Little correction for this video... if you want to use Modulation Outputs to output the envelopes from Note Grid, you can drag Polymer into it's 'Post FX' slot, then enable 'Note Through' and disable 'Audio Through' on Polymer. This will let you send controls directly from the Note Grid to Polymer's cutoff.
Great to see you in Bitwig! Regarding the video - it would be easier to just nest the Note Grid inside of Polymer's Note FX slot (top-right corner) and then use Modulator Out modules instead of sending CCs out.
Yep, I thought of this initially, but I can't get the modulator outs to work for the cutoff on the Polymer instance like this. Tried modulating a macro too and assigning that, but it wouldn't allow me to add moduklation to anytrhing outside of the Note Grid module. Will have to keep playing around with it as I'm probably missing something here.
@@MarulaMusic Oh, right. Bitwig's modulation is applicable downstream from the device. I think if you nested Polymer in Note Grid's post FX box then it would work.
@@Artek604 Ok, so figured it out... nest Polymer inside of the Note Grid Post FX, then enable Note Through as well as disable Audio Through for Polymer and it works perfectly. :)
If you put the synth inside of the Post FX slot you can eliminate routing the the midi cc and save it all as a preset together if you like. This does look at bit cleaner though.
If you are just doing regular -1 to +1 voice stack spread you can do it from the inspector panel after selecting the synth. It should be in the modulation matrix. I love to use the custom option in the voce stack spread. I highly recomended exploring it to tweak all your voice individually. Especially using modulators on the sliders in the module itself. Next level.
I've been using Bitwig since V1. You're so far ahead of me in certain aspects. Really happy to see you using Bitwig as I've enjoyed many of your tutorials on SA. Dom Kane has some competition ;)
Got the trial last December and a few days later I was sold. Will be interesting to see what you come up with :) BTW in this case (the first Note Grid example), if you use a Poly Grid instead you can throw the POLYMER into its FX bucket which then allows you to assign modulations directly without using MIDI CC :)
Totally, most inspirational piece of audio software I've played around with in years. Great tip BTW... I noticed the Note Grid you have to have sitting externally before Polymer. Will stick this into a Poly Grid instead as that makes more sense using the modulator outs, at least in the case of using Polymer. Haven't found a way to use modulator outputs for third party VST's though. Thanks!
I would love it if you could come up with a variation on this approach - similar to Euclidean Sequencer Pro that would take notes from a scale and sequence them euclidean style, with the ability to vary the pitch order. Would the Note repeat used in your first example followed by an Arpeggiator get me close?
Absolutely amazing, inspiring. You make great content. Your videos about Falcon 2 were especially inspiring, I learned a lot from them while learning this synthesizer. I love Bitwig and it's great that a creative musician like you added this Daw to your arsenal.
I'm not sure, id be keen though... Im working on Cubase ones still. Make a request in the Sonic Academy forums. Its down to the durectors at the end of the day.
I've never been super comfortable in Ableton. I have Ableton lite which I've used for DJ mixes... demo'd the full version as well but just never got into it.
Always enjoy your videos! Question on the UR28M - did you have an issue with hiss on the outputs. I loved this interface except for a high hiss noise on the monitors (not on the headphone out). Wondering if you found a solution, or maybe your were lucky to get one that doesn't have this issue. I actually put a DI between my monitors and the UR28M that would remove the hiss, but probably also removed some of the high fidelity.
If I push the gain really high, yeah a little, but nothing serious. Everything has a noise floor... some lower than other. Using more of your headroom should negate this though. If you're mixing too soft, you can add a limiter to just bump up the gain on the master, but ideally not to the point where you're hitting the threshold as that starts distorting your perception of your mix.
Because Bitwig is better, doh! Obviously not for everyone - film or orchestral composer working with big templates and lots of complex MIDI will probably find nothing better, but for general electronic music Bitwig's where it's at.
I haven't ditched Cubase entirely. I'm still using it for my stem mixes, mastering, vocal production... there is a couple of things it does better than Bitwig, but for creative stuff there is very little that comes close to Bitwig at the moment IMHO.
