Bitwig Studio 4.1 is out now, featuring eight new, performable Note FX devices. Let the note stream take you.

System Requirements

Windows - Windows 7, 8, 10, or 11 (all in 64-bit)
Mac - macOS 10.14 ("Mojave") or above
Linux - Ubuntu 18.04 or later
a CPU capable of SSE 4.1

What's New in Bitwig Studio 4.1 [released 24 November 2021]

New Note FX device: Bend

Bends to each note's pitch from a relative Starting Pitch
Bend Shape sets the curve for the pitch glide
Duration of the bend can set it either real time or tempo-relative 16ᵗʰ notes
A Pre-delay setting is also available, for postponing the pitch bend (the same as on most of the envelope modulators, etc.)
Useful for:
- Adding glissando to any device
- New sound design possibilities by adding a quick pitch envelope on any instrument
- Many responsive possibilities, such as modulating bend amount or time with velocity, etc. etc.
- Setting a pitch curve once before "stacked" instruments, such as with the Instrument Layer or Instrument Selector containers (or their Note FX brethren)
- An alternate concept of "glide," starting relative to the new note (instead of from the pitch played previously)

New Note FX device: Dribble

Bounces each note until gravity wins
First Bounce time (set in real time or tempo-relative 16ᵗʰ notes) is the time that the initial bounce will last if maximum velocity is played
Damping controls the speed/height loss for each successive bounce
- With Damping set to 0 %, bounce height remains the same
Shortest Bounce time is a threshold for settings when bounces become too close together and should be discontinued
Hold Last Note optionally keeps the final bounce note held out (as long as the triggering note is still held)
Useful for:
- Adding some trailing character to single-note lines
- Giving per-note "delays" to chords, especially when each note has a slightly different velocity
- Creating a decaying, "organic" note repeat effect
- Modulating Damping to keep notes at fix repeat lengths, whenever anything happens (like the global Fill button is engaged)

New Note FX device: Humanize

Randomizes chance, timing, or velocity of notes
Chance sets the likelihood that each arriving note will be sent on
Timing defines the maximum lateness that can be randomly selected for each note
- If Allow Early Notes is on (±), then delay compensation is used to make the Timing range either late or early
Velocity sets a bipolar amount of randomization applied at each note on
Useful for:
- Giving some life to the timing of any input
- Lightly mutating any sequenced passage, making it is different with each repeat
- Randomizing any triggered note clip, where the Allow Early Notes option can feel right
- Loosening any predictable output, so that rigid rhythms or probability can be modulated or automated
- Randomly spreading note timing for FX that care about note order (like Strum, or Arpeggiator using the Flow pattern, etc.)

New Note FX device: Note Repeats

Retriggers each note, with Pattern options
Timebase for the repeat rate can be set in real time (seconds), tempo-relative units (bars, triplet eighths, etc.), or at the frequency of the played note
- A Rate factor scales the Timebase unit, good for slight manipulations or multiples
Gate Length is set as a percentage of the repeat rate, or to Hold until Next Trigger (𝄐)
Velocity Decay sets the change amount of each successive repeat's velocity, either down or up
Chance sets the probability that each individual repeat occurs
Disable Repeats is a mappable "kill switch" that sustains each note after its next repeat starts (and passes new notes directly thru), allowing the repeat function itself to be disabled or modulated

Note Pattern Options

Two additional modes are available for organizing note repeats into larger forms:
- Burst lines up all note retriggers in a row
- Euclid tries to evenly space the note repeats, which can be rhythmically satisfying
Length sets a pattern to be between 2 and 32 steps
Density is the percentage that the pattern gets filled
Rotate pushes the start of the pattern either forward or backward

Accent Options within Patterns

"Accents" can be created by keeping a number of the repeats at their original velocity, and attenuating velocity of the "non-accented" repeats
Count / Strong Notes sets the number of current repeats that will be accented
- Accents are distributed according to the mode used
Low Velocity (Non-accents) sets the attenuation applied to the non-accented notes
Opposite / Flip Accent Pattern inverts the placement of accented and non-accented notes
Keep Accents / Always Play Accents guarantees that each accented note will play every time, regarding of the Chance setting

Useful for:

Repeating each incoming note at a set rate
A performance-ready note effect, particularly with mappings to Disable Repeats (for switching the entire effect on and back off) and Velocity Decay (so that retriggers can be ramped quieter and then louder)
Creating probabilistic repeats with the Chance parameter
Giving life to long chords with a low Chance setting but the Hold until Next Trigger (𝄐) option on, keeping each note sustained until the eventual retrigger arrives
All manner of note pattern fun, for drum parts or anything else

