Add a pin button (
) to third-party plugin windows, which keeps the pinned windows open when switching tracks, when the “Floating windows follow current track” (FWFCT) option is selected.
There are a lot of situations where you would like to edit the settings of a specific plugin while having a different track selected. The FWFCT option is essential to many people’s workflow in order to avoid constantly opening and closing pop-up windows.
Detached Bitwig devices have this pin button, but third-party plugin windows do not. For example, with FWFCT selected, the expanded oscilloscope:
1 add an oscilloscope
2 press the “Show expanded device view” button
3 click to detach the window
4 press the pin button
This feature is mentioned as an afterthought in a request for window decorations, but this request is specifically for the pin feature only, none of the other parts of the existing ask.
What problem(s) would this feature resolve?
Workflow issues using third-party plugins.
A number of workflows would be improved by this feature:
-
More efficiently editing FX track settings – often, it’s desirable to use sends for effects like reverb or delay, but it’s important to edit the reverb or delay settings to match sound design of a track, this would allow both to be edited without jumping back and forth
-
Editing mastering settings while adjusting individual tracks – similarly, mixing and “mastering” are often intertwined, and having to jump back and forth between the master channel and others could be drastically improved to keep, for example, a master EQ open while editing track EQ to see how to adjust each
-
Using a track as a MIDI input pipeline – this could even be its own feature, but would not need any special handling since Bitwig is almost able to do this in a reasonable way: add a track, add midi plugins to the track, set to always enabled, on the track you want to record to, change input to this newly created track. But when FWFCT is selected, it is impossible to edit the plugins. As an example this would dramatically simplify getting resulting MIDI of an arpeggiator recorded, today it is typical to: load a third-party arpeggiator on a specific track, create a new track, record the midi to the newly created track, move the newly recorded midi to the original track, delete the secondary track, delete the arp.
-
Sound design sessions: always-visible oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, etc. without needing to add these to each individual track (this works today with the native devices)
How does this feature fit in Bitwig as a product?
This adds consistency to all floating windows opened in Bitwig.
Is there already an alternative way to achieve this on Bitwig?
Deselect “Floating windows follow current track” (FWFCT).
Could it be implemented using Bitwig components or APIs, without Bitwig team’s support?
No.
Could it be provided by a VST or something else reasonably integrated with Bitwig?
No.
Are there other products that offer this feature?
Bitwig’s native expanded device views offer this feature.