Feature suggestions for Bitwigs Arranger and Piano Roll

Table of Contents

• Bitwig’s announcement to improve the workflow of arranger and pianoroll is great and welcome. Here are some suggestions, based on daily use of Bitwig.
• 1. Cursor-Tool Improvements
  • 1.1 Options to turn off automatic toolswitching
  • 1.2 Improving existing Cursor-Tools and Cursor-behaviors
  • 1.3 Adding new Cursor-Tools
• 2. Improvements for Arranger, Piano Roll and Audio-Editor
  • 2.1 More options for visual clarity and orientation
  • 2.2 Further Arranger Improvements
  • 2.3 Further Improving Interface Customization, Shortcuts, and QoL
  • 2.4 Further Piano Roll Panel Improvements
  • 2.5 Device View Improvements
  • 2.6 Audio Editor Improvements
  • 2.7 Improve Automation-Lanes in Bitwig
• 3. Needed Fixes: Fade Options for Recording, Cliplauncher Bugs, Recording-Dropouts, Undo greyed out
• 4. Improvement of Touchcontrol
• 5. Please give users additional API functions

Bitwig’s announcement to improve the workflow of arranger and pianoroll is great and welcome. Here are some suggestions, based on daily use of Bitwig.

1. Cursor-Tool Improvements

1.1 Options to turn off automatic toolswitching

a) when moving Bitwigs Mouse-Cursor vertically across Tracks in the Arranger: Automatic switching between Objectselection (crosshair) vs. Timeselection.

when moving Bitwigs Mouse-Cursor vertically across Audioclips in the Arranger: Automatic switching between Objectselection vs. Clip-gain vs. Timeselection. 

Adding a button (shortcut) which turns this behavior off and grants users a pure object selection tool they can trust to stay, which is really helpful for pure arranging = dragging Clips without unwanted timeselections or clip-gain-changes.
Example (Cubase 14):

b) when moving Bitwigs Mouse-Cursor horizontally across selected notes in the piano roll: Automatic switching between Objectselection-range (white vertical lines with white background-spotlight) vs. Note-range-adjustment, which makes the edges of selected notes prone to missclicks.

The white vertical lines and background-spotlight of Object selection could be moved into the time-ruler-area, just like in Ableton. Result: The functionality will still be present, but won’t ever mess up the workflow by leading to unwanted missclicks! Additional upside: Users who just want to resize notes no longer are visually distracted by the white vertical lines and the white background-spotlight of object selection, a function they rarely ever use/need to see directly inside the piano roll.

Thanks to theming, we can get a sneak peek of how clear and concise Bitwigs Piano Roll could look without white vertical lines and background spotlight of selected notes. However, theming of course doesn’t replace the necessary functional rework (of moving the object selection lines away from the note-edges into the time-ruler).

1.2 Improving existing Cursor-Tools and Cursor-behaviors

a) : Bitwig doesn’t have a real “snap to grid”, but rather a dynamic snap to grid, which lets users drag any element (clip, automation point, note, notelength) in between (!) gridlines.
With its magnetic pulling of the mouse-cursor, this ‘dynamic snap to grid’ feels quite bumpy compared to real snap to grid.
It’s also highly contra-intuitive, as users don’t expect elements to land in between grid lines, and the deactivation of snap-to-grid via Shift-Key almost makes no sense, as snap-to-grid is never truly activated anyway.

: Please add the option to have a real “snap to grid”. (Which affects both dragging already existing automationpoints and creating/clicking in new automation points.)


b) : The Shift Key disables snap-to-grid and at the same time activates fine-adjustment-mode. This leads to unsolvable combination problems and actually impairs fine-adjustments in cases in which axis-lock is necessary.
: Option to decouple these functions and put them into a separated modifierkey-logic. Adding additional functions for both x- and y-axis locking while fine-adjusting.

c) : Bitwigs automationpoint movement uses mouse-acceleration (for high automation lanes) and deceleration (for small automation lanes). This Cursor Movement for dragging Automationpoints feels indirect and vague. For testing purposes of the vertical movement, we can compare a Track with big vertical height, and a Track with the default minimal vertical height.

When we grab an automationpoint at the top, and drag it towards the bottom, the traveling time of the mouse decreases, when the automationlane is high, and increases, when the automationlane is small. Hence a weird and uncomfortable, vague, indirect, feeling.
If we have the physical reference point of a pen, we can clearly demonstrate this behavior of Bitwig: 



: Bitwigs cursor-acceleration and deceleration should be deactivateable, leading to a 1:1 transmission of movement for all tracksizes.

b) : The Knife tool only shows up at the cursor when hovering over elements like clips/notes – see next GIF. Same for the pointer tool, which unnecessarily switches between crosshair and pointer-symbol. 
: Currently activated tools should always be reflected via the cursor-symbol for improved visual feedback and UX clarity. This implies an option to permanently deactivate the Crosshair-Cursor-Symbol.


c) : When having several selected Clips/Notes, the Knife Tool should slice through all of them, instead of just one. 