New Note FX device: Quantize

Pushes notes toward the next beat, with optional Forgiveness
Timing Interval selects the beat grid-interval that notes will be moved toward, with an option to follow the global Groove or not
Amount sets how far each note is moved toward the next grid line
Forgiveness is a threshold for how late notes can be before they are held until the next beat
Useful for:
- A real-time performance quantizer, placing all incoming notes exactly on the next grid line
- With an Amount of 100 % and Forgiveness at 0.00 %, a complete 'robot-izer'
- Aligning incoming notes across a beat range (perhaps followed by Strum, etc.)
- Creating new rhythmic patterns, particularly by feeding it a fast Arpeggiator or Note Repeats, etc. with a middle Forgiveness value

New Note FX device: Randomize

Randomizes note pitch, velocity, and any automation expressions at note on
Each note in Bitwig Studio contains its own expressions
For each note that passes thru, this device can add a random amount of defined range to any expression, including:
- Pitch, with additional parameters options for whether pitch is Quantized to semitones and whether its randomization is Bipolar
- Velocity, randomized around the current value (taken from the note source and used wherever velocity is mapped, including from the Expressions modulator)
- Timbre, randomized around the current value (used wherever mapped from the Expressions modulator)
- Pressure, randomized around the current value (taken from the note source especially for MPE controllers, and used wherever mapped from the Expressions modulator)
- Pan, randomized around the current value (mapped to the panning of each individual note, and available from the Pan In Grid module)
- Gain, randomized around the current value (mapped to the gain of each individual note, and available from the Gain In Grid module)
Useful for:
- Turning any note clip into an "anti-loop," with different parameters for each note that plays
- Giving individual Pan positions to each note of a chord or arpeggio
- Creating tiny pitch instability to the original notes, or on a second Instrument Layer for "analog" drift
- Adding additional Timbre and Pressure variety to any MPE-friendly sound
- Shifting drum notes to sometimes trigger different drum elements

New Note FX device: Ricochet

Treats notes as bouncing balls in a room
When balls collide with each other (or with the room's walls), a new note is triggered at that velocity
Ball Speed scales the speed of each ball (relative to its velocity)
Ball Radius sets the size of the balls
Ball Damping is the amount of slowdown applied after each collision
Ball Launch Mode determines the direction in which new balls are fired:
- Random picks a random direction each time
- Bar Sync uses relative bar position, with bar start and end facing straight up (at 12 o'clock)
- Manual gives control to the Ball Launch Angle parameter for manual setting or modulation, etc.
Room Sides can be set anywhere between 3.0 and 8.0, including decimal values for some asymmetry
Room Orientation turns the room position or spins it (modulators!)
Room Spatialization uses each ball's position to effect that note's panning (↔︎) and timbre (↕︎) expressions
Sound on Initial Notes sets whether the initial note being received triggers a note, or not (which can be nice on a second layer, etc.)
Useful for:
- Creating an algorithmic variation of your note clip, which is either reproducible (Bar Sync) or new each time (Random)
- Generating one-shot timbre/pan envelopes by using a big Room Spatialization and maximum Damping
- Going "the full Eno" by setting a slow Speed, triggering a non-sustaining sound, and holding down the sustain pedal
- Creating a 90s-style delay, but with… Note FX…

New Note FX device: Strum

Fragments your chords, playing them one (or more) note at a time
Timebase for the strum speed can be set in real time (seconds) or tempo-relative units (bars, triplet eighths, etc.)
- A Rate factor scales the Timebase unit, good for slight manipulations or multiples
Strum direction can be set to Strum Up (playing lowest note first, then upward) or down
Number of Steps allows sequencing a pattern of up to four steps, so that the next chord played can change strum direction
Stride sets the number of notes that are output at a time
Grace Period is the time window for each chord to be collected before strumming begins
Useful for:
- Animating played chords at a steady rate
- Slight speed-ups or slow-downs, by slowly modulating the strum rate
- Alternating up–down strum patterns, to borrow some plucked/bowed patterns
- A one-shot arpeggiator, running up or down the played notes once
- "Smart" moving quantize, taking your playing and spreading each note to this beat or the next

Updated Note FX device: Multi-note

As before: each note in triggers up to eight notes out
There is now a Chance parameter for each output note, setting the probability of that note at each note on
There is now a velocity Spread parameter for each output note, setting a randomize range for the velocity of that note at each note on
When Live Note Updating is enabled, the Pitch Offset and Enable parameters for each note are now updated throughout the life of a note
- Gliding pitches can now be created, and notes can be (re)activated via each output note's Enable parameter

Updated Instrument: Sampler

Now has a Release chain, which receives note triggers for each note off the Sampler gets
Includes parameters for:
- Note Length used in the Release chain
- Whether to Use Velocity from the initial note On message (can make for a more consistent sound), or from the note Off message (if your controller supports this well)
Improved SFZ file import:
- Dragging a file containing both trigger and release samples onto a blank track or space will load a Sampler with the trigger regions, which has a Sampler nested in the Release chain with the release regions
- Dragging a file containing both trigger and release samples onto an existing sampler provides various modifier keys for which sample set to either replace with or merge in
- Any region using seq_position imports as Round-robin
As with all nested chains in Bitwig, the Release chain:
- Can contain any Bitwig devices and VST plug-ins
- Is available for modulation from any modulators (LFOs, sidechains, step sequencers, etc. etc.) that are used by the Sampler
- Will save any inserted devices as part of your Sampler presets
- Is also output to the audio FX chain that follows, and then the final Out level control

