To me Logic is a corporate product. It’s just a tool that Apple sells, bar a few online support pages. ie, Apple is a computer company at its core, not an electronic music production company. It does what it says on the box, tho, so if u want a tool with no faff, Logic is a good option. I know folks that swear by it and they make brilliant tracks in it. I’d say Logic is cut from the same cloth as most other NLE’s, with a few well regarded VSTi’s included, and over the years has incorporated some Ableton-esque features. That new sequencer in Logic is pretty sick though.
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I’m a huge fan of Bitwig. I used Ableton for about 15 years before switching. To me, Bitwig feels like a more modern/ forward thinking version of Ableton. The process of switching to Bitwig and learning all of it’s features was very inspiring. There are a few things I miss from Ableton though.
To me, some of the pros of Bitwig are:
-The Grid
-Better CPU handling and less plugin crashing
-Very Flexible modulation system, including audio rate modulation
-Overall more modern/ sleeker feel
-Granular mode in the sampler
-Operators (very similar to Elektron Trig conditions)
-Bouncing/ de-activating tracks works better than Freezing in Ableton
-Unusual modular style effects
-native 32 bit support (for using old plugins)
-better fades (pre fades, and being able to fade many tracks at once)
The pros in my opinion of Ableton are:
-Max4live
-Push
-Slicing in the sampler
-Easier midi export
There are lots of other things, but those are the ones that are important to me.
As for Max4Live vs The Grid. I use the Grid everyday. It is my most used synth, and I build a lot of sequencers, modulators, samplers, effects, glitch devices ect… in the Grid. It is much easier to build with than Max. I feel like it is more intended for musicians to use regularly in their production, if they like modular synths and building custom devices. Max4Live is more geared toward programmers when it comes to building. But, it can do a lot more than the Grid, and has a ton of great devices available. I would never open a blank Max4live while working on a track, to build a modular patch, but that totally makes sense to do in The Grid.
I like Bitwig’s sampler overall more than Ableton’s, but I really really miss slicing within the sampler. you can add onsets (like transient markers) to an audio file and right click to slice it to a multisample, but I find it a lot better to be able to slice right in the sampler. I really hope Bitwig adds that.
As for Push, there are scripts that make it work for Bitwig, but it just doesn’t feel as intuitive as it does for Ableton. Especially since Bitwig doesn’t have slicing. Because to me, that was one of the nice things about push, that you could load a sample, and do lazy chop, like an MPC, so it gave drum machine feel to using Ableton.
Anyway, I know that is a long rant, but just my 2 cents. Another plus for Ableton is that there is a huge user base, so there is a lot more info for Ableton, and it is easy to collaborate with other producers. Bitwig is still not very common. I think most Bitwig users came to it from other Daws.
One last cool thing about Bitwig is that it can load Ableton sessions and convert them to Bitwig sessions. Everything copies over, except native Ableton Devices get converted to similar Bitwig Devices, and frozen track get imported as unfrozen. So, it’s good to prepare ableton sessions before importing into Bitwig.
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@jemmons is dropping a lot of wisdom here, the most important being “don’t fight it.”
Feature wise there’s always going to be movement. Logic has gotten into the looping and step sequencing game, but they’ve done it in a way designed to promote simplicity rather than modular or anything more complex.
Others also mentioned this, but Apple is a computer company; Ableton is a music software company. Apple is hugely profitable, so they can price Logic as they do because the Apple ecosystem is dependent on the hardware not the software. (Steve Jobs even said that I think.) So this may make Ableton “expensive” by comparison, but it also makes Ableton as a company profitable and a stable platform for the future.
I have used Logic Lite (aka Garageband) and I’m on the Ableton trial. Something that is super important here is to be subjective about your choice. If you look at the feature lists for too long, you’ll start second guessing which one actually feels right - and one will just work better for you. With the free trials you can do a half-year test and then upgrade to the one you like.
This is just me, but I’ve really gelled with the way Ableton works. I kinda like the linear plug & play nature of Logic, a lot of plugins you literally just have to turn on or off. But ultimitely, I found the way stuff either floats onscreen or is in sub-sub-sub-sub menus doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I may still go for the Logic trial just to see but I’m already thinking it doesn’t gel with how I do stuff.
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Logic is such a good deal. If you have a intel Mac it performs also much better than Live. Live doesn’t use multicores very good. Since I got a M1 Pro that is no problem anymore. Every DAW performs good enough on them. Bitwig is nice and have also a much better performance than Live. I tried it, but couldn’t get used to it like Live and decided it’s not worth to learn it completely and dump all my knowledge and practice what I gained in Live. Better invest my time in other areas.
Features : Like most know. You can make amazing music with every DAW. Without adding any VST. They all have very good plugins and sound quality is equally good. Maybe Max-for-live is a advantage for Live. So many good helping M4l devices. I even found an M4l device that is an editor for my Ensoniq DP4 !!! And there are some absolutely ace stepsequencers available there.
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Tascam 4 track cassette portastudio for the win.