Example (Cubase 14):

d) : Adding a Trim-Mode (both for either start or end of events) for the Knifetool upon holding modifier keys.


e) : Upon using the ALT-Stretch-Tool on a RAW Audio Clip, Bitwig should automatically enable the userdefined “processing Stretch Mode” for that Clip so it immediately gets stretched, instead of just stretching the empty Clip-Container.

f) : Adding the option to show more Information directly at the cursor and in realtime.
When dragging Clips (and their length) in the Arranger, Bitwig should optionally show the positioning of the Clip – and the relative distance to the initial position – directly at the cursor.
Same for Notes: Right now, Bitwig only shows the adjusted length in the inspector, after the user lets go of the note. Realtime information at the cursor is much more efficient.

Same for note-expressions, specifically velocity.


g) : Adding the option to see the actual midi values of velocity instead of percentage.

h) : On hovering the mousecursor over automation-knobs of the Arranger, Bitwig shows the correct, real parameter values of automation. But when touching/moving automationpoints, only percentage values are displayed.

1: Seeing actual Parameter Values in the Automation Lanes instead of just percentages. Absolutely essential for many types of parameter values.

2: Option to permanently show parameter values next to the Automation-Knob in the Tracklanes of the ARRANGE view, without being forced to hover over with the mouse above the Automation-Knob in order to see the value!

1.3 Adding new Cursor-Tools

a) : Adding a glue tool for the Arranger and Editor
Notes could get merged via Gluetool for the first time in Bitwigs history.

: Being able to consolidate (glue) Audio-Snippets together in the Detail View. This implies a secondary container-level inside of Clip-Containers. Great for quickly grabbing and arranging sub-groups of audiosnippets within Audio-Clip-Containers.

b) : Adding Drawing tools (a toolset sitting on a single shortcut-number):
Line (default), Parable, Sinus, Triangle, Square which can be used in Automationlanes, Modulators, and even the piano roll. 
Such tools are much more powerful than just inserting static envelope shapes (like in Abletons rightclick menu), especially because they can be adjusted in amplitude and frequency on the fly via modifierkeys – and applied to other areas of the DAW, like creating a strumming note-line in the piano roll via the line tool within half a second.

2. Improvements for Arranger, Piano Roll and Audio-Editor

2.1 More options for visual clarity and orientation

a) : Adding the option for “Show Event Names” and Sliders for “Grid Overlay Intensity” and “Event Opacity” = Seeing Gridlines through Clips.

b) : Adding the option for adjusting Waveform and Midi-Note-Brightness/Intensity.

c) : If we look at the tooltip that appears when we hover over the “Pan & Pan&Zoom” button with the mouse, we see that Bitwig only offers us two options where there should actually be at least three.

: Giving users direct control over the options contained in the “Pan” and “Pan&Zoom” Settings of Bitwig. “Left/Right, Up/Down, Wheel” should be directly accessible. This enables otherwise impossible combinations like “Pan, Pan, Scroll”.

d) : Users have no control over Modifierkey-assignments (CTRL, Shift, ALT).
Example: Shift+Mousewheel only works for horizontal scrolling on MacOS, not on Windows. Users have no control over this.

: A settings tab to adjust Modifierkey-assignments and behaviors (CTRL, Shift, ALT) in general would be the great, and complete Bitwigs otherwise awesome philosophy of highly customizable shortcuts. Shift+Mousewheel should work for horizontal Scrolling of Arrangement and Editor-Areas. (Users who prefer ALT+Mouswheel for it should be granted the option to swap ALT and Shift-Modifierkeys.)

e) : Deactivating the button for “Use large track height” is the only way to zoom out vertically to the maximum level.

: Zooming into Tracks via shortcut also zooms in all of its Automationlanes, without any option to unlink this behavior. Automationlanes can’t even be adressed directly via shortcuts/arrowkeys. There is no modifierkey+mousewheel zooming for vertical Tracksize.

for Zooming and Scrolling:
– Seamless vertical Arrangement-Zooming via ALT+Mousewheel, to ensure consistent behavior, as this zoom combination already works in the piano roll. [An example for seamless zoom can be seen at the next point e)]
– Upon holding a second modifierkey: Just zooming into the Track OR Automationlane at the Mouse-Cursor-Position!
– Adding shortcuts for “zoom into selected track or automationlane” (new optional behavior), “zoom into selected track and all of its automation” (current behavior).
– Also, adding an option to link horizontal and vertical zooming via CTRL+ALT+Mousewheel to have a “pinch to zoom” (magnifying glass type zooming) function available for mousewheel-workflows.
– Giving users the ability to zoom in/out while dragging Clips via the usual CTRL+Mousewheel action.

f) : Option to show the content of Clips at minimal vertical Track-Height. Adding the option to (auto-)hide the naming-topbar of Bitwig-Clips, allowing users to see significantly more clip content even at Bitwig’s standard track heights. This is specifically useful when used in combination with the new pure, uncoupled object/time-selection-tools (see 1.1 a).
Example for seamless zooming and still seeing clipcontent on minimal track heights:

Another example (FL Studio): Still being able to see the content of Clips, despite minimal track height:

g) : Bitwigs way of visualizing the content of group tracks is rather uninformative. Grey nothingness in the Cliplauncher, and plain color-sausages in the Arranger. Also, Group Tracks cannot be vertically resized.

