Looper & Live-Looping Functions

Community Wishlist
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Bitwig and its users would greatly profit from a Looper functionality,
where you can make audio overdub (and midi-track-overdub) with a quick workflow,
just like with a Loopstation. Ideally directly within the Cliplauncher.
By letting the user record automatically into the “next free scene slot”,
accompanied by a smart settings-region mimicing loopstation functions.
Record in next free scene slot
(click GIF if it’s not playing)

This Feature request consists of three more “post recording actions” and their respective settings, to achieve proper Loopstation functionality:

  1. “select next free slot” = Bitwigs Clip-Selection switches to the next free Slot of the same Track. You can record another take in the same track at a time of your choice without having to manually switch from clip to clip.

  2. “select next free scene slot” = Bitwigs Clip-Selection switches to the next free Slot of the NEXT Track. you can record at a time of your choice in the next track of the same scene without having to switch manually.
    This is semi-automatic audio/midi overdub with a flexible recording start!

  3. “record into next free scene slot” = you can immediately record into the next track without having to manually switch there and without having to press record.
    This is fully automatic audio/midi-overdub! Awesome! :slight_smile:

To really be a proper Looper/Loopstation, Bitwig also needs more settings for the activation of those “post recording actions”. Aside from the already existing “post record delay”, there must be:

  1. enable/disable post recording action = on/off for post recording action. Overrides all other options like “Post Record Delay” and “Loop Count”.

  2. Enable/Disable Loop count before Post Recording Action (default value is x1 = one clip length) = If active, the Post Recording Action is triggered immediately when the current clip recording is ended by pressing the Record button. If the value is greater than 1, the clip is repeated a corresponding number of times, and then the Post Recording Action is triggered.

  3. Enable/Disable first Clip sets Post Record Delay count = If enabled, the first clip recorded determines the clip length of all subsequent clips. Can only be enabled if Loop count is on and therefore Post Record Delay is off. As soon as the length of the first clip has been determined by ending the recording with the Record button, and Loop count has been processed (at x1 immediately, at x2 after repeating the clip once, etc.), Loop count is deactivated and Post Record Delay is activated with the bar length of the first clip.

  4. Enable/Disable auto-adjust Clip-Length = Automatic shortening of the clip length, in case Record was not pressed in time, but a few milliseconds (up to one beat) after the desired bar length has elapsed. This subsequent automatic shortening by -1 bar (I’m assuming 1 bar Launch Quantization) would also work wonderfully together with “3. enable/disable first Clip sets Post Record Delay count”, since the bar count for Post Record Delay can also be changed while recording is running.

All mentioned settings/functions must be midi-assignable, to be quickly useable in a live-performance.

What problem(s) would this feature resolve?

Bitwig has no audio overdub, and no Looper, and no possibility to automatically switch between Tracks to make quick Midi-Recordings with different Instruments. There is also no way to midi assign Bitwigs Post Recording Actions!
These are huge problems for any live-looping-artist, which would ALL get solved AT ONCE. :slight_smile: Besides, the audio overdub with the new post recording actions would be better than usual audio-overdub methods, since it’s non-destructive, and therefore the user can keep each audio-layer for further mixing and editing.

How does this feature fit in Bitwig as a product?

Adding better live-looping functions would greatly improve Bitwigs live-performance. It’s a perfect fit.

Is there already an alternative way to achieve this on Bitwig?

No.
There is no way to make automated audio overdub, automated midi-instrument-overdub for different tracks, and no way to adjust the recording settings to mimic a loopstation.
There is “some sort of” audio-looper which has been made for the Grid, but it doesn’t provide a proper loopstation functionality, as described above.

Could it be implemented using Bitwig components or APIs, without Bitwig team’s support?

No. Please help us, dear Bitwig! :slight_smile:

Could it be provided by a VST or something else reasonably integrated with Bitwig?

No, since this Feature request specifically adresses a DAW-internal solution.

Are there other products that offer this feature?

