Usine..

[Toets]

Looking for a live keyboardhost...
comming from Mainstage

So anyone using Usine?
How are your experiences?
Are you using the free version or holyhock?
What are the main differences between the two?

So anyone here that would advise usine instead of mainstage?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Looking for a live keyboardhost...
comming from Mainstage

So anyone using Usine?
How are your experiences?
Are you using the free version or holyhock?
What are the main differences between the two?

So anyone here that would advise usine instead of mainstage?

Does Usine have a free version?

[Toets]

Looking for a live keyboardhost...
comming from Mainstage

So anyone using Usine?
How are your experiences?
Are you using the free version or holyhock?
What are the main differences between the two?

So anyone here that would advise usine instead of mainstage?

Does Usine have a free version?

According to bedroom producers there is one... could be old info tough, was more then a year old article

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Looking for a live keyboardhost...
comming from Mainstage

So anyone using Usine?
How are your experiences?
Are you using the free version or holyhock?
What are the main differences between the two?

So anyone here that would advise usine instead of mainstage?

Does Usine have a free version?

According to bedroom producers there is one... could be old info tough, was more then a year old article

Pretty sure the demo of Hollyhock is non-time-limited, and almost fully-functional. That doesn't mean free, of course. However, it would certainly allow you to get familiar with it; enough to know whether it would be a good fit.

My advice would actually be to try both. Mainstage is such amazing value, that even if you ended up wanting to go with Hollyhock, just having access to all the Logic instruments (Alchemy 2, Sculpture etc.), would still make it a very worthwhile investment. Furthermore, and this is something I'd need to check, there are probably ways to run them both at the same time, and in sync. That way you get the more traditional content from Mainstage combined with the more experimental, esoteric modules from Hollyhock

[W23]

Usine Hollyhock technically doesn’t have a trial version. It kind of works like Reaper where you get a nag screen when you open it. You can close the screen, and that’s about it. If you decide to pay for a license later (the non commercial one is $99), you get free support, and upgrades for that year. I don’t know how they really enforce the use of their licenses. They really treat it like it’s a community that you should want to be a part of, and see Hollyhock developed.

It’s pretty cool but, I haven’t been able to familiarize myself with it. It’s kind of like Max/MSP, but a little easier to wrap your head around. I downloaded it, and then the Cubase Crossgrade special came along, and I’ve been distracted since. This is a really long winded way of saying the Demo works exactly like the full version. If you like and use it maybe get a license for it.

[Tj Shredder]

Usine is much more than Mainstage, you can drive your light show and fire videos as well as organizing your live set.
Programming is a bit like the new Grid in Bitwig, but covers all areas of a show. Thee are very good tutorials out there to get you going...
The advice to get Mainstage anyway is a good one. You can’t get so many brilliant MPE synths for so little money anywhere else... You even don’t need to sync them, they could happily just run side by side...

[Toets]

Usine Hollyhock technically doesn’t have a trial version. It kind of works like Reaper where you get a nag screen when you open it. You can close the screen, and that’s about it. If you decide to pay for a license later (the non commercial one is $99), you get free support, and upgrades for that year. I don’t know how they really enforce the use of their licenses. They really treat it like it’s a community that you should want to be a part of, and see Hollyhock developed.

It’s pretty cool but, I haven’t been able to familiarize myself with it. It’s kind of like Max/MSP but, a little easier to wrap your head around. I downloaded it, and then the Cubase Crossgrade special came along, and I’ve been distracted since. This is a really long winded way of saying the Demo works exactly like the trial, if you like and use it maybe get a license for it.

Thanks i am now downloading it as i type, going to give it a try..

[No_Use]

I used Usine several years as my live playing host (keyboards and live dub style FX), it's deep and let me do anything I wanted.
With the deepness sometimes also comes not so straight forward setting it up though imo, but if you want a live host with almost unlimited possibilities I think it's worth getting into it.

Though I gotta say, for the stuff I was doing it sometimes even felt a little 'over the top'.
Not doing any live stuff currently, but if I do again I'd probably also check out LiveProfessor which I'v also losely followed development, for something maybe a bit more 'straightforward'.

Have fun.

edit:
To add, I'm on Win, so no experience with Mainstage.

