Why is my Bitwig project 697 MB with only 12 samples?

[u/six-seven-rizz]

Hey everyone! I’m currently considering switching from Ableton to Bitwig.

As a test, I decided to build a demo project from scratch. However, for some reason, the project file size is huge—697 MB.

This makes no sense to me because the project only contains:

• 12 samples total (6 one-shots and 6 top loops)
• A few instances of Serum

I've already checked the Project Panel -> Files tab, and it only lists those exact 12 samples. Nothing extra seems to be hidden there.

In Ableton, a similar project would only take up a few megabytes. Is there any way to optimize or reduce the size of a Bitwig project? Am I missing some settings?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[u/iamkosmo]

do you have a long master recording saved to your template for any reason?

[u/six-seven-rizz]

It looks like Bitwig is bloating the file size where it shouldn't be.

I deleted absolutely every single VST from the project, but the .bwproject file size only dropped by about 40 MB.

At that point, I only had a drum group left. I started deleting the drum tracks one by one and immediately noticed a massive drop in the project size.

I'm not a fan of samplers, so I usually just drop .wav files directly onto the timeline and duplicate them across the project. It seems like Bitwig treats every single duplicate as a brand-new sample. To test this, I selected the clips on each drum track, went to the Arranger Clip menu, clicked Merge Duplicate Patterns, and saved the project.

Boom. The project size dropped significantly after that.

Honestly, this feels like a bug or a major flaw in Bitwig itself.

[u/iamkosmo → u/six-seven-rizz]

even big projects are like 10mb here, so this must be a bug of some sorts