UPDATE: Great News! I have built a Looper for Bitwig with an external controller software called Touch OSC! Around 70% of the Features i described above can be achieved with it :slight_smile: But this doesn’t “undo” the feature requests above - to the contrary, it just shows in a very visual and direct way, how a “Looper Panel” within Bitwig could look in the future :wink: So basically, you’re voting for integrating what my Looper can do (and more!) directly into Bitwig, so we don’t need any external controller software and can use Bitwigs Midi Assignments for all Looper Buttons!

Relevant links (optional)

In this video, i describe the Feature Request. Start with minute 17 to skip the introduction. The only thing missing in the video is the detailed description of the necessary settings, which you can read above.

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i second this! would be nice

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This is what i need for the most in Bitwig! All the modulation possibilities and such improvements are cool, but as a person who plays a lot of acoustic instruments the audio overdub is so much needed feature! It would be so nice, easy and intuitive to loop guitar example, then switch instrument and record more…

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@nowiamone your feature request is basically about fully copying an existing product. Wouldn’t it be better to define the generic characteristics of a looper?

Also, I know it’s not the same, but what about creating a bunch of tracks with whatever instruments or audio inpits you want to assign to each, mute all of them except the first (and/or arm just one track at a time), press record (with or without overdub) and then mute/unmute and pause / resume recording as you see fit? These basic actions can be sent over MIDI with a controller so maybe you would even find a way to do this hands free.

EDIT: I found a couple of examples.

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I think this is not copying a product, but implementing a long-existing idea of automating recordings, which no one can claim a copyright to, and which in this particular form does not exist in any other product, not the RC505, not Loopy Pro, not any m4l device. They are all very similar, but no other product on the market would be like a Bitwig which has the above functions in this particular combination. A full scale DAW which inherently has full Loopstation abilities doesn’t exist (yet), hence my Feature request :slight_smile:

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I think by defining the three new record-functions with their 3 to 4 new settings, i defined the characteristics of a Looper - in the context of being usable in Bitwig - pretty much. Or would you have prefered a more general characterization? I feared in doing just a general “please add a Looper into Bitwig” and hoping for Bitwigs team to then bake up “something” based on the “general idea of what a looper is supposed to be” would be far less efficient and productive, than stating exactly how Bitwigs already existing features would perfectly blend into a fully capable loopstation. I tried to make the whole idea “tasty” for Bitwigs developers in that way, so to speak, because it’s building 100% upon Bitwig-specific Features (Cliplauncher, Post recording actions). I personally would never upvote a generic type Feature Request like “please add a looper into Bitwig”, because this could result in pretty much everything, like a copy of Abletons Looper Device, which would be aweful, and would imply having to write additional Feature requests in the future…

Thanks for your Youtube examples, those are exactly the types of workflows which are “not it”. There’s a huge gap between being able to do audio overdubs manually and automatically - i guess that’s the whole point of this Feature request, to fill that gap. Loopstations are nothing more than workflow boosters of what you see in those youtube videos, but for anyone who worked with them this workflow booster means everything. Yes, it is possible to “loop” in Bitwig, but “not really”, compared to a standard loopstation workflow, which is faster. And there are no workarounds, no shortcuts, no midi assignments (post recording actions literally can’t be midi assigned, and aren’t flexible enough) which can get close to the speed and efficiancy which would be possible with true semi-automatic / automatic looprecording. :slight_smile:

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I’m not saying you should write only one sentence. :slight_smile:

Feature requests tend to work better when they focus on the problem, not the specific implementation of a solution. It is good to trust the development team on a good implementation. The Bitwig team has a very good track implementing a DAW, and this is why we are using it.

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Well i’m a bit lost now. Many feature requests on this site mention the specific implementation already. And the only reason it’s not as noticeable is that they are comparatively simple.
Example: Midi capture: “in practice Bitwig would keep the latest MIDI input in the buffer memory and recall it by pressing a dedicated button in the DAW (and for example creating a new clip out of it).”
In general, i see other Feature Requests already on bitwish, which also have implementation suggestions. Like the Chopping / slicing audio in the Sampler.