: Group Tracks should show their content (Midi Notes and Audio Waveforms), instead of color sausages, even when being very small in vertical size. Group Tracks should be vertically resizable. Even folded Group tracks with sufficient height will then be far more informative than ever before, leading to drastically improved visual feedback, both in Arranger and Cliplauncher. (Seeing the playheadposition in relation to actual notes/waveforms)

h) : Bitwigs Arranger colorizes Tracks in different shades of grey, based on Group-Level.

: Option to disable this behavior, to have a consistent arranger-look. Option 2: Instead of using shades of grey, using shades of the group-track-colorization.

i) : Bitwigs Playhead disappears when transport is stopped.

: The Arranger Playhead should stay visible at all times. The blue playback symbol in the top row is not enough, compared to a full line going over each Clip in the arranger for visual clarity and alignment/orientation. A new way to align events could be added, by including the playback-cursor-position into the “snap to events” logic.

j) : The Playhead should be moveable/draggable via mouse. Perfect synergy with additional features like scrubbing.

k) : Option to link/unlink Arranger- and Editor-Playhead-Scrolling and Zooming.


l) : Adding an optional minimap representation of the whole arrangement at Bitwigs top-bar, with intelligent selection and zooming functions.

m) : Right now, when dragging an event like a clip in the timeline from left to right, it will not snap to the next event to its right, but overwrite it!

: When “Snap to events” is turned on, it should work as expected (on all occasions).

n) : As can be seen on the GIF above, users need to open a pop-up-menu to see the currently active settings for “Adaptive Grid”, and all “Snap to” Settings.

: Option to permanently show the current Beatgrid- and Snap-Settings instead of hiding them away in a dropdown-menu = Improving visual Feedback of Bitwig. Even more importantly, these settings should be available for mouse-adjustment without any submenu, including the adjustment of the gridsize, which should work without any “dragging action”.

o) : Right now, VU Meters inside Bitwig show dark orange when there’s still -10db headroom.

: Option to change the colorization of the VU Meters.

2.2 Further Arranger Improvements

• 16. Improve Record-Quantization by affecting Audio, and including Triplets

• The (global) record quantization should include triplets (at least).
• Record-Quantization should be midi-assignable! (Just like Launch quantization and the post recording actions.)
• Changes in Record-Quantization should apply when Midi-Overdub is active. Right now (Bitwig 5.1.2 and versions before), as long as Midi-Overdub is active, changes in Record-Quantization are not recognized, and the setting which was active before overdubbing remains intact.
• Record Quantization should – optionally – also affect Audio-Recordings. (This wish overlaps with further improving onset/transient detection to increase the precision of Audio-Quantization.)

• 26. Option to make Copy&paste and duplicate non-destructive

• Right now, audio/midi clips which are in the way of pasted or duplicated Clips get destroyed/deleted forever. There should be the option to instead of destroying clips, they just get overlapped, while staying intact (like in Cubase)!
• This wish overlaps with (1.) the wish for a glue tool, which has great synergy with overlapping Events.

• 32. Mappings Panel improvements

• The Mappings Panel needs a Scrollbar! 
• The Mappings Panel must have a sorting function for midi cc and midi ch! 

• 34. “Plugins missing” needs a “replace with” feature

• To not lose Remote-Control Assignments of Custom Presets, when a VST Instrument was replaced with a newer version.
• Other Plugin Hosters like Bluecat Audios Patchwork have that feature. When a plugin is missing, you’re supposed to manually find and select the new VST file – and then the Remote Control Assignments still work.

• 35. Add Audio-to-Midi, equally good or even better than in Ableton

• Not as a fiddly grid-device. But as a fully integrated and highly precise feature, which has a shortcut for ‘transform to drumkit’, ‘transform to melody’, ‘transform to chords’. 
• Ideally with an option to immediately import transformed midi chords into a CHORD Track

• 36. Add CPU Meters in Tracks

• Perfect synergy with Bounce In Place, because users can quickly decide which Tracks to bounce first, when resources are short. 

• 45. Improve Midi Export and Import!

• Exporting single Midi Clips should be possible. 
• Exporting Midi CC together with Midi should be possible.
• Importing Midi should be possible without the nagging “Import Tempo & Time Signature” Dialogue Pop-Up! The Pop-Up must have a “remember selection” Setting and a permanent Setting in Bitwigs Preferences! 

