Bitwig is having a hot, packed summer. And there’s one big teaser: we don’t know anything about it yet, but Bitwig Studio 6 beta is coming on August 27, as briefly revealed on Bitwig’s social media. In the meantime, let’s play with some Brazilian beats and explore controller integration.
Brazil…
Bitwig seems to be fleshing out how they can explore more content with their Upgrade Plan and add-ons. This particular sound release is split in two: Brazilian Percussion Loops are free as part of your active Upgrade Plan, and Percussão is priced at 19 EUR as an add-on.
Percussão gives you 800 one-shots of conga, cabasa, berimbau, and so on, recorded by sound designer/artist Bill Robin, and a bunch of ready-to-play kits. It’s those 25 Drum Machine presets that make this interesting — plus, you can go Bitwig-nuts and sequence these in unusual ways, etc.
The loops are nice, too: they’ve got fills and rolls in there already, plus you can slice them up and combine them. This one is free, so you’ll just find it on the Dashboard if your Upgrade Plan is active now:
Okay, Brazilian friends, let’s see what we can do with this and if it holds up. Meu estúdio é seu estúdio; não à apropriação cultural!
Controller info
I’m happy to plug this because I know how much it means to our readers to tailor controllers to music software (and we even have some developers out there). Bitwig has made a nice overview page explaining controller integration, what’s available, and what their Open Controller Extension API can do:
Controller Integration in Bitwig Studio
I’ll circle back on the Novation Launch Control XL 3 as I’ve got one here, and it’s terrific. So it’s nice to see that out-of-the-box support.
Of course, if you want to splurge on motorized rotaries, then it’s all about Melbourne Instruments’ Roto-Control, which just got a 2.0 firmware update:
Mark your calendars?
This is the big one — no announcement yet, but Bitwig did post a teaser on their channels for 24 hours. So stay tuned.
Meanwhile, of course, we can just drift off in this song… though maybe this is just because I’m here on a hot day in Bitwig’s home city Berlin…
I could go off on a tangent here but I can’t find a rhyme/rhythm that fits the song for “beta,” so you’re saved.
We should really compose a song like this for every country and city that doesn’t have a titular smash hit.