Create a version for Bitwig

I’ve used Touchable for a few years now and I think what you’ve done for Live is incredible. You’ve elevated controller software to high bar indeed. However, Live is not quite the innovator it used to be and some of its limitations are starting to become an impassable hindrance to users. Bitwig, on the other hand, solves many of Live’s problems and is primed to be the premier DAW for electronic music producers. It also has an open API just like Live so it would be possible to build a controller.

I have seen this request on these forums before and the reply I’ve seen is “Bitwig supports touchscreen already.” While that’s literally true, interacting with Bitwig via a touchscreen isn’t even remotely close to what Touchable has to offer.

First off, not all of us have a Surface or another touchscreen monitor. I’m not convinced that they will be so commonplace as to replace tablets. A lot of us do have tablets. And ALL of us have smartphones.

Secondly, imagine trying to use your finger to move a knob in a device chain that is resized down to a touchscreen monitor. Maybe some people have pencil-tips for fingers but my fat sausages would get frustrated real quick. Selecting a device in Touchable brings up a tablet-sized version of THAT device and is super easy to manipulate multiple controls at once. It’s wonderful. I can’t even imagine being able to control two small knobs that are right next to each other on a touchscreen.

Thirdly, I often use Spitfire libraries. Orchestral libraries are built that you need to have one hand on a couple of sliders to control dynamics, the other hand playing the keyboard, and my eyes are looking the rest of the score so I get an idea on timings for cues (or watching a video). This is so easy for me with my ipad + Touchable over to the left and my DAW in front of me.

Which brings me to my final point. Touching the screen to move a knob or slider is only part of what Touchable has to offer. A huge part of what I love about Touchable is the ability to create my own, custom templates. In the example above I have a template with all my Spitfire controls on it. I can, whenever I wish, put all the controls I want all on one screen so I don’t have to switch back and forth between tabs and screens. That’s powerful and goes way beyond a touchscreen mirroring the Bitwig screen.

Surely you can see that Bitwig via touchscreen isn’t much of an overlap to the potential of Touchable for Bitwig. I beg you to consider putting this on your roadmap. I know many of my colleagues are switching to Bitwig. The time to capitalize on the migration is now. I love, love, love Touchable. I recommend it all the time. And I would GLADLY pay full price all over again for a Bitwig version.

Thank you,
Chuck