Updated Note FX device: Note Length

As before: triggers fixed-length notes on initial press or release
There is now an option for notes triggered on Release to use either the original note On velocity, or the received note Off velocity
- This is the same option available in the Release chain of Sampler, but can be coupled via Instrument Layer with any instrument/synth (read: not just for samples)

Updated Note FX device: Note Filter

As before: filters notes by set Key and Velocity ranges
There are now two Mode options:
- Keep only passes notes that are within the defined Key and Velocity ranges (this is the device's previous behavior)
- Remove passes all the notes outside of the defined Key and Velocity ranges
Once a range is defined, just duplicate the device and flip the mode to get all the other notes
- Place these on two layers within a Note FX Layer (when you want to process the notes separately, but send them to the same instrument)
- Place these on two layers within an Instrument Layer (when you want different instruments to be triggered by the note streams)

New Color Palettes

Different color palettes are now available for tracks, clips, layers, and Arranger cue markers, making more colors available for these elements
From the color selection area of the Inspector Panel or context menu, click the right-facing triangle (▶︎) to switch between the available palettes
To add a new color palette to your user library, simply drag a JPG or PNG file onto the Dashboard icon at the top of the Bitwig window

New Features

Direct MIDI output is now available from all track choosers
- All detected ports are shown in the Note Outputs section
- The HW Instrument device is still available when you need delay compensation
Controller script added for Mackie Control (with support for up to three Extenders)

Improvements

MIDI-style note names (for example, C-1 or D#4) can now be typed in for integer parameters
Steps modulator: Now has a bipolar toggle option
Better priorities and hit areas for Arranger clips mouse interactions [26816]
Arpeggiator device: Now has an Update Rate at Next Step option, to prevent going "out of grid" when changing the rate [26939]
Default presets for all Bitwig instruments have been updated:
- All instruments that include some "velocity sensitivity" setting are now set somewhere in the middle
- All polyphonic instruments now have a Vibrato modulator prewired to device pitch (and controlled by Modwheel), as well as an unwired Expressions modulator
Some Note FX devices have been renamed:
- Echo (was previously Note Echo)
- Harmonize (was previously Note Harmonizer)
- Key Filter (was previously Diatonic Transposer)
- Latch (was previously Note Latch)
- Multi-note (was previously Multi-Note)
- Note Transpose (was previously Note Pitch Shifter)
- Transpose Map (was previously Transposition Map)
- Velocity Curve (was previously Note Velocity)
If a plug-in host process hangs, the user now gets an option to kill the process
VST3: Added IMidiLearn support
Controller API improvements:
- Provides access to Arranger loop range [26341]
- Ability to add and remove cue markers [26340]
- Option to expand/collapse group tracks [26342]
- Added canUndo and canRedo [26343]
Linux: Now bundles ffmpeg

Fixes

Consolidating a clip could lose various clip settings [26679]
Time selection did not snap to onsets when the Arranger clip start marker was not at zero position [26827]
Waveform of raw audio events could display with incorrect timing when tempo automation was present [26778]
Muted Tracks didn't grey out their meters when loading a project [27143]
Audio effects were inaudible on certain project with hybrid tracks [26867]
Comping did not work correctly in clips that contained audio starting before 1.1.1 [26865]
Regions could disappear when editing comping takes in stretch mode [26826]
Fixed crash when folding audio to comping takes [26879]
Drum Machine device: Choking settings would persist after loading a new preset [26612]
Note Transpose device: Didn't initialize correctly [27070]
Grid modules: Various modules with audio choosers (such as HW Out, CV Out, etc.) were sometimes not working after the audio engine reconnects to the project [26888]
Modulation indicator was the wrong color when modulation exceeded negative value range
Modulation source context menu did not show the name of the modulator
Fixed some memory leaks, which could slow application performance when using certain controllers
Crash when performing undo/redo in same cases [21926]
Wavetable resources were missing icons in the Project Panel Files page
VST 3 plug-ins: Sidechaining would become inactive after Export [27069]
On loop jumps, wrong sample and timing information could be sent to plug-ins, causing first notes to be skipped [22690]
A plug-in that hung or crashed while loading could lock up the audio engine [26934]
Fixed various random crashes when performing undo or redo
Automatically repair broken projects created with v4.0 beta versions [26830]
Message was not clear when activation dialog gets shown because of no free activations in account [27060]
Windows: Pop-up Browser was not showing correct filter when browsing presets for loaded device [26982]
macOS: Bitwig Studio jumps to foreground when connecting or disconnecting screen [25636]
Controller API: A clip's note step observer could sometimes report the wrong step index