Just asking to know, in terms of prog trance/prog psy trance, what Bitwig lacks for mastering and vocal? I mean can Bitwig be used to make a start to finish track and does that very well? (FL Studio and a bit Cubase user myself.)@@MarulaMusic
Nice tutorial, straight to the point :) I like how Bitwig makes this so easy and provides a visual to the mapping i would usually have to keep in my head. I'm wondering if you know anything about the approaches or techniques artists like Datasette and Aphex Twin use when making glitch style rhythms, its that kind of staccato gated style, where everything seems to be quantised to a 16th or 32nd, but they can adjust the note lengths, and that seems to affect all the other sounds around it. It's almost like every new note gates the last, but it's all kept to the 16th/32nd grid. Hard to describe. It's like you never lose the feeling of that 16th pulse, while the notes play at different rhythms and note lengths. I guess they use Euclidean rhythms also.
You can do pretty much anything with note fx in Bitwig... I wouldn't be surprised if that kinda stuff is just done with a bunch of note fx modulating each other in different ways. I'll post another video soon using things like Ricochet and Dribble from Bitwig too.
erm... so much effort and fumbling with The Grid an "random" Clips Modulation for this result... ^^ YES, have Bitwig too. great DAW, no doubt. And I´m in EDM. But... you get so engrossed in routings and modulations and linking modules that you no longer have the actual arrangement and the song in mind. I must say, I´m muuuch faster in Cubase with with adequate effects and targeted automations and linear timeline song bulding.
What I'm doing here doesn't nescessarily have anything to do with arranging music... it's more explorative. My sound design sessions are typically not about being fast and effective. The beauty of these modular setups is they can essentially be saved as new devices or plugins. When it comes to actually working on a track you just load these up and use them. As far as working quickly... with my Maschine hooked up to bitwig, I can lay down the bones of a track in the clip view in minutes.
Little correction for this video... if you want to use Modulation Outputs to output the envelopes from Note Grid, you can drag Polymer into it's 'Post FX' slot, then enable 'Note Through' and disable 'Audio Through' on Polymer. This will let you send controls directly from the Note Grid to Polymer's cutoff.
Bitwig is a really cool piece of software, for me the most inspiring DAW.
Finally Bitwig, yeah the way to go ... looking forward to your next tutorials with Bitwig !
Oh hell ya.
Loving bitwig as well for all the chance / variable possibilities. This tutorial is great and personally would love more of them from you.
Great to see you in Bitwig!
Regarding the video - it would be easier to just nest the Note Grid inside of Polymer's Note FX slot (top-right corner) and then use Modulator Out modules instead of sending CCs out.
Yep, I thought of this initially, but I can't get the modulator outs to work for the cutoff on the Polymer instance like this. Tried modulating a macro too and assigning that, but it wouldn't allow me to add moduklation to anytrhing outside of the Note Grid module. Will have to keep playing around with it as I'm probably missing something here.
@@MarulaMusic Oh, right. Bitwig's modulation is applicable downstream from the device. I think if you nested Polymer in Note Grid's post FX box then it would work.
@@Artek604 got you, yeah will try that
@@Artek604 Ok, so figured it out... nest Polymer inside of the Note Grid Post FX, then enable Note Through as well as disable Audio Through for Polymer and it works perfectly. :)
What if you placed a mid-side split at the beginning of the fx chain and within that tool you added note fx grid pre polymer?
Great video Nate, welcome to club Bitwig 😊
If you put the synth inside of the Post FX slot you can eliminate routing the the midi cc and save it all as a preset together if you like. This does look at bit cleaner though.
If you are just doing regular -1 to +1 voice stack spread you can do it from the inspector panel after selecting the synth. It should be in the modulation matrix. I love to use the custom option in the voce stack spread. I highly recomended exploring it to tweak all your voice individually. Especially using modulators on the sliders in the module itself. Next level.
I've been using Bitwig since V1. You're so far ahead of me in certain aspects. Really happy to see you using Bitwig as I've enjoyed many of your tutorials on SA. Dom Kane has some competition ;)
Got the trial last December and a few days later I was sold. Will be interesting to see what you come up with :)
BTW in this case (the first Note Grid example), if you use a Poly Grid instead you can throw the POLYMER into its FX bucket which then allows you to assign modulations directly without using MIDI CC :)
Totally, most inspirational piece of audio software I've played around with in years. Great tip BTW... I noticed the Note Grid you have to have sitting externally before Polymer. Will stick this into a Poly Grid instead as that makes more sense using the modulator outs, at least in the case of using Polymer. Haven't found a way to use modulator outputs for third party VST's though. Thanks!
I would love it if you could come up with a variation on this approach - similar to Euclidean Sequencer Pro that would take notes from a scale and sequence them euclidean style, with the ability to vary the pitch order. Would the Note repeat used in your first example followed by an Arpeggiator get me close?