• 47. Chord Tracks, intelligent Scales function for the Piano Roll, Sheet Music View

• A chord track like in Cubase, which a) serves as audio-to-midi transformation pool, extracting chords out of any given audio. b) serves as scale-guide for pitch-tuning of vocal audio tracks. [This requires pitch tuning abilities in Bitwig first]
• Global Scale and Tuning Function like in Ableton
• Chord Insertion and Suggestion Tool like in Cubase, based on the Circle of Fifths
• Sheet of Music View-Option for the Piano roll and the new Chord-Tools
• Option to see the Chord-name of “live-played (via midi controller)” and “selected notes (on selecting at least three notes)” in the piano roll
• Articulations Manager (Grid Workarounds are fiddly, take up CPU, and are limited to 16 articulations).

• 50. Fix the “Follow Playback” button

• The Follow Playback button should be a real toggle on/off button instead of turning off automatically all the time.

• 52. Loop-Bracket Improvements

• Shortcut for “Select everything in the Loop-Bracket”!
• Let us use the Cltr/Ctrl+Alt Shortcuts to set the start and end of Loops within the EDIT and DetailView, not just the Arranger!
• When changing the size of Loops via grabbing the end and dragging it smaller via mouse-drag, the Loop-Size should not be restricted to 1 Beat, but go smaller than that!

• 53. Retrospective Midi-Recording

• = Midi Capture, but with an optional smart function: Slicing to specific bar-length, adjustable in the preferences.

• 54. Midi Comping

• Not so important for me personally, but i’d be happy for all the people who want it.
• IF Bitwig ever implements Midi Comping, they should please please include an option to permanently and absolutely turn it off with a simple on/off switch in the preferences/toolbar, so that the arranger will never be cluttered with empty/half-empty takelanes. (Just a preemptive wish ;D )
• Some people also want midi-step-recording.

• 55. Linked Clips/Alias Clips/Shared Copy

• Example of Studio One “Duplicate Shared”:

• 56. Groove Pool

• Groove extraction function
• Save & Load Grooves
• Apply Groove globally and individually onto Clips (strength slider for applying it in each Clip)
• Grooves being more than just swing

2.3 Further Improving Interface Customization, Shortcuts, and QoL

a) : Adding the option to set different default settings for Bitwigs arranger and detail view in general. For the piano roll, for example, this would mean: Options to set default settings for the vertical panelsize, which lanes are opened (like showing velocity lanes by default, and/or showing specific midi cc lanes by default), what beat grid settings are used (like permanently being fixed to 32th), whether note audition is turned off/on, and so on.

b) : Giving users the ability to save Macros, which lets users save the above mentioned customized settings to shortcuts for quick and effective switching of editing- and interface-settings on demand.

d) : Let users decide to show Arranger, Mixer Panel AND Device Panel (or Arranger, Device AND Detail Panel) at the same time. 4k Monitors could show everything with ease, and the constant panel-switching (on single-monitor-setups) would stop forever. 

e) : Display/Interface-Scaling below 100% should be possible. Ableton allows for up to 50%. Also, Display/Interface-Scaling should be freely choosable from 50% onwards, in steps of 1%. (Currently it’s steps of 25%).

f) : Display Modes: Let users decide what combination and configuration suits them best, instead of the currently very restricted options for dual/triple monitor setups. For example: Tablet Mode doesn’t even work for a second screen. Unlock all the possibilities like the arrangement of panels to be freely arrangeable and customizable for the users.

g) : Adding a visibility Tab (visibility Panel) for Tracks, including the possibility to search for Tracknames, hide/show specific or several Tracks/Groups via just one Click.

h) : Improving the ARRANGE View to also suit the needs of Live performers. Options to show/hide Clip Playback Progress on Track level, Sends (FX Remote Controls, Track Remote Controls, everything which is also part of the MIX view)

i) : There should be an option to permanently save a custom Color-Palette as new default for all Projects.

j) : The Mixerpanel (when opened in ARRANGE View) should not be restricted in its vertical size! It’s impossible to see many send knobs at a glance now!

k) The Realtime Ruler should optionally show hours:minutes:seconds, with intelligent info-reduction on zoom-out, to prevent visual clutter.

l) Increasing Scene-Size horizontally in MIX view should be possible.

m) The Master Track is pinned in MIX view, why not also add an option for this in ARRANGE view? Please add an option for that!

o) Option to Freeze Tracks

p) Bitwigs Interface still has functions without a shortcut. E.g. Note Audition, Loop (Clips), Selection of “Audio Events” vs. “Comping”, “Stretch”, etc. Inside of the Editor/Detail View, the buttons for “Audio Events, Comping, Stretch, Onsets, Gain,..” need to be assignable in Bitwigs Shortcut list! 

q) All Shortcuts of Bitwigs Shortcut list should be draggable/pinnable into the Bitwig-Toolbar. Bitwigs Shortcut Toolbar should be resizeable, enlargeable to double-rows, or even a resizable hover-window (dockable).

v) Ctrl+D should work when being held. Ableton, Cubase etc. automatically duplicate until letting go of the Shortcut, would be nice, if Bitwig behaved the same way, as it’s quick and effective.

w) Renaming anything in the interface shouldn’t need an ENTER to confirm it!

x) It should be possible to copy & paste Track Remotes, including their linked devices! Otherwise setting up big liveset becomes incredibly tedious!

