Monday, March 31, 2014

Usine Hollyhock

Usine Hollyhock is a unique DAW and music editor.  For a free trial, the version I experimented with was quite extensive.  With loads of features and preinstalled grooves and sounds, there was a lot to do right of the bat.  For a quick demo of the software in the first couple hours, it never got boring, and only the surface seemed to have been scratched.

That said, Usine feels like a beta project.  It runs fine and does what its supposed to, but getting to that point is overly tedious.  The icons are ambiguous and the menus change with every click.  While that may be clever and useful for long time users, it is extremely confusing and difficult to adjust to.  I never figured out if I can simply export the sounds as WAVs, and recording in Audacity became a challenge as well.  Overall, Usine Hollyhock has lots of depth and potential, but it is not currently very user friendly for beginners.


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