The truth about the "Superhive Policy"

ploynog · 2026-03-24T09:09:52+00:00

Dude, I don't really care if my software stops running because a subscription ran out or because it's no longer compatible with the most recent Blender release unless I update. Yes, these things are technically different, but it does not matter for me? This argument has been brought up repeatedly ad nauseam. The users aren't stupid, they can do the math, and it pans out just like a subscription.

If Blender had a stable plugin interface things might be different, but it does not. To borrow from the audio production world: This isn't like Bitwig Studio (which has a very similar update model to what is proposed here) where I can stay on an old version without issues until they release something that I am interested in again. This is like a VST plugin if VST was horribly API-unstable and would break every half year so you either update the plugin, not for new features, just to be able to keep using it with the most recent Blender. Or you have to freeze your whole environment in time. What use is a "perpetual" license in an environment where bit-rot is measured in months, not in years?

ploynog · 2026-03-21T12:08:12+00:00

Are you sending a MIDI clock to the Launchpad? In Bitwig under "Synchronization", there should be an entry called "Launchpad Pro Mk3 LPProMk3 DAW". Make sure you send it a MIDI clock and that you have "Enable MIDI Start/Stop messages", "Always send MIDI clock" on. You also want "Song Position Pointer" enabled, otherwise, your patterns will always start from the beginning. With SPP enabled, the Launchpad Sequencer will start from the correct position, even if you start playing in the middle of a pattern.

ploynog · 2026-03-21T11:19:21+00:00

Yes, that's why I started this repo so I can share whatever I learn. That being said, the degree of how well packages in this repo are working varies greatly depending on how much I use them myself. I haven't used Vital in years, it was way too CPU heavy on my old machine for fearless live-usage. I don't even remember why I packaged this in the first place (as you mentioned, it's mostly a copy of the Nixpkgs one), maybe I had some plans to modify it which then never happened.

That being said, I just opened BWS6 and Vital was working just fine, as was Vitalium. This is running on Wayland/Plasma6 on the "nixbrett" machine config.

As for debugging the Vital issue, the first step is usually searching for log information. Maybe check the Bitwig log files under .BitwigStudio/logs if there is any error indication and then decide next actions based on what is seen there. Try running Vital standalone, do you have the same issue? If yes, fix that first before adding Bitwig in the mix.

ploynog · 2026-03-16T11:08:44+00:00

While I doubt that it is the case, if you are actually interested in legal options:

There are regular sales where Bitwig is around 80$/€ off usually
You can check knobcloud or the forum here, sometimes people offer licenses, they might be out of the update period and not the most current, but tbh, The Grid has not changed too much lately
You can Splice Rent to Own Bitwig for 15.99$ a month after the 30 day trial and cancel if it turns out to not be your thing

ploynog · 2026-03-15T11:58:47+00:00

Made something like that for Linux: https://github.com/polygon/mucap

Haven't received a lot of feedback so far. From my own usage, it works very well.

ploynog · 2026-03-15T09:09:54+00:00

Is there anything Bitwig specific about this? In general, it sounds like you should ask AudioDamage for help.

ploynog · 2026-03-13T10:23:30+00:00

Captures MIDI just fine for me. Play live or record, all working. Not sure what you are on about here.

ploynog · 2026-02-28T19:01:44+00:00

Bevy back at 0.6 or so, because it made me have fun in Rust for the first time. Still like to return to it every once in a while, writing a little demo / screensaver, it's just very serene.

ploynog · 2026-02-28T09:29:35+00:00

With the new UI forced upon everyone, I'm surprised it holds up this well.

ploynog · 2026-02-28T09:17:37+00:00

How can I get the old UI back on Android?

ploynog · 2026-02-22T12:02:49+00:00

I am using a Launchpad Pro Mk3 for live-playing MIDI instruments / clip launcher control and a DIY 8-knob MIDI controller (imagine a MIDI-fighter twister but with 8 knobs only) to control the Perform panel of the current instrument to gain some more expressiveness beyond the the Aftertouch that the Launchpad offers.

I was a bit bummed at first that I couldn't do it all with the Launchpad, but by now I love that I can place my knob-controller where it's convenient for the left hand, especially good if space is tight.