Absolutely amazing, inspiring. You make great content. Your videos about Falcon 2 were especially inspiring, I learned a lot from them while learning this synthesizer. I love Bitwig and it's great that a creative musician like you added this Daw to your arsenal.
Superb tutorial, thanks!
Very cool! Thanks for that. :)
Great one, thank you.
Great choice
Good stuff!
That’s nice. Thanks😊
Cool stuff 👍
2:05 It's like the Operator works in Bitwig, eh? If you increase the Amounts of Notes per Note
Great Vid. Does that mean there will be more BWS content on Sonic Academy too ? :)
I'm not sure, id be keen though... Im working on Cubase ones still. Make a request in the Sonic Academy forums. Its down to the durectors at the end of the day.
thanks supper helpful
Wow Bitwig is the King.
i would really like to see you work on Ableton and also the bitwig stuff especially grid synth patterns for psytrance
I've never been super comfortable in Ableton. I have Ableton lite which I've used for DJ mixes... demo'd the full version as well but just never got into it.
can you make an downloadable examples pack ?
very interesting 😊
Always enjoy your videos! Question on the UR28M - did you have an issue with hiss on the outputs. I loved this interface except for a high hiss noise on the monitors (not on the headphone out). Wondering if you found a solution, or maybe your were lucky to get one that doesn't have this issue. I actually put a DI between my monitors and the UR28M that would remove the hiss, but probably also removed some of the high fidelity.
If I push the gain really high, yeah a little, but nothing serious. Everything has a noise floor... some lower than other. Using more of your headroom should negate this though. If you're mixing too soft, you can add a limiter to just bump up the gain on the master, but ideally not to the point where you're hitting the threshold as that starts distorting your perception of your mix.
Curious, why did you leave cubase?
Because Bitwig is better, doh! Obviously not for everyone - film or orchestral composer working with big templates and lots of complex MIDI will probably find nothing better, but for general electronic music Bitwig's where it's at.
I haven't ditched Cubase entirely. I'm still using it for my stem mixes, mastering, vocal production... there is a couple of things it does better than Bitwig, but for creative stuff there is very little that comes close to Bitwig at the moment IMHO.
@@MarulaMusic You inspired me to give it a try :) Logic can be 'stiff' at times.
Just asking to know, in terms of prog trance/prog psy trance, what Bitwig lacks for mastering and vocal? I mean can Bitwig be used to make a start to finish track and does that very well? (FL Studio and a bit Cubase user myself.)@@MarulaMusic
Nice tutorial, straight to the point :) I like how Bitwig makes this so easy and provides a visual to the mapping i would usually have to keep in my head. I'm wondering if you know anything about the approaches or techniques artists like Datasette and Aphex Twin use when making glitch style rhythms, its that kind of staccato gated style, where everything seems to be quantised to a 16th or 32nd, but they can adjust the note lengths, and that seems to affect all the other sounds around it. It's almost like every new note gates the last, but it's all kept to the 16th/32nd grid. Hard to describe. It's like you never lose the feeling of that 16th pulse, while the notes play at different rhythms and note lengths. I guess they use Euclidean rhythms also.
You can do pretty much anything with note fx in Bitwig... I wouldn't be surprised if that kinda stuff is just done with a bunch of note fx modulating each other in different ways. I'll post another video soon using things like Ricochet and Dribble from Bitwig too.
@@MarulaMusic ok cool, i'll keep an eye out ;)
erm... so much effort and fumbling with The Grid an "random" Clips Modulation for this result... ^^
YES, have Bitwig too. great DAW, no doubt. And I´m in EDM. But... you get so engrossed in routings and modulations and linking modules that you no longer have the actual arrangement and the song in mind. I must say, I´m muuuch faster in Cubase with with adequate effects and targeted automations and linear timeline song bulding.
What I'm doing here doesn't nescessarily have anything to do with arranging music... it's more explorative. My sound design sessions are typically not about being fast and effective. The beauty of these modular setups is they can essentially be saved as new devices or plugins. When it comes to actually working on a track you just load these up and use them. As far as working quickly... with my Maschine hooked up to bitwig, I can lay down the bones of a track in the clip view in minutes.
This is an embarrassment for Bitwig that it's so conservative you are still stuck with the same problem of 40 year old 7-bit MIDI CCs.
What?