2.4 Further Piano Roll Panel Improvements

Almost all of the above points related to improving the Bitwig tools, information flow, zooming and shortcuts fundamentally improve the piano roll – here are some additional suggestions for it:

a) Automatic vertical and horizontal Zoom to fit when opening the piano roll! Alternative: Automatic zoom to selection, if a selection has been premade via Arrangeview. 

b) Automatic vertical scroll towards where the actual midi notes are. No more showing of the wrong note-region (Bitwig often times shows empty octave-regions for the first time, like C7/8). 

Option for step recording

Improve Midi Overdub: Newly played(overdubbed) notes should cut old notes. Otherwise old notes which are very long will be triggered twice, because they’re cut in half by a newly introduced short note – which in 99% of all cases is not what the user intended to happen.

New Shortcut which works for selected notes: “Fit to Time-Range”. Immediately pulling all selected notes to be the length of the currently selected time-range. [See Ableton]

For the Detail View: Users should be able to see Midi CC lanes (=Automation) & have an Option to automatically show the last used midi cc lane by default. The Detail View should be able to show Notes AND Automation.

For the EDIT view: Option to see ALL used automation lanes, with a shortcut. Like you can see here, minute 14 https://youtu.be/bRpjbH8zdX4?si=nPXFKmKTtjKG9YK0&t=841 

Option to make doubleclick create notes in the piano roll based on grid-size, instead of Alt+Doubleclick. The automatic drawing of notes based on the grid via Alt+Mousedrag is awesome. However, this leads to Alt+Doubleclick not being useful to create notes based on grid-size and then further adjusting their length. 

Clicking anywhere in the Editor should switch playhead position to that spot. Play from Cursor in the Editor (Detail View) should work by clicking anywhere in the Editor, and then Space, like in the Arranger. Also: The playback-position of Clips in the Cliplauncher can’t be adjusted! The blue-playback-symbol doesn’t even show up in Clips in the Cliplauncher! Note: BW 5.2 already improved this point a lot, by introducing the “play-from-time-selection” shortcut.

Note Colors should be a) improved b) customizable. “Note Color = Clip” should better and more clearly show differences in velocity. For “Note Color = Velocity” it should be possible to change which colors are used for which velocity in the settings. Poison green is simply not a nice view in the long run, and a customized color-spectrum could also help users of other DAWs switching over to Bitwig feeling at home with their favorite editing look & feel. 

Notes should still show their letter/number, even when being shortened (cut off yet still visible naming of notes). 

When jumping from note to note via keyboard via ALT+Arrowkeys, or selecting several notes via ALT+Shift+Arrowkeys, Note audition should work, at least optionally.

Loop-Brackets of the Editor and Detail View should be adjustable via the Loop-Bracket-Shortcuts of the Arranger! (Ctrl+Click and Ctrl+Alt+Click)! 

2.5 Device View Improvements

For the Device-View: Being able to change the default state of Chains from being closed to being opened!

Device-View: The “Activate/Deactivate” Button for Plugins must be Midi-Assignable! The general shortcut ALT+A for “activate/deactivate selected item/track” is not enough, as it is useless for quickly managing Latency and RAM usage of specific Plugins in a huge Liveset via external controller.

Remote Control Pages should be more versatile: Bi-Directional Knob creation via rightclick, Option to set a default value other than 0, Option to set parameter ranges, Option to assign several Parameters [All of this is possible via workaround of course, using modulators, but why not put it as much faster rightclick option directly?]

2.6 Audio Editor Improvements

When Playback is running (Looping), users should be able to immediately hear what they see! So when dragging an Audio Clip/snippet to another place within the currently running loop (and holding that dragging-click), users should immediately hear how its current position sounds, before (!) letting go of the clip to finally place it into that position. Right now, Bitwig needs the user to let go of the Clip, in order to hear the new position. Let us listen to Audio in real time
when doing certain edits, like dragging clips, stretching / moving audio, using the knife tool behind the playback position, etc, Bitwig will not play the Audio in its actual real time position

Repitch Mode of Audio Samples needs to be improved: Transposing by semitones and octaves should work!

The regions for adjusting Fade in/out are far too small. Clip-Gain Regions have to be deactivateable.

When recording audio into the arranger, and it overlaps onto an older recording / partially overwrites an older recording, the new recording gets included into the old recording as Audio-Comping-Lane. There should be an option to turn this behavior off by default.

Layered Editing Mode feels bugged/weird when using the Pitch and Formant section (Weird scrolling of the black measurement bar which shows the scale, automation points getting lost in unseen regions). A dedicated Layered Editing Mode a la “Audiomodern Loopmix” would be insanely great and drastically improve Bitwig.

Increasing versatility of Effects usage in Bitwig by letting users put Effects on Clips, and even on specific parts of Audio-Samples (Example: Cubase lets you put Effects onto specific parts of a waveform, reaching from transient to transient.)

The Learning function for Chains to match Wet Gain to the dry signal should be introduced to all devices = Loudness matching.