Or Live. It’s all good.
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…what ur missing is, ableton just started their own add to/add on update curse policy just a few years ago, while logic is by now, an endless array of different timetravel gui’s, where u open various on board plugins, some “add-updated” lately to finally arrive in this century to catch up with ableton/bitwig workflow, some with zero years design, once fresh when logic became apple exclusive and heaps of plugins, still in total 90ies look, all with their very different inconsistant workflow approaches, all hosted in a wannabe fancy candy coloured mainframe that holds it all together in a pretty clumsy oldschool way, constantly working hard to stay stable and afloat…only lucky if ur running a pretty fresh cpu and instalmentl… if u know it for a quite a while it’s still totally ok, even if u have to install it in various background package managers that sum up in a total headheavyweight of way more than 100 gigs of diskspace…but if ur not already familiar with it, it’s so complex, that learning an ot inside out feels like a breeze in comparison…
if ur not into truu note editing and working classic way to picture, there’s no real reason to get it started these days…no matter how cheap the deal sounds…
while with ableton u get the most in use daw of today…ur not restricted to mac only…and it’s onboard plugins all follow the same overall workflow concept, are in heavy use in pretty much all actual productions, it’s very own drumbus plugin can’t be found anywhere else in the third party plugin world and underestimating it’s max for live application is a huuuuge mistake, since it can offer u anything, if ur able to only imagine it…it was the very first daw to be used as a truu live stage instrument, even with ur own realtime visual concepts and, as already mentioned, just reached it’s first level of add on/add to update level, which is THE threshold for all daws out there, where they start to be headheavy…logic crossed that line already countless times…
too many good reasons why logic tries so hard these days to implement so many new functions to finally be able to mess with ableton and reach a somewhat eye to eye level…
and if ur not used to any daw yet, that add on/add to update curse is THE reason for choosing bitwig…
it has all the ableton know how and how to basic concept, but with this revolutionary fresh take of a truu 21st century daw…simple but crossing all over modulation, endless sounddesign options, create ur own shit like m4l already integrated with it’s polygrid…runs ALL platforms with decent cpu amount and offers the most reasonable, fair and solid update and license policy of them all…
and won’t cross that threshold of just add on/added to instead of truu updates in at least half a decade to come…
and if u ever want to take ur daw with u on a stage to really play it like a whole array of real live instruments, jumping on and off any kinds of arrangements and forth and back to freejammin’ in realttime, bitwig and ableton live are ur only truu options…
if u wanna do this, at least half way, also with logic, u gotto buy another apple only software called main stage…there u get the logic backend remangled for live stage use…but in xtra headheavy…while yes, no worries, only a mac can and will handle it for u…
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Fuck multitracking, just remember it and learn to replay it whenever you‘re asked to! People these days with their DADOUBLEUs and plugin hybrids, ts!
But if you MUST, just get Live or Bitwig.
Never used Logic but I’m transitioning onto Bitwig from Ableton. Live is great, and the big advantages are (as many people have said) really good stock devices and the massive user base making it easy to get support. However, like a lot of long running bits of software, Ableton is slightly hobbled by being built on top of a now quite old architecture which seems to make it very difficult to ‘turn the ship around’, taking a long time (or never implementing) fairly rational new features. This doesn’t really matter if you’re happy with the core functionality, but can be quite frustrating otherwise.
Bitwig on the other hand has had the advantage of being a greenfield development, and it seems to me like a lot of the design was directly inspired by things Ableton couldn’t do very well. A pretty bread and butter but huge one is plugin sandboxing, which means if a plugin crashes your project doesn’t crash. It’s also got a dramatically better approach to modulation, with built in building blocks that you would expect (no need to rely on Max devices that could become abandonware), and the ability to set and change the offset on every parameter you modulate, even while it’s being modulated (no more “parameter is disabled because it’s being controlled by a Max device” nonsense). Bitwig seems to have been designed from the ground up to interact with hardware and (especially) Eurorack, rather than having a limited set of CV interacting tools in a max for live pack. And while I don’t think what the average person can do with The Grid is comparable to what super genius devs have built with Max For Live, The Grid is actually in reach for the average user to build a lot of functionality that they do need. Even configuring parameters from a VST is 100x saner in Bitwig, and amazingly if you have a Push there is a better user experience using it + the DrivenByMoss script with Bitwig vs using it for the DAW it was made for when using VSTs because you still can’t natively map + name parameters into Push banks on Live. I mean I could go on and on (shout out Ableton’s vvvv bad MIDI mapping and inability to natively assign CC manually).
I think my main beef with Live is the devs have relied far too much on the community developing Max devices and external programs/scripts to fill in functionality that would be dramatically better + more stable if it was natively implemented. I don’t think it’s the Ableton devs’ fault so much - I think their user base is so huge that user needs are super divergent, so you’ll get people like me who can’t do a bunch of things, but other people who can do everything they want no problem. And I’m sure there are gremlins in the codebase making ‘simple’ things a pain in the ass to implement now. Bitwig though has been able to take advantage of seeing what went right and wrong with Ableton and then iterate on it from the ground up - it feels far more in the spirit of what Ableton was in the first place.
