A Microsoft Surface Pro 5th generation (2017) from a relative has landed in my hands, and I’m wondering what to do with it:
a) Nothing. I have enough screens in my life.
b) Install latest Bitwig for Windows and see how it goes. Caveat: let Microsoft enter my life.
c) Install Ubuntu (can be done), then latest Bitwig for Linux, and see how it goes.
Bitwig support for the Surface tablets was announced in 2015, and I wonder how the combo works almost a decade later, with Bitwig 5.* and 2017 hardware.
I also wonder whether there is any loss of compatibility, functionality or performance when trying the Linux route.
Mu hypothetical use case is to just play around and learn in the couch (instead of lazily watch videos about Bitwig or not) those evening when I’m not feeling like turning on my home studio for more engaged production.
5th gen Surface is rather weak for current Bitwig imo, as there has been a bit of a downgrade in DSP performance from 4.x to 5.x, especially should be notiecable on older hardware I presume. But for just messing with one Grid patch at a time, or doing mostly stuff with audio clips, it should be usable.
Just stumbled on this post. I have a surface pro 6 and the thinking of installing Linux and Bitwig as I pretty much only want to use it for Bitwig and mainly for the grid.
Create a Windows recovery USB drive (because I had no access to the original password, recovery key, Microsoft account…)
Go through all the Windows updates available (I ended up with Windows 11 from 2022 or something like that).
Create a plain Ubuntu USB drive.
After Ubuntu was installed, enable the Surface Linux kernel for touch etc.
Install Ubuntu Studio Installer, enable only the audio configuration tool, and then run it for the audio configuration tweaks.
Enable performance mode (although balanced seems to do fine too?)
Install Bitwig and enable the Tablet UI (although small display at 200% seems to be fine too; I need to play around more with both modes).
And that’s it. As a simple instrument it works. I hear some crackling with complex Grid presets but the system performance display doesn’t show clipping spikes, so maybe even that can be solved. In any case, the presets of various I have tried so far sound well, and many Grid presets sound too. And the whole experience is responsive, not sluggish. I haven’t tried to load complex projects or complex effects chains because that’s not why I want Bitwig in a tablet anyway.
Not bad at all for an old tablet that Microsoft tells you to dump!
Actually there is a problem with multitouch. The finger touches when playing chords etc are registered, but they clash with Ubuntu/GNOME 3-4 finger gestures…