But i admit, my FR is really long and in depth.
If the only chance this gets approved is me deleting my suggestions, i will. Or should i just shorten everything?
I thought it makes sense to suggest Feature Requests on this site, literally, very precisely. I mean those are just wishes after all, and what Bitwigs team will make out of it, is of course their own decision - and i would trust them to do an even better implementation. But i m almost 100% certain it’s much more interesting for them to read this “in depth nerdy implementation suggestion” than a general description of a looper. :sweat_smile:

EDIT:
In case you’re coming from ‘inside information’ that Bitwigs team doesnt like such detailed suggestions at all, then i will rewrite the whole thing immediately, haha
Oh, now i saw you approved it already! Thanks alot.

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When I explained Bitwish to the Bitwig team they explicitly suggested us to focus on defining problems, what users wanted to achieve and couldn’t. It’s a pretty standard approach to user feedback.

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while we’re at it:

• why not connect these simple additions to grid functions like lfos, function generators, logic operations,
sequences, random operations, etc

• define playback behaviors to add disintegrating loops a la some looper pedals out there

the integration of these would make the best looper ever made that would leave any hardware or software looper in the dust.

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As someone who’s spent A LOT of time building my own loopers, this suggestion of post record actions is sick! Using the clips like this would be amazing. Just wanted to add my support :pray:

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Yes YES YES YES
got so into bitwig but now so frustrated now that I’ve gotten into arranger view
I want to be able to record a first clip with a length of my choosing, and then base subsequent clips of that length (2x, 3x, .5x that length) etc. Gawd it’d be amazing if bitwig could do that

Ableton can kinda do it with setting project tempo based on a first loop. And now I’m considering switching to ableton but I really don’t want to urghh. Been even trying to design something in the grid that can do it but idk if possible (probably not)

Frustrating that bitwig feels like it’s made for more straight ahead electro stuff rather than truly having live capabilities

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FYI, the “Looper Pro” device inside Guitar Rig 7 is alright. I’ve been playing with it for the last 3 days, and Ive managed to get it working perfectly after some tweaking. NI’s “MIDI learn” feature isnt working well in any DAW, but I figured out how to make a macro and map that macro using Bitwig, then connect my sustain pedal to that macro. It can do preset loops(2-16 bar), endless loops, auto-growing loops, export loops in mixdown, export loops in stems, and has 2 decks (A/B). It is somewhat limited in that you cannot edit looped layers separately and can only back up 1 loop at a time, and you cant play deck A and B at the same time, but its a good looper.

I would say, the name of this should be Looper and not Looper Pro, lol. Maybe Bitwig devs can make the real “pro” looper!

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Interesting, thanks for sharing! I don’t have the money for buying it - will have to check it out next year, when i upgrade the whole komplete collection in a sale :slight_smile: It would just be interesting to try it out for fun. But anyway, I’d prefer the “Bitwig Cliplauncher-Looper”, hehe.

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Dear Looper-Fans, i have great news for you: I’ve built a Looper for Bitwig in Touch OSC :slight_smile: This is an external controller software - and it’s not free, but i’ve put a lot of work and passion into it. So maybe you’ll like it! It’s also a nice way to show Bitwig in a very visual way, what this Feature request here is all about! Imagine having what i’ve built directly within Bitwig, as kind of new “Looper Panel”! 5-6 of my Loopers as a midi assignable panel in Bitwig would be a dream :smiley:

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One of the main reasons I started making music this year was seeing an artist who used live looping for their music and it blew me away. After doing research into DAWs, Bitwig appealed the most to me with regard to learning curve, UI, and customer support. I was pretty bummed out when I discovered that it doesn’t have a dedicated live looping feature like other DAWs.

Reaper are the kings when it comes to live loping, and I really think it’s the kind of feature that would get Bitwig on the map a bit more with more artists. At this point it’s one of the few major functions it’s missing. I really hope they release some form of integrated live looper soon.

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Hello, i hope you let them (Bitwigs Team) know about this :slight_smile: Every email sent to them about this helps!

By the way, depending on which artist you saw, it might be the case that his/her workflow can be achieved with VSTs within Bitwig already. MSuperLooper by Melda Productions is imho the best software VST looper on the market, concerning the broad spectrum of functions. I mean, even Looping-Grandmasters like Beardyman have been using VSTs like AugustusLoop, and not even the Ableton Looper, despite using Ableton! In my opinion, it’s even a great chance that Bitwig does not have a (bad!) Looper Plugin like Ableton, because then they could answer “but there is a looper already” - and now there’s still a chance that they might start working on a better solution, which is superior to Abletons Looper, more tightly integrated (and hopefully recording in the launcher directly).

