Getting Started: How To Use Next Actions in Bitwig Studio

Bitwig's Clip Launcher is a realtime companion to the Arranger, but it can also create arrangements in its own right. So triggering one clip can also set what we should "Do Next" time. And organizing our clips into blocks provides new worlds of opportunity. Glimpse what is possible, then make the Clip Launcher your own in Bitwig Studio.
Watch the other Getting Started videos: • Getting Started in Bit...
Contents:
0:00
0:55 What are Next Actions?
3:08 Changing multiple clips at once
4:36 "Clip blocks," for breaks options that don't repeat
6:46 A full arrangement, built with Clip Launcher
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[@NakulKrishna]

Bitwig: the only DAW that seems to understand the mindset of a musician. Never have to fiddle around with settings if I don’t want to, controllers come setup as soon as you connect, plugins have parameters mapped to the racks. And the modulation and poly grid stuff is pure gold. Can’t wait to keep watching you grow and evolve. Would love to see some love for video scoring features as this daw is perfect for sound design and composition.

[@publika6883]

Guys, I've tried your DAW and I liked it a lot. If you want me and many other producers and engineers to switch over from Ableton I suggest you implement the midi capture (retrospective recording) functionality, since once you try it it's hard to go back. Thank you and congratulations on your good work.

[@christianbeaumont5318]

I just had to look up what that is. sounds awesome.

[@publika6883]

@@christianbeaumont5318 It is fantastic.

[@christianbeaumont5318]

@Leonardo Castanheira I was thinking... dunno if you know Javascript, but I'm sure you could add something similar although it would be a bit of a hack. in the OnMidi function from the controller, you could stick the MIDI data in a circular buffer that alwatsys records the last x amount of time. then wire up two buttons, one to replay the buffer, and another to erase it maybe. anyway just a thought. I might try it out

[@ultrajayme]

I've been using bitwig for several years and love it but what I'd love that Ableton has is the feature that records everything you're creating so you can use happy accidents and not have to go back and remember how you did something.

[@konskift]

We all want the dulcet sensual tones of Dave L back!!!

[@Artek604]

And his soothing voice!

[@jeremjerem]

The latest videos tutorial about the sequencer is pure gold for me as Bitwig newcomer switcher from Ableton 👍 Great job, pls continue guys 😉

[@bitwig]

We will!

[@Artek604]

Good video, although it kind of shows that without proper Scene-level follow actions building more complex arrangement like this might prove less efficient than actually using Arranger, e.g. if you wanted the melody to go 1st, followed 2nd by bassline then you'd need to change Follow Actions in several places, instead of e.g. changing order of the Scenes. Not to mention it slowly starts to resemble programming and could be hard to debug with all the randomness and jumping between blocks :) Also, it would be awesome if Scenes could - visually - contain several clip slots per track, so that a block of clips that say play random breaks "fits" under one Scene, rather than "sticking out" to 4 consecutive scenes.

[@KnzoVortex]

I definitely agree with the last proposal.

[@TheServalt]

Last two videos were very informative covering basic DAW features keep it up bitwig!

[@Centomila]

I use Next Action in all my sketch tracks and i love it.

[@mapoart]

Great explanation! Thanks!

[@rogercawkwell5413]

Scenes don't seem to have follow actions, so that whole groups of clips jump at the same time. This is a feature I would definitely use.

[@DanWest8888]

Super grateful for this one - perfectly timed for my current process. I. Am. Edified!

[@sashanaiman]

Bitwig The Best of The Best !!!

[@MoonWalkersbin]

Danke! Weiter so!

[@christianbeaumont5318]

loving these new tutorials 😍

[@VogelKlein]

Thank you bitwig for lessons!

[@ultrajayme]

I've been using bitwig since 1.8 and I'm just NOW deciding to learning the clip launcher LOL

[@Hoergraete]

Just as a feature idea: Put in a 'block selection' drop-down list with the options 'same', 'other', 'random', 'first', 'last' and 'offset'. They are only available for the 'first', 'random' and 'last' next actions. For the 'offset' option there should be an (positive or negative, non-zero) integer value that lets you define the offset of the next block. If it's zero, it's the same block, if it's -1 it's the previous block and so on. This way you could spare some next actions but also provide greater flexibility for the selection of the block that is triggered next.

[@spelmastarn5235]

How did he switch between horizontal/vertical view at 0:49? In a tutorial, it’s best to assume the viewers don’t know these things so invisible kbd shortcuts are confusing.

[@vvcv__00]

I wanna give you, and Bitwig, a big fat kiss right now --even though i have donut, and Doritos, crumbs in my mustache and oily-matted long beard.

[@Drew_Vernon]

Why is there no 'reset current' next action? That would enable me to reproduce the digitakt behaviour where you have say 7/16 steps... but the M.LENGTH is set to 21... so every 21 16th notes, the track resets to step 1, regardless of where it currently is. This is the one thing I miss from this video.

[@mjaa1307]

Hello, is there a way to use Post Record Action and Post Record Delay on "Scenes" the same way they are used on Tracks? Thanks.

[@tahiche.]

What are blocks exactly?. How do you define what makes a block of clips?. Great video btw. Thanks!

[@ueberlicht_]

clips placed to each other wit no g a p then a a g a p where no clips are placed (empty space) THEN clips placed without gap to one another

[@dj-7154]

Thanks. Please can you a multi instrument rack video and a vocal video with essential factory plugin used for vocals. I've just left ableton for bitwig. I've not seen many vids for vocals. Thanks.

[@jwillbassist]

How to move the Scene launch to the right???

[@ZozillaThaGreat]

It's brilliant but i m scared to be lost at one point lol if i isten to my ideas /..

[@cryptout]

Interesting but I lost you completely when you introduced the "empty clips". When the music started playing it made sense though.

[@anthonyclark9004]

Out of curiosity, how do you switch between a horizontal or vertical layout of the scenes (clip launcher)? In the video, it looked like you used a keyboard command (the mouse wasn't used to trigger the change).

[@bitwig]

Simply hit the Tab key!

[@anthonyclark9004]

@@bitwig Thank you.

[@vintagetelefly]

Please make video editing avaliable like in reaper. Further, make multi take recording in arrange window possible. Then I would switch to bigwig soon.

[@bitwig]

Hi FINO, send us your feature requests here: www.bitwig.com/contact/

[@leonardocaminati6432]

Please introduce audio comping functionality, it doesn't make sense that a DAW doesn't do comping in 2020. If you are writing a song and you're trying out vocal lines, you've do duplicate the track all the time. It's so frustrating and nonsense.

[@justsomeguy8385]

I hope comping isn't going to be a 4.0 "feature." fwiw, there is a way to do comping of clips, but I haven't messed with that yet.

[@mysticalmusicmoments]

I love Bitwig, but I don't see an advantage of the clip launcher over the linear timeline.

[@bitwig]

The key is how their completely different workflows complement each other.

[@justsomeguy8385]

Is it possible to the random thing he did with the regular timeline?

[@bitwig]

@@justsomeguy8385 Next actions work for clips in the Clip Launcher, there's no concept for random clip playback on the timeline. What you can do is set up random actions and record it to the timeline.