my needs in a plugin host / daw / sequencer

[gminorcoles]

Hi,
I am making music a couple of different ways.

Sitting at the digital piano, practicing, and writing some simple songs.
Performing some of those songs as MIDI into Reaper or Logic Pro X. Logic is good because I can convert to sheet music very easily.
Composing straight into the piano roll.

Then sometimes an old music friend and I play together live. I find that having preexisting sequences or midi compositions to use as structure helps support our improvisation. He has midi gear, I have midi gear, it needs to synch up well.

A centerpiece of my setup is this ridiculously strong 4U rack server that I recently built that runs my plugin host, Cantabile, or Reaper, and all my soft synths and piano plugins. I have a touchscreen that I am using to control this machine, it slants up from the top so I can hit start and stop and do coarse controls easily while playing. It has changed the ergonomics of the setup a lot. I want to replace Cantabile in this setup.

So I am hoping to find software that

-synchronizes well using Midi Beat Clock or MTC, as master or slave.
-has a good piano roll editor that hopefully works with touch but that is not super important
-has good overall performance
-runs smoothly on Windows ( I have chosen windows as the least bad option for now due to factors not to be elaborated on here)
-is usable by me
-can accomodate changes of meter or time signature in the middle of a sequenced piece

I cant remember the other things that are important right now.

One really encouraging sign is that this forum is quite active and the developer seems very responsive.

Is anyone including a developer willing to comment on whether they think that this software matches my requirements well? I would be grateful.

[x.iso]

- sync performance needs to be tested personally. From my experience I feel like Usine can be unsteady if slaved to MIDI clock, especially when tempo could be changed during performance (it can 'smooth' the change over few beats or seconds), but still my results vary. Now I've tested with Bitwig and BPM doesn't wobble much at all, other times I've launched it I could have 6 BPM drift occasionally. But since Usine updates rather frequently it might have been just a bug that was fixed. In past I've tried to slave it to Ableton Live and it was pretty bad, but there was a number of reason why that might happen, one being a bug as I mentioned.

- this one is definitely missing for now. it got a piano roll, but it's very bare bones and awkward to use with touch.

- it has good performance, but that also depends on what you're going to do and what kind of settings you'll need (block size and so on).

- yes, it does run smoothly on Windows, also got solid performance with new WASAPI drivers (10ms latency) if that's ever relevant.

- that can only be answered by you personally. This DAW is modular, it got OSC, DMX support, video in for VJ and installations, and it also can be used to construct Multi-touch controls for other gear/DAW's. But it got 32 and 64 bit versions, and unlike Reaper or Bitwig can't host 32 bit plugins in 64 bit version.

- oh, you can even set a list of meter changes and set up a way to progress that list, for example by default it just cycles as it plays, but with list module it can be changed to sync steps or manually (quantized if needed) or by other triggers.

Test this one out throughly, as the trial only got a nag screen which doesn't interfere with engine.

[gminorcoles]

Can usine support VST3? I scanned my plugins folder and I am pretty sure it only sees VST2.

[gminorcoles]

I should be more clear - I am trying to load the FL Studio vsti into HH3 so that I can use the sequencer. This is something people do a lot in Reaper, but HH# cannot "see" FL Studio even though I added the vst folder and HH3 can see the other plugins I have in that folder.

[x.iso]

I've definitely loaded Pigments in Usine 64 and it seems to be the only VST3 specific plugin I have. Otherwise there's no info about VST version support, it's just stated that VST in general is supported.