Bitwig and Presonus just released an open source exchange format between DAW. It would even transfer automation data which seemed to be until now a pain point. I think it’s a good thing to be able to collaborate with other musicians easily.
So what do you guys think?
I just recently bought Bitwig because of stuff like this. They’ve got an interesting vision.
Seems like a great idea!
I’m somewhat surprised by the choice of XML, but why not?
This goal worries me a bit:
The format should be able to express the track and timeline structures of the exporting DAW as is, leaving it up to the importer to use this data and flatten it as needed.
Leaving things up to one side or the other seems like a hard way to reach any meaningful consensus. But I’m basing this on gut feelings from seeing i.e. how ActivityPub is only partially adopted by the different fediverse apps who tend to “leave it up to the importer to use the data and flatten it as needed”. I have no experience in interoperable data-structures on my own, so there are probably 6372 reasons why i am wrong here.
My main hurdle with collaboration has never been DAW data, as lossless audio + midi will get my counterparts and myself a long way. The issue has always been platform interoperability of addons.
But over all, this is music to my ears! It seems like a sane path to better interoperability and that’s exactly what i wish upon the (computer) world. 😅💜