Bitwig Studio - Bitwig Device Library for NKS-like Integration without Komplete Kontrol

Kymeia

Bitwig Studio has device panels which are rather like NKS mappings but with several advantages. For a start the editor for creating them is much more flexible than Komplete Kontrol's NKS editor as you can freely move around pages and also map the same param to multiple pages (eg if you want to create a Perform panel at the front). Also panel mappings can be per preset or per device, and as you can use the Bitwig browser to browse presets for many plugin formats, including all u-he plugins and most CLAP format plugins (which have built-in preset discovery), this means not having to save potentially hundreds of patches as NKS. The system works equally well with Bitwig native devices (which are pre mapped) and plugins and supports any plugin format Bitwig supports, not just VST/VST3 but also CLAP.

If you also use the MOSS extension for Bitwig you get the additional benefit of not only being able to directly control params using the Keyboard knobs (something you can do with the built-in NI script) but also visualising them live on the keyboard display (which goes one better than NKS) and can swap between this and the mixer view. eg:

So with this in mind I setup an online repository for Bitwig Device panels along similar lines to the NKS User Library here, and got a thread going on the KvR forum to encourage other users to contribute - some have gone on to create dozens themselves and setup their own repositories to share them, so we have covered between us a lot of plugins by now (maybe as many as are NKS compatible?)

Instructions on how to import these into Bitwig are also in the KvR thread (post 1)

Kaiwan_NI

Thanks for sharing Kymeia!

Kymeia

If anyone is interested I recently added device panels for the CLAP version of most u-he plugins including the new Filterscape 1.5 - I chose the CLAP versions as these allow for additional interactions on a deep level with Bitwig modulators, vastly extending the capabilities of each synth and effect

Kymeia

I've added Device panels now for the new CLAP versions of Fabfilter Twin3, Timeless 3, Saturn 2, Pro R 2 and Volcano 3 - more to come, CLAP is really taking off now. The nice thing about the FabFilter CLAP versions is they include browser support for their presets so it's almost like having Komplete Kontrol built into Bitwig.

Kymeia

I made a short video showing the Device Map functionality with the MOSS extension which allows you to visualise the params in the keyboard screen and swap pages using the left/right arrows

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q7dpkpro9jb236m9itse7/IMG_4412.mov?rlkey=nvwvi33f9srnsuucw4ini0ugy&st=z0rnbadd&dl=0

Kymeia

Bitwig also makes an excellent prototyping editor for NKS layouts. For complex plugins like Avenger this is essential as it's so easy to create a multi page mapping only to realise you really could have used another filter page or forgot to add something, only you can't then go back and add those pages after they are built without remaking them. Unlike in Komplete Kontrol, in the Bitwig remote controls editor, you can get a complete overview of all user pages in one screen, add additional pages and can move them around using drag and drop as you like till you arrive at the layout you want (or even quickly change it to suit a particular patch)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qscrlokmtfvrk2y/Screen%20Recording%202024-07-18%20at%2017.27.46.mov?dl=0

I so wish KK had this functionality!

Kymeia

Added a Device Panel for Serum 2 and some others today

BIF

Wow, this is amazing. I don't use Bitwig .. at least not "yet". But this is huge; thank you @Kymeia !!

Kymeia

Thanks - where it fills a particular gap is control of effects - since KK doesn't come as an effect and has no automation of effects it's pretty useless in that department. For complex instruments I'm still preferring to use KK but this is great when I have a mix of Bitwig Native devices and plugin effects - plus it is dead easy to toggle between NKS mode and MIDI mode.

ffx

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/166171#Comment_166171

Ah thanks for the video! How do you then convert these mappings to an NKS mapping file? I don't understand that last step. Will these mappings then be usable in any other DAW, too, when loading Kontrol?

Kymeia

This is specific to Bitwig. There is no need to convert to NKS (which would be impossible) - as long as your controller is setup to work in Bitwig (either using the NI script or MOSS - MOSS is better though) it will automap to any plugin or device that has a remote control device map.

This also works with any controller with 8 knobs either using a dedicated script or one of the generic ones

Kymeia

Added another recording to show how, for plugins that support this like Serum 2, Macro names get updated in realtime in Device maps

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vhm6wruzw4jyy5e3o75md/Screen-Recording-2025-05-11-at-11.33.15.mov?rlkey=ll10ud0g3z0j8el60br9r1iis&dl=0