Usine Hollyhook 2 released :-)

[Thomas Helzle]

Hey,

I searched the forum and didn't see much talk about Usine HH, so I thought I mention here that version 2 is just released and has a very attractive introduction price:
http://www.sensomusic.com/
The biggest thing for me personally is the new timeline/grid, since it's a timeline made for ambient and generative people: you can place complete patches there that can be as complex as you want internally and still treat them like an audio or midi clip. More infos here:
http://www.sensomusic.org/wiki3/doku...uide:gridpanel

Usine is created mainly for live use but also works well in the studio, it supports multitouch, VST/AU, video, DMX, OSC, networking, leap motion, 64 channels surround.... amazing stuff.
What sets it apart from for instance Bidule for me is that you can create a GUI for your setup.

Check it out if you are into node based modular work :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[GaryG]

I played around with usine in the early days, may have even been the first version. Loads of fun but I realised I'm more of a linear guy and more trad sequencers suited me better. Though that new timeline sounds mighty interesting...

[Thomas Helzle]

I played around with usine in the early days, may have even been the first version. Loads of fun but I realised I'm more of a linear guy and more trad sequencers suited me better. Though that new timeline sounds mighty interesting...

Yeah, it's right up my alley :-)
And it came a long way from the old Usine 1.x...

Cheers,

Tom

[Makrotulpa]

I'm giving Hollyhock another try and feeling positive about it so far.
Similar to Tracktion 6 I think it's at a point in development that intersects with my current thought processes around arrangement, composition, performance.
I generally use Ableton Live merely as a routing engine and keep searching for the perfect workflow for more process-oriented improvisation leading to concréte montage.
Bitwig didn't seem different enough from Live but HH2 has the things I like in Bitwig attached to a Reaktor/Audiomulch style environment which I am drawn to.
I tried setting up similar workflows in Max but found while it is great at doing fairly complex things, simple things take too much effort.

[Thomas Helzle]

Yeah, Max is rather low-level while Usine is pretty much spot on at the level where I want to be when making music in a modular way.

I personally never clicked with how Max thinks, so when Bitwig came out I sold Live and M4L. Live 9 made me angry... ;-)

What I really like in Usine is the ability to have each and every VST parameter as an input for modulation. Many other modular hosts have this much more obfuscated - Bidule has a rather weird and complicated system for it that I find non-intuitive (and it lacks a GUI-Builder), Tracktion and some others don't really allow for modular modulation and Mux also has a less intuitive system that I find annoying. Bitwigs modulation is brilliant but the modular part is not yet accessible.

In Usine, I just wiggle the parameter I want in the VST GUI so it shows up as input and I can directly attach to it whatever I want.
My favourite modulator is of my own creation:
http://www.design4audio.de/home/aon-random/
Very versatile and flexible if I say so myself ;-)

But of course there are tons of other cool features as well.

Cheers,

Tom

[Makrotulpa]

I personally never clicked with how Max thinks

Max is object oriented visual programming so you have to problem solve - which is great for many instances but kills the immediacy. Live 9 I like because I can just load it up and start jamming but the linearity and fixed semi-modular architecture means i'm still struggling at the boundaries. Max For Live helps with this but is embedded rather than overriding so it only helps in addition to whatever Live allows.

Bidule has a rather weird and complicated system for it that I find non-intuitive

As with Max For Live I think Bidule works best in tandem with something else.

Tracktion and some others don't really allow for modular modulation

I'm only using Tracktion for mixing but i'm very taken by the combination of modular filter building with old-school approaches like rendering, useful freezing and the ability to create separate edits and easily join them. It reminds me of how I used Sony ACID in combination with Audiomulch a decade ago but with more power. I think getting to know Tracktion helped me get into HollyHock TBH. They have a similar drag and drop approach.

In Usine, I just wiggle the parameter I want in the VST GUI so it shows up as input and I can directly attach to it whatever I want.

This exactly! Just discovered it last night actually. Very cool! Live does a similar thing but doesn't give you access at the patch / signal flow level.

My favourite modulator is of my own creation:
http://www.design4audio.de/home/aon-random/
Very versatile and flexible if I say so myself ;-)

That looks very interesting. Does it work with HH2?

I do most of my work on a Mac - though I have a 2013 gamer laptop that runs music programs quite well.
Interested in the possibility of Touch-based interaction but not sure it is worth shelling out another $1000+ given that I already have enough computers and an iPad for running Lemur.

[Thomas Helzle]

My modulator works with HH2 as I was happy to find out.
I only compiled it for PC though.

Yeah, same here with touchscreens. Could be nice but not really essential for me.

Cheers,

Tom

[Makrotulpa]

My only real problem with HH2 so far is that it would be nice if they could sandbox plugins somehow. I'm getting a lot of lock ups where I have to force-quit. Not that this isn't a problem with Live but it seems way more prevalent with HH2. With great power come great lockups!

[Thomas Helzle]

Hm - no problems here so far (PC, Windows 8.1 x64, 32 Bit version of HH and plugins).
If you have problems with specific plugins be sure to file a bug report: http://www.sensomusic.com/support/
They are usually quick in fixing such specific things.