When vertically zooming into Tracks, Notes within Clips have a weird relative positioning from each other, which doesn’t always represent the vertical distances between notes in the piano roll – this could be improved.

• 25. Option to adjust Loop length with a shortcut for +/- 1 bar

• without having to open the detail-view and having to select the loop length, but rather just by selecting the Clip in the Cliplauncher and pressing the shortcut.

• 41. Option to show “Edit in external Editor” in the Audio-Editor!

• (Like in Ableton, but with option to use 2 or more Editor-Shortcuts.

• 42. ARA integration (Or a native pitch-editing better than melodyne, haha)

• 28. Cue Markers of Looped Clips get pushed into the wrong spot when changing Loopsize

• When grabbing the Loop-Bracket of a Clip in Detail View, dragging it to the right to shorten the Loopsize, and then dragging it back to the left to lengthen the Loopsize again, the cue marker stays there and doesn’t follow back to its original position!
• 
  

2.7 Improve Automation-Lanes in Bitwig

• Option to turn off the following behavior: When snap to grid is active, the gridlines get way more dominant visually. This makes it impossible to have a consistent look & feel of the arranger, if so desired.
• The separation lines between Tracks and between Automation Lanes are way too thin. Furthermore, there is a line missing between Track and first automation lane! Please make lines thicker and add the missing line, so users have a visual reference point, which is needed for areas where there are no clips! (No clips doesn’t necessarily imply no audio-signal being affected by automation!)
• Adding smart quick-editing tools (like creating of a 4-point segment with just one click/drag of a selected region in Ableton and Cubase). 
• The maximum steepness of automation curves created by ALT+dragging should be drastically increased.
• Improved smart visualization of close-together automationpoints and overlapping/directly-overlapping points. Really helpful for better overview and editing.
• Optional setting: Automatic hiding of Automation Points, when not editing the Automation Lane. Especially helpful when being zoomed out a lot, because then, Bitwigs Automation Lane looks like a mess: 
  If Automationpoints would be hidden (and only shown upon mouse-hover-over or editingmode), users could see the actual automation lines.

• Automation Editing Tools: Please add geometrical envelope drawing tools like in Cubase. Such tools (like a Line tool, Parable, Sinus, Square, etc) are much more powerful than just inserting static envelope shapes, especially because they can be adjusted in amplitude and frequency on the fly – AND applied to other areas of the DAW, like creating a strumming on piano roll notes via the line tool within half a second! Adding such drawing tools would 100% fit into Bitwigs decision to go for a set of key-modifiers for tools (1-5), and there’s much room left for additional tools.

Bitwig already has advanced tools to draw specific shapes. Altering those to line, parable, square, sinus, triangle, etc. would perfectly fit the Automation Lanes of the Arranger and Editor.

The “Curves” Browser should open after rightclicking a selected Automation-Region (or via Shortcut) to quickly insert the chosen Shape!

• Add a vertical snap shortcut/ModifierKey to quickly snap to the default value of the current parameter when an automation point is selected/being dragged. (0.0db for Volume, etc.)
• Add Batch-Creation of Automation-Points based on the currently selected Grid! This mechanic already exists for Batch-Creation of Clip-Snippets: When the knife tool is active, and ALT is held down, while horizontally dragging the mouse across the Clip, it gets cut along the Grid. Same for Automationpoints please.
• Add a shortcut for “Delete Automation of Selected Clip” = Great for Live Performance.
• Latch Automation Mode (Punch In and Out) for Clips in the Launcher = Essential for recording automation movement into Looping Clips via external controller.
• Shortcut for “Show all Automation Lanes” in the Editor, so we can see ALL used Automation in the Editor. Seeing several Lanes of Automation in the Editor is very important for detailed Midi Editing. For example: Seeing Sustain Pedal, Velocity, Expression and Modulation at the same time is a MUST for working with sample libraries. For Synths, it’s many more parameters at once! 🙂
• Option to quickly “bounce in place” modulator-based-automation into the automation lane, via the inspector or some other region of the interface, including a ‘preview’ picture, or better yet a live-preview line visible within the automation-lane.
• Bitwig would be a perfect fit for having Automation Clips as optional way to use Automation Lanes. (Example of how Automation Clips look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGGj98D5Pc ) This kind of workflow could be combined with:
• a) Modulation Bounce: Bouncing the modulation of Modulators into an Automation Clip, which then is saveable into Bitwigs Browser, of course.
• b) Inserting Automation Clips (=Envelope-Clips) from Bitwigs Envelope Browser directly into the Automation Lanes, via rightclicking a time-selection region within an AutomationLane. The Clip then can be inserted RAW without change, or Stretched depending on the length of the time-selection.
• Option to color Automationlanes based on Track color, which is both beautiful and useful for overview.
• Option to color Automationlanes
• Automationlanes should be clickable entities, with their own Inspector region for Colorization, Read/Write Buttons, and an Option to set the automation smoothing fade time (currently about 10ms, and unchangeable), especially for Volume Automation Lanes of Bitwig. The most elegant and powerful solution could be a valuebox for automation smoothing in the inspector for each automation lane of Bitwig. Another ‘good enough’ solution could be via the Bitwig Settings: One Valuebox for Volume Automation Lanes, One Valuebox for all other Automation.
• When Automationlanes are clickable/selectable, the Keyboard Shortcuts for zooming in/out vertically should also work for one single Automationlane. This would be great for mouse-free precise editing. Right now, Zooming into Automationlanes is only possible when a) zooming into the whole Track, and b) zooming into all other Automation-Lanes.
• Automationlanes should be reachable via the arrow keys of the keyboard and a Modifierkey. Right now, when pressing Down on the Keyboard, starting from a Clip in the arranger, the next Clip in the next Track will be selected. It should be possible to dive into the Automationlanes via Keyboard, for instance via Modifier-Keys.
• OPTION to make Automation points snap to other points so you can return the automation easily to its previous value.
• Option to manually type in Automation-Point-Values with Alt+click, instead of a TRIPLE Click or Ctrl+Click. 
• Option to have “Read” and “Write” for the Automation Lanes of each Track, like in Cubase and other DAWs.
• Add slider to adjust the automatic reduction of Automation Points 

