Bitwig Studio 6.1 (macOS)

Bitwig Studio 6.1 works on Macs running macOS 12 Monterey or later. Both Intel and Apple Silicon machines are supported, so it should run on the Mac mini M2 sat on my desk at home and on the iMacs in the music suite at school.

Good for:

• Composing, recording, editing and performing music — a full digital audio workstation.
• Electronic music production, especially if you use MIDI controllers like ROLI Seaboard or LinnStrument.
• Non-destructive clip editing via the Detail Editor; change individual clips without altering the source.

Keep in mind:

• It is not a light-weight sketchpad; expect to spend time learning the workflow.
• MPE support means expressive MIDI controllers work, but only if your hardware sends it.
• Automatic tempo and pitch detection in 6.1 speed up working with audio imports, but results vary with source material.

One workflow: turning a drum loop into a playable instrument

This is the kind of thing the updated Sampler in 6.1 makes straightforward. Start by dragging an audio drum loop into the project. Right-click the clip and choose "Commit to Sampler." The new Sampler opens with the loop loaded.

From the play mode menu, choose Slices. The transient detection finds the hits automatically — kick, snare, hi-hat. Each slice maps to a key on the keyboard. Play the MIDI controller or draw in notes, and each hit triggers individually, out of the original order.

For something less rhythmic, switch to Spectral play mode. The audio is broken into frequency bands rather than time slices. Hold a chord on the keyboard and the loop sounds different on each note. It turns a single drum loop into a texture.

The Fragments mode is the oddest of the three. It chops the sample into tiny, overlapping pieces and plays them back in a randomised order. Adjust the Fragment Size and Density controls in the Sampler panel. Low density leaves gaps; high density fills the space like granular synthesis.

Record the MIDI output to a new clip and you have a part that sounds nothing like the original loop.

Scenario: a school music tech booking a live set

Simon runs the after-school electronic music club at a secondary school in Bristol. He has eight students, four MIDI keyboards, and one session to get a piece ready for the autumn showcase. They have been building a track in Bitwig Studio over several weeks.

On the day of the session, Simon opens the project in the Edit workspace. Each student has a separate clip lane for their part. The bass line needs a filter sweep, so Simon draws a modulation line onto the Filter Cutoff of the bass instrument. He does not write automation clips; he uses the modulators built into the device itself. One of the students wants the snare to change pitch over eight bars. Simon assigns a Note Pitch modulator to the snare's Sampler, and it tracks the MIDI note automatically.

The club's track goes into the showcase with parts that change every few bars, and nobody had to write automation by hand.

Friday evening: building a track from scratch

Friday evening. Mac on, audio interface on, MIDI keyboard on, headphones on. Open Bitwig Studio. The Arrange workspace is the default view.

First, lay down a kick drum. Drag a kick from the built-in sound content to a new track. The device chain shows the kick with its envelope and filter. Click the Modulators tab and drop a LFO onto the Filter Cutoff. The kick starts to pulse. Turn the LFO rate down to something slow — every four beats — and it becomes a breathing thump.

Next, record a short chord stab on a polysynth. The notes are not tight. Double-click the clip to open the Detail Editor. Drag the note starts to snap to the grid. Bitwig's non-destructive editing means the original performance is still there underneath; I could pull the notes back off the grid later if I wanted.

Switch to the Mix workspace. The faders and sends are laid out horizontally across the screen, like a hardware desk. Pull the kick down by 3 dB so the chords sit in front. Add a Reverb send to the chords, set it to a small room, and turn the send up until the chords sit back in the mix.

Back in the Arrange workspace. The browser on the right holds clips, presets and devices. Drag a pre-made bass sequence from the browser to a new track. The clip already has note velocity and pitch data. Adjust the bass notes in the Detail Editor — change a couple of notes to follow the chords. Bitwig Studio records every edit non-destructively, so I can undo any wrong change.

The session ends with a rough arrangement: intro, verse, chorus, outro. No bounce, no export. Save the project and close. The file is small — a few kilobytes of project data, the rest is references to sounds in the library.

• Radically updated Sampler with slicing
• New Spectral and Fragments play modes
• Automatic tempo detection added
• Automatic pitch detection added

• macOS 12 Monterey or later
• Intel or Apple Silicon processor
• English interface language