The Bitwig round table: a decade of innovation

In 2014, a DAW landed that not only rattled the industry's big players, but brought a workflow that encouraged experimentation. To celebrate ten years of Bitwig Studio, we brought its key figures around a table to reflect on a journey that’s still they promise just starting...

cm: Thank you everyone for joining us today. In 2024, Bitwig Studio marks its first decade. Can you take us back even further, to 2009, and the formation of the company. What motivated you to start it? Claes Johanson: "We were a group of musicians, and we had a lot of ideas about how you should be able to make music with software. There seemed quite a division between the tools available back then. Some DAWs were more open than others. I personally got very interested in the idea of intertwining the sequencer and the tone generator, making them talk more to each other. That came quite early for us. We had a lot of ideas at that time, we started working on 'the product' which, of course, became Bitwig Studio. Placidus [Bitwig's director] joined us very early, after just one year."

Placidus Schelbert: "My role was more on the commercial side initially, but then I grew into the role of leading the company in terms of strategy, growth and company building, whereas Claes, Dom and Mea are strongly focused on the product. Aside from Claes, two other founders of the company still work at Bitwig: Nicholas Allen and Volker Schumacher. They're all software developers at heart, so that makes us different from other companies."

Claes: "Yes, we're led by developers, with Placidus as Mr Business!"

Placidus: "The team and the collaboration at Bitwig was and is extraordinary. Everyone listens really well, and there's input from people who just joined the company - and there's also input from different divisions inside the company and a lot of cross-talk.

We're now at 30 people, and it still feels very lean. We can move quickly with development and push forward with features. It takes constant effort to maintain this kind of structure and flexibility and the fast pace it enables us to achieve."