Well I'm not using nearly 10% of what Usine can do, but it really helped me a lot.
I'm a musician playing keys in a band, and what I needed was a host for VST instruments controlled by 2 MIDI keyboards. More specific needs were
- to have some kind of setlist, saving and recalling the keyboard/input and VSTi preset configurations so that, when a song is finished, I can quickly load the right setup for the next song,
- to be able to control some specific VSTi parameters through physical knobs/buttons/faders,
- to have several VSTi playing at the same time (layering sounds).
There are several programs which can do this, more or less, but they can be either lacking of developer support (not future-proof), or unstable, or not flexible enough.
With Usine I got everything! Now, my setup is done: I have 6 VST instruments setup with presets (1 VSTi = 1 patch in 1 rack), racks have their presets for having control on which keyboard plays which instrument for each song. Everything is put in the grid, with the push of a button on my main keyboard, I can load the presets for the next song. And what Usine can do and not the other programs I've tried, is also play audio files so I can practice along the recorded songs, that's pretty neat!
Below is a screenshot of what my workspace looks like, with a hint on the setup of the B3 organ patch which combines both the Arturia B3 V2 and Melda MRotary plugins (not many programs can do that).
