A possibility to switch between multiple arranger timelines and save them. Thus allowing to test out multiple arrangements or lay down different arrangements (e.g. a radio Edit, a Club Edit and a live version) without needing to split into different Projects.
What problem(s) would this feature resolve?
Easily compare different Arrangements and handle different Versions of a project.
How does this feature fit in Bitwig as a product?
It fits very well in the concept of Bitwig as a non-linear jamming DAW allowing to quickly and freely lay down arrangements with the clip launcher without having to commit to a final arrangement.
Is there already an alternative way to achieve this on Bitwig?
Yes, there are two workarounds.
One can simply start the second arrangement after the first. But this gets confusing quickly, is prone to error and automation handling is awkward.
Save the different arrangements as different projects. But this decouples both projects and mixing adjustments have to be done for each project separately.
One can save a whole arrangement as a Scene in the clip launcher.
This works ok, but will parse all clips from a track into a single big clip, thus loosing all information about separate clips or looping parts on the track
Could it be implemented using Bitwig components or APIs, without Bitwig team’s support?
Not better than described in the current possible workarounds.
Could it be provided by a VST or something else reasonably integrated with Bitwig?
@JakeX I’m so sorry for the silence. I have moved your draft to #features .
Is there a video or a web page where one can see how FL Studio implements this feature? It would be useful to add it.
Also, I was thinking. Why not copy all the notes/audio data of all tracks from the arranger to a scene in the clip launcher, and start creating new versions from there?
Usually the idea is to play around in the clip launcher and then finalize in the arranger. But this sounds like the other way around: use the arranger to create different versions that you store in the clip launcher as scenes. Then, when you are ready, record each scene separately.
This Workaround is actually quite a nice Idea, the best one yet.
Still this parses all clips into a single big clip, loosing information e.g. about looping clips. I.e. A one bar drum loop that is played for a part of the song will be transformed into a consolidated long clip.
I found a short video and added this and your new workaround to the post.
Yep this feature I also use in FL all the time. It is absolute gold. Sad that most people from other daws have not experienced this. 3 examples of what I love about this.
You can sound design in one arrangement window and copy over the results to your song(s) arrangements while keeping everything tidy. No more deleting things or moving things to the far right when things start getting overwhelming, like I have to do in Ableton. Sometimes Ableton I have to even make full on new projects just to keep moving on one track. It’s annoying and slows things down.
You can rearrange the same song in many ways without loosing the different arrangements or have separate projects. Then easily find what sequence of events hits harder, or whatever.
You can easily make many songs that use the same instruments and effects. Sorta of like a template but your album or EP. You could even bounce those tracks down and have a mastering arrangement window for play listing track order and the flip back to the tracks in progress.
Right above the song timeline there is this option called arrangements. It 's a drop down.
This next gif is a continuation of the video. See how you can endlessly duplicate your current arrangement and modify it or even create blank slates and copy elements and tracks from the other arrangements.
See at the end there i’m testing out an intro part on the current arrangement.
This all looks super foreign probably to non FL users. But keep in mind this is what the FL studio song time line looks like. They call it the playlist. Abelton calls arrangement i think. Either way. This is the arrangement window.
Put everything in a group, name it Arrangement-1 or something.
Duplicate that group. Name the new group Arrangement.2 or whatever.
Disable the group (aka Arrangement-1) you don’t need with Alt+A.
Then with this button (see picture) you can choose which group or arrangement should be displayed in the arranger window. Then work on the arrangement from there.
To switch between the arrangements you would need to select Project via this button and enable/disable the groups / arrangements accordingly.
Some minor annoyances, like the Master and the FX Send tracks won’t be shown if you entered the group.
But besides that I think this does exactly what I wanted.
Thank you!
EDIT: Nope, was too Enthusiastic. This of course duplicates the tracks, thus again changes in one track in Group A won’t be reflected in Group B.
Still a nice way to save an arrangement, but not the feature I dreamed off, where I would not have to duplicate and thus decouple tracks.
As a Fl studio user i give my thumbs up for this! It’s so freakin easy and nice feature in Fl studio. Just as stated above… you can so fast and easily try different arrangements in your song and maybe create different songs in to the same project using same instruments, just in separate arrangement windows.
Yep still need this. There is no good workaround. I wonder if bitwig would even take notice of this unless more people chimed in here and even emailed them idk. It’s one of those things you wouldn’t know you needed unless you used FL. Not a lot of people that learn FL leave it because they have to basically relearn a lot to hop into a linear fashioned daw.
Logic Pro has its own implementation of this. Nowadays we always have to turn out at least two final arrangements, so this feature would definitely help.
A side benefit of this implementation is that you can immediately see the actual length of each arrangement on the ruler bar. This becomes an annoyance when you have to keep multiple arrangements on one timeline.
