Hacking an effect send for the Grid

One major omission from the current list of devices included in Bitwig’s modular environment, The Grid, is any form of effect send. Yes, Poly Grid and FX Grid both have the usual nested effect chains attached to the devices themselves, and the available delay and all-pass tools can be used to fashion effects in The Grid itself. But if you want to send audio from your modular Grid – to a third party effect plugin, say – then route it back into the modular setup, there’s no obvious way to do it.

Happily, users have found a workaround! Like a hardware modular system, Bitwig Studio lets users patch audio and modulation routings interchangeably. Bitwig’s modulators can handle audio-rate signals, so you can route any audio in The Grid to a Modulator Out device, so it can be sent out of the device without the main Audio Out.

To create an effect send, place a DC Offset device in the Grid’s Note Effects chain. Then route the Modulator Out’s modulation to the DC parameter. This turns the modulation signal back into an audio one, and the Note Effect chain can be loaded with audio effect devices. To route audio back into The Grid, use an Audio Sidechain device and select the output of your final effect as the input. As this is a ‘hack’, not a proper feature, there are a few things to be aware of. Unlike other audio in Bitwig, the modulation routing isn’t 4X oversampled and it’s worth keeping an eye on your levels. The Modulator Out is mono too, so for stereo signals you’ll need to use a Stereo Splitter, two Modulator Out devices routed to two DC Offsets.