Combine Drum Machine & XO to get the best of both worlds (Patreon)

In this video, I demonstrate how to integrate a multi-out VST drum machine, specifically XLN Audio XO, with Bitwig Studio's native drum machine, allowing each drum pad to trigger separate sounds from the VST. Here's a summarized walkthrough:

1. Setup: Begin by setting up Bitwig's drum machine and adding return channels. Load the XO VST on one of these channels.
2. Assign Sounds: Place a kick drum on the first cell, a snare on the third, and a hi-hat on the fifth. Then, direct these to separate buses (kick to bus one, snare to bus two, hi-hat to bus three) through the edit page.
3. Configure Outputs: Open the multi-output page and add missing chains to allocate each drum sound to its respective bus.
4. Audio Receiver Setup: For each drum sound, use an audio receiver in the corresponding cell (kick in cell one, etc.), selecting the appropriate bus from XO as the source. This routes the sound from XO into Bitwig's drum machine cells.
5. Naming and Muting: Name each cell (kick, snare, hi-hat) for clarity in the note clip, and mute the original XO output to only hear the sound from Bitwig's drum machine.
6. Processing: Apply EQ, reverb, or other effects directly on the cells as needed, utilizing Bitwig's processing capabilities alongside XO's sound engine.
7. Note Playback Issue: Address the inability to use Bitwig's play buttons by inserting a note effect (e.g., note transpose) in each cell and configuring a note receiver in XO to accept MIDI from these cells. This ensures that note information triggers sounds correctly.
8. Final Configuration: Once set up, this configuration allows for the integration of XO's sound engine with Bitwig's workflow, providing the flexibility of hardware drum machines with the extensive sound library and features of XO. The setup needs to be done once per cell, after which it can be saved as a preset for future use.

This method combines the benefits of Bitwig Studio's native drum machine with the advanced features of XO, offering a seamless workflow for electronic music production.