3. Needed Fixes: Fade Options for Recording, Cliplauncher Bugs, Recording-Dropouts, Undo greyed out

• Recording audio leads to obvious blips/glitches at the Beginning, when starting a clip-recording in the Launcher, while a sustained note is already coming in before the recording starts. Please fix this ASAP. (Wouldn’t be a problem if Clips already had a FADE button like in Ableton)
  a) Add “FADE” as default setting for Audioclips, exactly like in Ableton, to prevent audible Clicks at the beginning of Audioclips! But unlike Ableton, please enhance this feature by letting users decide the amount of this automatically activated (non-destructive) FADE. Also, please make this function accessible via shortcut and via the API, so users can quickly decide when to turn it off/on in a live performance setup. Lush Pads will need it to be active, punchy Kicks might need it turned off.
  b) Add Option to set the default fade length for recordings in general! 
• Please allow us to use the Ctrl+F Shortcut for Autofade on Clips (=Clip Containers) in the Launcher! 
• Clips should not lose synchronization after resuming Playback! Bug description here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ROaByqhFtI 
• Another Bug, concerning dragging/copy&pasting several clips:
  When selecting several clips  of different Tracks within a group, dragging them into another group does not work properly. It only works when dragging one clip at a time. This is costing a lot of time, and seems like a bug / unexpected / unwanted behavior. 🙂 Multi-selection-dragging from group to group works for several selected Clips which are inside of one single Track, to another single Track of another group, or by dragging the whole Group-Scene. But that’s no workaround for just dragging specific clip-selections.
• Hard instant crash of Bitwig, happening when dragging Clips across Grouptracks in the Cliplauncher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snD_Nmv7aP4 
• Since 5.2, the default option for GPU Hardware Acceleration, Direct 3D, causes severe graphic glitches, when using Bitwig on a Laptop, which has an external Monitor attached to it via USB (HDMI) Hub which is set to be the “main monitor” via Windows Settings. Glitches usually start with pop-up windows, like the CPU Meter or EQ Float Window.
• Undo/Redo, Cliprecording and Auto-Arm should work, while recording into the Arranger is active! This is absolutely essential for live-performers who want to a) perform live via the Cliplauncher with the full undo-redo-workflow of Bitwig b) record their performance at the same time.
• Undo/Redo also doesn’t work, when Midi Clip Overdub is active!
• likewise essential: When recording into the arranger is active, and at the same time you record Audio or Midi into a Clip-Slot of the Launcher, the Audio or Midi-Notes are not “passed through” and not recorded into the Arranger. Only Midi-CC(Automation) is recorded into the Arranger, while Clip-Recording is active. Notes and Audio are ‘swallowed’ by the clip-recording. Notes and Audio should no longer be ‘swallowed’ by the clip-recording and land in the Arranger-Recording, too.
• Both undo/redo and passing through cliprecordings is working in Ableton by default!
• When “Auto-Arm” is set to “on”, it should be on. Right now, as soon as recording into the arranger is active, “Auto-Arm” is set to “off” even though the interface shows “on”. Apparently this is supposed to be a “protection mechanism against missclicks”, but IF someone would be fearful of accidentally changing record-lanes while recording, he/she could simply deactivate Auto-Arm in general! 
  