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I used Live for years. Started on Live 5 and went until 10. I’m one of those guys who thinks it has “ a sound” to it. Could just be my sound card or whatever but everything I made with my amature skills and Live just sounded cheap. I grew tired of its interface and its toll on my cpu usage. I used Reaper for a recording project back in the day and I eventually just went all in Reaper in 2019. I like it but I wouldn’t recommend that program either - way to much configuring to get a streamlined workflow. All of the DAWs have their + and -. Really just pick one and go with it until you’re sick of it’s shit and then switch.
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After posting on here I decided to upgrade my Live 10 Suite license to Live 11 Suite to see what I’ve been missing…it’s been 2 years since I “replaced” Live with Bitwig, so enough time to get used to something else.
And what I notice immediately being back in Live is how much better the Browser is in Bitwig…no contest in my book, I forgot about the poor plugin mgmt of Live and how cumbersome/manual that browser (still!) is.
I do enjoy that Live UI otherwise though, light on the eye for me…also Live 11 for M1 seems to have resolved all the performance issues I had with Live 10 on an Intel-based Mac.
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To elaborate on the improved cpu and less crashing of Bitwig, there is a big improvement from Ableton. That was initially one of the main factors for me switching. Bitwig can handle very large sessions compared to Ableton, and loads them quicker.
From my understanding, Ableton’s code is outdated, and people have been wanting Ableton to do a complete code re-write for many years, because it doesn’t utilize modern processing to the fullest. But, Ableton basically just revises the old code when adding new features, so they haven’t addressed the poor cpu performance. From my understanding, Bitwig analyzes your computer, and optimizes devices for your computer’s specs. And, Bitwig is supposed to fully utilize the performance of modern processors. This is just what I have heard talking to other users. I don’t know all this for a fact, but what I can say is that there is a big noticeable difference in Bitwig’s performance over Abeton.
Another thing that really improves CPU usage for me is that you can bounce and de-activate tracks and groups in Bitwig. You can do something similar with freezing in Ableton, but it doesn’t work nearly as well. For one thing, since you can’t freeze groups in Ableton, you can never turn a group off. In Bitwig, you can just bounce any portion of the group (on the timeline) that you want, and de-activate the whole group. Another benefit of Bitwig’s way is that you can bounce only the portion of the track you want, then de-activate the track. In Ableton, everytime you freeze a track, it bounces down the entire timeline ofr that track, and everytime you unfreeze and re-freeze a track, it does it again. So, you end up spending much more time waiting for things to freeze, and use up alot more space on your hard drive. Also, in Ableton, you can’t freeze certian tracks, if they have sidechain routing. In Bitwig, any portion of any track or group can be bounced and then de-activated.
On top of all that, Bitwig sandboxes it’s plugins. (Not all plugins. You can select some to not be sandboxed). When a plugin crashes in Bitwig, you get a notification that tells you that 1 or more plugins have crashed, and sometimes it de-activates the audio engine. But the DAW doesn’t crash. So, you can simply select the option to re-activate all the plugins, and if necessary, re-activate the audio engine as well. That isn’t to say Bitwig never crashes, but it is super rare compared to Ableton.
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Logic and Studio One are the DAWs that work for me. Especially with remote control free apps on iPad that let me use each for mixer touch interface and free up screen space on my laptop for viewing and working in arranger mode. But I prefer to sketch out tracks on hardware and dump to mixer recorder then edit in a DAW. More fun process that way, otherwise, I’d just use plugins VST and live in the DAW. That’s how I started on laptop in DAW with plugins. Moved to hardware later.
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I absolutely agree with everything you said here. I didn’t mention the sampler in my previous post because I thought I was the only one who wants to be able to lazy chop samples in the bitwig sampler, but I guess not. It is the one feature I reaaaaaly want. Otherwise the bitwig sampler is the best sampler :-), you can easily make entire songs just using the bitwig drum machine.
I will also add than M4L in ableton has always been a buggy mess for me, I never liked it.
I also found Max4live to be buggy. Even though the Grid can’t do as much as MAX4Live, I still prefer it, because it is so much more usable for me., and is just a lot more fun and intuitive to use.
I would love to see more development with The Grid. To start with, I really want containers in the Grid, with panel options (like macros in Reaktor), so we can save large clusters of modules, and only have the necessary parameters and visual elements we want, to be displayed on the container. This would basically allow us to make our own modules, and clean up Grid patches.
We haven’t really seen many updates for The Grid lately. I hope they develop it more this year.
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I think we did get the note grid in 2022, which has been the most useful one for me since I mostly use hardware synths. Oh, and when integrating hardware bitwig is by the far the best daw I have used.
Good point. I love note grid as well. I think I’m just greedy for grid updates. I would love to see a modulator grid as well. (A modulator that could open grid patches)
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