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We may consider thinking about this problem differently, and I hope Bitwig is ahead of me on this by several years of development.

Loop jamming on continuous loops is fine, and there are plenty of options to accomplish that via plugins. Looping with clips is suitable in many situations, except when an artist would like to record hands-free. I love the TouchOsc solution above because it enables hands-free looping in Bitwig, allowing seamless transition between audio and MIDI sources without having to use a controller. Thats great! I use a similar approach in Ableton using ClyphX, but I’ve run into some roadblocks there too.

Frankly, there is an oversaturation of one kind of approach to looping in software, and it’s that it aims for some semblance of parity with hardware loopers.

What is missing for me are more options for arrangement-based live-looping, which isn’t super practical using most of the solutions I’ve seen/used, and the vast majority of those options are limited to looping audio.

The only one that comes close is the Nabla Looper extension for Reaper which actually extends the DAW’s functionality directly (super awesome, and something I’ve not seen possible in other DAWs), however Reaper appears to follow an older signal-path model for effects that I don’t want to go back to. I don’t have much experience with Reaper to make a decent comparison.

By contrast, the ALK2 model for looping was brilliant. They introduced the concept of a track being the looper itself. Red border means record. Green border means playback. You can record as many loops on a track as you like, but can only play them back one loop at a time per track. Overdubbing is achieved by creating new tracks. You can record multiple loops at the same time. Playback can be as long or short as needed, and the playhead can start from anywhere in the loop, creating opportunities for re-arrangement using live-recorded material.

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A loose analog to this model is how I work in Ableton: The Looper device, judicious use of looper state automation, and ClyphX to fill in the gaps… and it’s as annoying to work with as it sounds. Moving things around and being creative gets stifled in technical hangups. To “start the playhead from anywhere”, you need another instance of Looper, except you start recording where you want the playhead to start playing later. I’ve learned to deal with the drawbacks for the sake of stability, but damn do I miss ALK2 for its innovative thinking (for those who don’t know, Zen Audio closed up shop and left ALK2 as abandonware).

So, it has more less cemented for me: What’s missing from Bitwig, Ableton, and nearly every DAW is first-class support a new track type beyond Audio and MIDI… and the first to create this new track type wins, IMO. If we could have that in a DAW built for live performance, it would be a slam dunk.

  • Audio track
  • MIDI track
  • Loop track
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Hello,
thanks for reminding me of this aspect of looping. The pre-arrangement which is possible in ALK2 is great indeed. I think this is something which has to be written to Bitwigs support, because despite your statement “i hope Bitwig is ahead of me on this by several years of development”, i’m quite sure they haven’t even considered implementing this awesome feature yet. This is something which has to be asked via their support email many times, before they do something (just my humble opinion). :slight_smile:

Concerning Ableton+Clyphx: i know the pains of settings this stuff up, and i absolutely despise the lack of visual clarity/feedback. ALK2 had this awesome visual clarity and visual feedback about what’s happening, was really amazing. However, ALK2 would have never satisfied my overall needs concerning a DAW, effect chains, modulation, loading custom VST presets, and so on.

Also, the biggest and most obvious downside of ALK2 has to be mentioned: its total lack of proper normal looping functions. It is a very niche Software for pre arranged songs only, and doesn’t cover the whole spectrum of what looper workflows usually offer.

So the best future solution would indeed be a perfect integration of what ALK2 does into Bitwig, via Looper-Tracks. And Bitwig getting proper Loopstation capabilities.

By the way for Windows, the concept of ALK2 is still alive, via “Loop to Go” (looptogo.com). It’s a very rudimentary software though, and i won’t use it.
In case you want to discuss looping more, feel free to hit me up on discord Discord

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March 8, 2025 and still not looper functionality of this sort. Seems like a ntural feature if you have a clip launcher. I love the DAW but this looping capability has my wondering why any kind of implementation is being ignored.
I keep looking at Ableton but can not afford it right now and am already invested in this.
Just wanted to write this to bring the topic back up in hopes something will be implemented.