• Please fix the Waveform-Jitter-Bug. It’s making Bitwig look unprofessional, and it’s distracting to work with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozp-VNR7nKg 

4. Improvement of Touchcontrol

• Please fundamentally improve Touchcontrol: There are so many functions which are not available via touch, and which unnecessarily force us to go back to the mouse. The Bitwig way of touch control has its advantages in some specific areas, where the radial menu shines – but there must be a quickly accessible and assignable toggle button to deactivate it whenever needed, which in my case would be most of the time. We could then enjoy normal mouse left and right click via touch, and whenever needed, we could temporarily activate the radial menu, or the tools sitting at the numbers 1 to 5. Or even a new additional smart function, which, when activated lets us grab those tiny areas more easily, which are usually only grabbable when you hover over them with your mouse. By the way, such momentary or toggle buttons on a controller activate functions faster than having to press and hold and then choose something within the radial menu. With your left hand you decide what tool to choose, with your right hand you use it immediately at the same time. This would lead to the best touch experience in any DAW. Because it would finally combine the best of both worlds: every mouse function, every Bitwig tool, and the awesome Bitwig radial menu. Being able to customize the radial menus would also be great.
• Here’s a list to show how impaired touch control is, and what functions should be accessible:

• Right now, you are unable to make normal selections of many clips, notes, audio events etc. by drawing a diagonal line, like you’re used to since years of using a mouse or a tablet. 
• You can’t audition notes by touching/clicking them.
• You can’t use the knife tool or any other tool which isn’t part of the radial menu. Sadly, pressing the numbers 1 to 5 to activate those tools doesn’t work in combination with touch. 
• You can’t use lots of other functions which are part of the right-mouse-click menu. Ironically that’s something you can reach in Ableton and even in Cubase by holding the touch for a second. 
• You can’t pin all shortcuts of the shortcut list in the preferences to the Bitwig-Toolbar. -> Would be great for mouse-control, too.
• You can’t grab automation points and drag them! Of course you can draw automation in, just like in Ableton after activating the pen mode, but you can’t grab and drag any automation – which you can in Ableton, and even Cubase. 
• You also can’t use any functions which are usually accessible via mouse-hover-over, like grabbing fades, grabbing clip-gain, loop selection size (grabbing start or end, not drawing!), cue markers, etc. and many more. 
• Even when using a Pen, it’s still incredibly hard to even hit the “fade in/out” region, so this region has to be increased in size. And the Clip-Gain Region needs an option to be permanently turned off/on via Shortcut! To prevent accidental changes of Clip-Gain.
• Video summary of those touch control issues: 10:37 to 14.45 in that video: https://youtu.be/oLDshsHmLYo?si=OcjPwNyL_fzAZt8o&t=636 Correction of the vid: Clips can be selected without launching them, by holding the touch.
• When using a pen, it’s inconvenient/an obstacle having to open a dropdown menu to reach the tools (pointer, knife, etc.)
• When using touch in general, it’s inconvenient/an obstacle having to open a dropdown menu to reach the gridline and grid settings for the arranger or the piano roll.
• The Radial Menu should be customizable in a very in-depth way: a) all shortcuts, including all left/rightclick actions of the mouse should be available for assignment – b) The count, the size/scaling and the positioning of main and sub-sections of the radial menu should be customizable. Not only to include more functions, but to give users the ability to adjust the sub-section (functions which work via a second finger/drag action) to their physical hand and finger-size and flexibility.

5. Please give users additional API functions

• Full access to every aspect of Bitwigs Arranger
• Clip playback progress, or the length of each clip, so the clip playback progress can be calculated. Would be awesome! Especially for a OSC Touch Interface 
• VU meter value in decibel, 
• VU peak hold level in decibel (!) 
• VU peak hold level reset function (!) 
• VU Meter for Muted Tracks! Right now, Muted Tracks on OSC interfaces show the ‘normal VU Meter’ while in Bitwig it is greyed out. 
• Grid-Settings! (Measure of beat time grid, beat grid subdivision, snap to grid, adaptive grid, snap to grid offset, snap to events) would be awesome to have, because those Settings could permanently be shown with their true on/off status in a OSC interface, improving Bitwigs experience alot, because even in Bitwig one doesn’t have an overview of all those toggles, without clicking around! Having those OSC Addresses would fundamentally improve the experience of controlling Bitwig!)
• Browser-API-Access to “Play at original speed / stretch to project tempo” button 
• Please Update the API for the Browser to reflect the changes done since 5.0 – otherwise, controller scripts like drivenbymoss osc script are broken.
• Please fix Group-Color-Feedback which has been broken since Bitwig 2.4: Group-Clips not giving proper color. To quote drivenbymoss: “It seems that the behavior of the group clip color has changed in 2.4. A group clip now displays ALL colors of the sub-track clips in its’ right half (which is nice). When you try to set a color for it, simply all sub-clips are colored. So, it seems a group clip does not have a its own color anymore. Therefore, the color() property of the clip always returns grey, which results to grey-pads on Push, Launchpad, etc.” https://github.com/teotigraphix/Framework4Bitwig/issues/218
• Please give access to every part of the midi piano roll, which is necessary, to build a piano roll type step sequencer in an external controller (like Touch OSC).
• Please give access to the Track-Routing-Settings of the Mixer! So we can adjust routings on the fly, with just one button!
• Restore Automation Control needs to be accessible, so a Touch OSC interface button will light up, when it’s lighting up in Bitwig.
• No longer separate FX tracks and normal tracks into banks.
• Option to increase bank-size of Device, Track and Project Remotes

Clarity is more important than simplicity https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/why-simplicity-is-overrated-in-ux