[Toets]

I used Usine several years as my live playing host (keyboards and live dub style FX), it's deep and let me do anything I wanted.
With the deepness sometimes also comes not so straight forward setting it up though imo, but if you want a live host with almost unlimited possibilities I think it's worth getting into it.

Though I gotta say, for the stuff I was doing it sometimes even felt a little 'over the top'.
Not doing any live stuff currently, but if I do again I'd probably also check out LiveProfessor which I'v also losely followed development, for something maybe a bit more 'straightforward'.

Have fun.

edit:
To add, I'm on Win, so no experience with Mainstage.

Just trying to figure out how to make splits and layers. Seems to be quite challenging..
I watched some tutorials, and i agree it looks interesting, but not straightforward..

Not in a hurry, not gigging this summer... so i definately put this on my ever growing list..

[W23]

Another possible alternative is Freestyle from New Sonic Arts

[Toets]

Another possible alternative is Freestyle from New Sonic Arts

Thats a new one for me..
What makes this stand out is the fact that it can function both as a stand alone and a plugin in any daw..

[No_Use]

Just trying to figure out how to make splits and layers. Seems to be quite challenging..
I watched some tutorials, and i agree it looks interesting, but not straightforward..

Not in a hurry, not gigging this summer... so i definately put this on my ever growing list..

Splits is a good example what I meant, because of Usine's modular nature you have to patch stuff like this yourself (last time I used it at least) e.g.
http://www.sensomusic.org/forums/viewto ... 7848#p7848

[Toets]

Just trying to figure out how to make splits and layers. Seems to be quite challenging..
I watched some tutorials, and i agree it looks interesting, but not straightforward..

Not in a hurry, not gigging this summer... so i definately put this on my ever growing list..

Splits is a good example what I meant, because of Usine's modular nature you have to patch stuff like this yourself (last time I used it at least) e.g.
http://www.sensomusic.org/forums/viewto ... 7848#p7848

Thanks for the link..

While currently freestyle has my favor..

If the power of the scripting is big enough..
That would allow me to program a few nice patches for
If strong enough, it allows me to do what the other host’s can’t..


Creating a 4 parts split..
with overlapping/crossfading
And direct controll over activation..

Also the scripting could allow for very interesting vellocity layering..

[Toets]

The scripting language is Pascal based
Thats a lower level language
I havent done any pascal programming in like 30 years
Last time was in college

This could become quite a challenge..
Now i really like a good challenge..

But the question is, do i want to spend my free time programming scripts
Or do i want to spend my free time making music?

[sguyader]

I think I'm the same situation as you (OP): I need a host for plugins, and be able to control those from 2 keyboards, and be able to quickly switch from one instrument/preset to the other, and most important, have have a setlist with everything set up for each song.

I started using VIP, as it came with my first keyboard. I find it stable enough for gigs. Though, I find it unreliable when you program your setlist. Many times I have inadvertently erase a song or plugin's configuration by simply clicking on something I shouldn't have. Now I know what I have to avoid to do.

I also tried 3 other programs: Gig Performer, Live Professor, and Usine.

Gig Performer is relatively easy to set up, and switching between songs is really fast. You can also personalize the look of the racks on screen, to display only the knobs/faders/buttons you want to see, so you don't need to have the plugin's interface to show during your performance. License is 149 USD.

Live Professor is interesting. It's the cheapest of the 3 (69 USD) and looked promising. However, for an unknown reason after programming my first 4 songs of the setilist, now it becomes unusable : I can load the saved project, but as soon as I want to switch to another song it crashes, RAM goes up to the max and most of the time the RAM is not freed after the crash, I have to reboot the computer.

Last thing I tried was Usine. Harder to set up as it works really out of the box. I thought I could use the "grid" system to load racks/presets, having 1 grid section per song, but for some reason if I have 6 racks in the project it play them all at the same even if I put only 2 racks into the grid. The only way I could find is to save each song as a separate workspace, and use the "playlist" module to load each workspace/song. It works, but it takes really too long to switch to the next song (around 7 seconds, where VIP takes only 3, and Gig Performer 1 second).

So, for now Gig Performer is the most reliable to me, but also the most expensive.
VIP suites me best though for the moment (and it's free for me).
Usine can be a good choice if you can afford the time it takes to unload/load workspaces between each song during your live performance.