig has an upcoming sale, the cost is comparable. If you temporarily lost access to your gear and had to choose, which would you pick? Buy a Move or a license for Bitwig to run on a handheld PC?

Thank you for your user insights and yes, I know I can download a demo and try it myself but again, depressed, and trying it for a week isn’t necessarily going to show me how a few months of use will go.