But yeah, after working with Bitwig for a while the whole plugin handling of other hosts feels clumsy at best. ;-)

Cheers,

Tom

[Makrotulpa]

Hm - no problems here so far (PC, Windows 8.1 x64, 32 Bit version of HH and plugins).

I may have to try working with the PC a little more - see how it goes.

I only moved to the Apple Borg Alliance 6 years ago when I needed to use Audio Visual tools that were not so readily available on Win at the time.
Using OSX is second nature to me now but Win8.1 isn't so bad :cantlook:

[Thomas Helzle]

Hehehe :-)

Well, I always was a PC user (after the Amiga that is), which sometimes was funny when Apple users were surprised that my PC "can do graphics" back in the days.


<rant>
I personally never had any luck with Apples view on computing.
When I had to work for others on a Mac (back in the OS 9 times), I was amazed how bad it was. I had to assign the available memory EITHER to Photoshop OR to Cinema 4D several times a day, in a time when this kind of stuff worked already fast, automatic and fluent on Windows 95/98 and NT. The GUI felt clumsy. Hm.
I didn't get the hype.

I finally bought a Mac when Bootcamp came out and the MacPro was relatively cheap (2008), to find out what I might have missed all those years.
By coincidence, I had several Mac-centric jobs shortly after, working with very knowledgeable people using final cut studio, motion etc.
I couldn't believe how buggy that software was.
FCP placed random frames from other areas of the movie in a kind of spontaneous overlay on top of the clips we wanted to see (which we found out after a 3 hour export), motions highly praised integration with FCP fell apart as soon as you did any real work with it...
We had several very very very long shifts to get our project delivered.
At the same time, I didn't find anything that the Mac did better (for 3D and graphics that is).
I bought Shake, Apple ditched it.
The apple mouse didn't work correctly, the flimsy keyboard lost keys, the DVD drive was horribly loud (but thankfully broke after about a year), the absurdly expensive ECC-RAM was the first memory in my 25 years of computing that stopped working after a while...
I wasn't able to put in a new graphics card when the 8800 GT was no longer up to snuff....

(I really wonder what people will do with their golden Apple Watch for 16000 Euro in a year, when the new model comes out?)

After some time I realized I didn't miss anything and happily worked with Vista x64, Windows 7 and finally Windows 8 on that Mac, using a heavy duty Microsoft keyboard, a sturdy gaming mouse and a very silent BluRay burner.
At least the MacPro aluminium case was sturdy ;-)

When the machine was showing it's age some time ago, I went crazy with building my own PC out of very good parts. It cost me ~1500 Euro since I was using a good chassis I already had and some other existing parts. A MacPro (the "ashtray") with the same specs would have cost about 3-4 thousand. But mine houses many harddrives and has 14 USB connections among other useful stuff...

Windows 8.1 works pretty much perfectly for me, is extremely fast and even with audio I don't see a real disadvantage anymore.
And now even Linux is a viable option with Bitwig Studio etc...

IMO it doesn't matter that much anymore technically, the differences get smaller and smaller.
But the Apple way of doing things is giving me the shivers - I prefer watching from a distance ;-)
</rant>

Cheers,

Tom

[Makrotulpa]

Hehehe :-)

Well, I always was a PC user (after the Amiga that is), which sometimes was funny when Apple users were surprised that my PC "can do graphics" back in the days.

I have friends who still use C64s, Amigas and Atari STs for music.

I remember working with Premiere and After Effects on Windows XP pre service packs. And Director! Now that was a buggy piece of shit. Especially when a hard lock up would require you reinstall the OS.
I've never had anything quite as bad with OSX but honestly... computers in my experience have always tended towards flaky depending on what you do with them. My 2yr old 11" Macbook Air runs like a dream as an assistant to my music tech lecturing. It's only got a 1.4ghz CPU but i'm sure the SSD and the way mavericks clocks CPU load makes it smooth.

I never had much luck with building towers - think maybe you have better access to low cost parts over there in Europe - which is crazy since i'm closer to Asia but then again our PM eats raw onion! I scoped a Hackintosh Mac Pro "Ashtray" beater last year and was looking at around $3k for a huge lump in the corner. I'm sure it's highly unsustainable i'd rather have lots of smaller devices that do specific things.

[Thomas Helzle]

Yeah, will be interesting in what direction the whole thing goes.

Since the industry is so fascinated by the success of Apple, it's totally possible that Microsofts new wet dream is an equally gated community. Windows 10 being free at first and being constantly updated more or less automatically could also mean that there is no way out or back after a while, like with the Adobe Creative Cloud scheme. "One Ring to bind them" and all that.

I came to prefer smaller devs like Sensomusic, Bitwig, Valhalla, u-he etc. for these reasons, although you're never fully secure from the Corporations as the recent Camel Audio disaster showed.

As for Usine HH2: there is already the second bugfix-update out. Yay :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[seismic1]

I eat raw onions. They keep vampires at bay. I've never been attacked by one.

[Makrotulpa]

I eat raw onions. They keep vampires at bay. I've never been attacked by one.

I suspect our PM may be one.