Chapter 0. Welcome to Bitwig Studio
Welcome to Bitwig Studio! We are glad you have joined us and are excited to help you create, compose, polish, and perform your music. And welcome also to our Bitwig Studio 8-Track users! Bitwig Studio 8-Track is the entry-level version of Bitwig Studio that comes bundled with selected hardware products. All of Bitwig Studio's functions and resources are available in Bitwig Studio 8-Track so this user guide applies equally to both programs. The purpose of this document is to walk you through most of Bitwig Studio's functions and show you how to operate the program. The chapters and topics are arranged progressively, with basic concepts appearing first and advanced ideas showing up later. And although this document does not attempt to explain fundamental audio and musical concepts, it is written for users of any stripe who want to use software to make music. For an initial walk-through of Bitwig Studio, consult the Bitwig Studio Getting Started Guide. This separate document takes you through registering, downloading, and authorizing your copy of Bitwig Studio as well as getting your hardware devices running. It also provides an initial look at the concepts behind Bitwig Studio and a general overview of the program's interface. In addition to the Getting Started Guide and to this document, other resources will be mentioned when appropriate, the program itself offers a fair amount of documentation through tooltips, and you can always visitBitwig's website <http://bitwig.com> for the latest information. And please share any feedback you have or issues you encounter by visiting oursupport portal <http://bitwig.com/support>. In this chapter, we will begin with links to sections that have changed in this version and then a few pointers for those of you who started with an earlier version of Bitwig Studio. (As usual, some items may have shifted during the flight.) We will move on to theDashboard, which is more or less the command center of Bitwig Studio. Finally, we outline a few conventions that will be used throughout this document. But you will not make sound in this chapter; that is what the rest of this document is for.