Syntronic automation in Bitwig Studio

[djxxdj]

I'm trying out the free version of Syntronic in Bitwig Studio. Since modulation is on of Bitwigs strengths I was disappointed that Syntronic has taken a bit of a black-box approach when compared to all other synth vsts that I use. Using the midi cc interface for controlling/modulating knobs in Syntronic seems not to be offered in the VST2 version of the plugin, and is only implemented in a limited fashion in the VST3 version.

In Bitwig the usual approach is for a plugin to show up as a small standard device UI in the device panel and you can open the plugins native UI by clicking a button. Control knobs are exposed in the small UI as a kind of dynamic list. When you click and rotate a knob in the plugins native UI, the corresponding knob in the small device UI moves to the top of the list and rotates in sync. And it works both ways. Rotating a knob in the device UI also affects the plugins native UI. Because of this dynamic list and two way relationship it is possible to modulate practically any parameter in a plugin using bitwigs large selection of modulators.

The problem with the implementation of Syntronic is that the midi cc list that appears in the device UI has generically named knobs and their order is static. So although I can map them to various parameters, it becomes very confusing to work with, scrolling up and down the list and trying to remember what each CC number represents in the plugin. In addition, rotating a knob in the Syntronic's native ui does not affect the knob device UI, which means once a CC mapping is set up, all manipulation of that parameter must be done outside the Syntronic UI using the generically named list of knobs in the device UI. This is not the way most other plugins work in Bitwig.

Based on the limited number of sounds in the free version I'm impressed with the quality of sampling and how the sounds can be controlled as if they were synthesized, but the lack of access to those parameters from Bitwig is probably going to stop me upgrading to the full version if I cant figure out a way around what I see as unnecessary limitations.

Has anybody else had similar experiences? Did you find practical workarounds?

thanks for reading
David

[jonetsu]

Hello,

I'm also demoing ST3 and Syntronic. As far as I can see, all of the Syntronic sounds are available in ST3. ST3 does expose its parameters to Bitwig. You might give it a try. If I'm not mistaken (new to this) the full ST3 version comes with synth sounds also which might be the Syntronic ones.

Cheers.

[DarkStar]

You are correct - Syntronik does not publish any plug-in parameters to the host so it cannot be automated in that way. But you can MIDI Learn MIDI CC#s to (up to 16?) knobs and control them using MIDI CC messages.

Have a look at the Syntronik User Guide 4.7

ST3 publishes Volume, Pan and the 8 Macro controls as plug-in parameters for automation. For other knobs you need to use "MIDI Learn", similar to Syntronik.