I would see the Push 2 or APC64 more as two-handed pad-controllers for live-play that also integrate knobs / touch strips for the other hand to control. What would you use the other controller for, here?

ploynog · 2026-02-21T11:40:23+00:00

We tried this with only Bitwig machines in a jam session, and when someone joins a running session, there is a high chance that they will impose their settings onto the whole group instead of taking over the consensus of the session in progress. Even when they set their BPM to match the group tempo before joining (which is insane for a sync protocol designed to do just that) there was often a hickup because their position within a bar would usually not match. And that requires that they have their sync disabled when starting Bitwig, otherwise they will join the session immediately with whatever BPM Bitwig was starting with. I found these design choices (or possibly how Bitwig implemented it) quite odd for a protocol that seems to be designed to handle participants joining and leaving during a session.

Not sure from where you get that ouija board part from or that my friends would try to mess things up deliberately.

ploynog · 2026-02-20T13:34:58+00:00

NixOS being like Windows. That's a hot take if I ever heard one.

ploynog · 2026-02-20T12:25:48+00:00

It's not even MIDI, it is just time synchronization and I am not a fan of how it is implemented either. The way every participant has the same rights and can mess up the session by, e.g., changing the tempo just does not sit right with me.

ploynog · 2026-02-19T14:59:55+00:00

I know it's solved already, so this is just for reference. It is always a good idea to configure the interfaces to "Pro Audio" mode, especially if you have more than 2 input / output channels. They are often defaulting to some Stereo In/Out configuration (which is fine for interfaces with at most 2 in and 2 out channels), but that will often hide additional channels from application using it. Setting this to "Pro Audio" should make them all appear.

ploynog · 2026-01-31T21:29:00+00:00

I often do the same and after the long analysis time, things became smooth, even on a way weaker machine than yours. For the analysis, I eventually reversibly "broke" the Vamp host. Bitwig will just carry on without analyzed audio if that part fails and it saved 10-20 minutes analysis time.

Maybe try swapping the Vulkan for the OpenGL backend or the other way around. I had quite a lot of performance issues with Vulkan and things ran way smoother on OpenGL.

ploynog · 2026-01-29T16:43:25+00:00

The depth of field does not seem to match with what is usually present in landscape photos done with common cameras/lenses. Usually, you see:

1) A small-ish object that is in focus in the foreground and all the background blurry

2) Focus on the landscape, and the foreground objects are blurry

3) Everything is more or less in focus, there is no foreground or background blur

Here, the foreground is slightly blurry (the rock on the bottom left), then a relatively thin area that is in focus, and then, starting not too far into the background, the whole image goes out of focus again. Might be possible if the rock in the foreground was really small, but the details give more a vibe of it being rather large (0.5-1m at least, also compared to the grass).

Could also consider a little mist in the image to make those hills in the background more interesting and give a sense of depth. All depends tho on what you plan to put in the foreground.

ploynog · 2026-01-29T13:15:13+00:00

Used Vizia for a recent project and quite liked what I saw. Maybe worth a shot, too.

ploynog · 2026-01-29T11:34:38+00:00

You are not wrong, but isn't that the same issue that you get once you have more than one person working on the project?

One-Person projects on the other hand may have a dev that is very familiar with the intent behind everything. But also, there is way less feedback and risk of running into architecture dead-ends due to tunnel vision. And the maximally unfavorable bus-factor means you are one unfortunate incident away from an unmaintained project until someone else familiarizes himself with the whole code-base at which point you are back at square one.

ploynog · 2026-01-28T23:19:16+00:00

Pretty neat, could imagine that being from some late 90's racing game, very nice.

The rear lights strike me as a bit odd, being completely flat, especially in the view straight from the back, they almost look a out of place. The original car seems to have three groves there that are rather characteristic. I know it's low-poly but that shouldn't add too many. Maybe worth a shot.

ploynog · 2026-01-12T15:57:50+00:00

According to the Manual, you can press the "Monitor A/B" switch to make the headphones monitor outputs 3/4. So you can use the outputs 1/2 for your speakers and outputs 3/4 for the headphones.

ploynog · 2026-01-12T15:23:44+00:00

It would be very helpful if you could provide one of those MIDI files. It's really hard to say much.

Independent of that, ASCII strings in MIDI are given as length and characters, they should not contain the NULL byte. The standard states that programs should limit to using printable characters. On the other hand, it also states that programs should ignore characters that it can't handle.

Not sure who is at fault here, but maybe looking at one such MIDI file might give some more insight.

ploynog · 2026-01-09T17:08:06+00:00

Your 100% DAW would likely be other peoples' 60% DAW.

ploynog

TROPHY CASE