How I use MainStage

Started by MusicOverGear, April 12, 2015, 06:11:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

MusicOverGear

Wow I just now saw that there is a new MainStage forum. Very very cool. MainStage is my favorite platform for covering aux keys. I am attaching the Concert I'm using on Saturday.

Basically I have a GP-10, which is also the audio interface for the computer. I leave MIDI active on the GP-10 so I can use the treadle as mod wheel in MainStage and CTL2 as sustain pedal
FTP is my "keyboard"
my control interface is an odd old Roland foot controller called GFC-50. it's basically a specialized, stripped down, less-than-HALF-Size version of a FC-200, which I like much better but it doesn't fit in my gig bag.

I use MIDI Pipe (file attached) to convert the GFC-50 PC message to notes (less filtering in MainStage that way) and I also convert CC#7 to a non-standard CC number, also because it's easier and I'm lazy.

Inside MainStage I have standard sounds - Piano, Rhodes, B3, Strings, etc etc etc... and then there are specific songs that have really specific patches. I put all the songs with one specific patch in one Set. Each song that has multiple custom patches gets its own set. Within each set my GFC-50 switches to each patch. I just oder them left to right in the order they come up in the song, so if I can remember how the song goes I can remember the patch changes without having to look at the computer or anything.

I don't play a lot of guitar with this band - I'm aux keys AND guitar 2. For a GP-10 guitar patch in my MainStage setup, I make a patch with no internal instrument channel strip, but it does have an External Instrument strip, which sends a PC message to the GP-10.

For regular synth and sampler patches in MainStage, those patches also have an External Instrument strip sending PC message to the GP-10, but they are all the same - they call up GP-10 patch # 99, call •••MUTE•••. It has everything turned off so I don't have to mess with volume when I don't want to hear the GP-10.

I haven't really messed with sending audio MainStage except for looping when I shed with friends. I haven't had the urge to mix them yet - GP-10 is the best for guitar stuff and MainStage is the best for synths, simple as that.

I will say that I love and hate the B3 in MainStage. It is a GREAT emulation of the real thing - right down to NO option for sustain LOL - but it is too much of a CPU hog for my old notebooks. I sampled my favorite patches (not in the attachment - too big). I wish they would make a more streamlined version for live playing, but they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they encouraged customers to NOT buy new computers.

I do also wish they would make something to automatically move your custom patches, samples, instruments, etc between computers. They probably do, I just don't know about it. I like to program and shed on my desktop computer and just move everything to my notebook right before I leave for the show. Old fashioned, maybe

BTW even with a computer and stand and extra cables and the FTP dongle I can still carry my whole rig WITH my own powered monitor in one trip. That's why I'm using an antique, POS, non-programmable midi controller - because it's tiny (and familiar interface from FC-200).

What else... I still like Ableton best for building really creative, synthy setups and interfaces - and of course for looping. I like MainStage for tracks, tho - the way you can navigate a song and just loop one section using Playback is easier in MainStage IMHO.

MainStage is just IT for synths IMHO. They have every vintage vibe I know about on LOCK. They do EDM sounds - check out my super saw for Party Rock Anthem. I'm pretty sure it's a huge multi in the original track, but MainStage can do a decent facsimile with one instance of ES2.

Oh yeah that reminds me. I do a lot in MainStage to try to dehumanize the guitar performance. Especially with EDM and especially with this band. For for one thing I use a lot of chord triggers on cover tunes where I know exactly what I'm gonna play every time that song gets called. E.g. Katy Perry Roar i only play two notes for most of the song and that gives me a much more locked-to-a-grid-sounding piano ostinato. For Katy Perry Firework I use a beat repeat thing - forgot what it's called but it's one of the MIDI effects - has repeat in the name... Anyway that helps make it sound more like the track - and also helps keep the drummer from running away from me LOL. That tune should be chord-triggered, too, but it's not. can't remember why i didn't do that one...

Also if you look at my piano, Rhodes, etc you can see that I've really clamped down the dynamics by scaling up velocity with the MIDI plugin, scaling down dynamics in EXS24 and whatever each instrument has, and also sometimes a compressor. that keeps me in the comfortable range on the guitar so my FTP triggering is super accurate and also keeps me in that cover band plowing-thru-the-nite vibe...

I've used MainStage for some original R&B, too but I definitely feel like that scene is less receptive to the idea. I'm much more into programming the GP-10 for any R&B. E.g. I've recently rekindled my interest in the black art of the perfect clean strat-to-twin sound, and I have in my to-do list to clone the Roland JV "guitar" sound that is in EVERY. SINGLE. 90's SLOWJAM. LOL

That's about all I can think to share about MainStage at the moment. I think my approach is VERY solid if you have a lot of patches in a fast-paced show.

mrmobus2014

Thanks for your detailed description.

I've been using Logic for a number of years but only took any notice of Mainstage when I got a Guitar Wing and needed something with comprehensive MIDI mapping capabilities.  I'd tried various guitar effects programmes and also Logic but couldn't figure out how to map to do what I wanted to.  So I eventually bought Mainstage and was very very impressed with how good it was and how much you get for your money.  I've been using it to combine various elements for live studio use and when friends come around for a jam.  It's rock steady and my only complaint is that sometimes you have to be careful with the amount of processing as some of the effects can chew up processing.  So below is a description of how I use it:

Audio inputs - to mono or stereo channels

Vetta guitar amp
VG99
GR55
Beat buddy (interactive drum beats)
Bass guitar to the excellent bass rig plugin

MIDI Inputs

Behringer MIDI footpedal (controls a Mainstage looper plugin that I send channels to)
Keyboard to a channel strip with any MIDI sound I want
Roland PK5 taurus pedals - assigned to a low string patch
Guitar Wing - controls effects assigned to guitar inputs channel strips
GR55 MIDI to assign to any instrument I want to within Mainstage

FX Loops

I've also got two effects loops that go out of the Mac and then back in

1 loop goes to a Line6 M13 multi effects unit
1 loop goes to an iPad running Flux FX

Hardware

Macbook Pro
MOTU 828 Audio IO
MOTU Midi IO
Lexicon Audio (IO to iPad)

It took a lot of head scratching getting it all to work together but it's very stable.  The audio interface is quite old and at some point I'll upgrade for possibly a Thunderbolt based one (it's currently running on Firewire 400) but the latency is acceptable at the moment.

admin

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/first-large-gigs-with-a-macbook-pro-and-mainstage.1701277/
So, I have been toying with my Macbook pro and Mainstage for almost two years... I made some small gigs using this computer-based setup, but did not really trusted it to use in larger venues... Until a week ago, when we had a mini tour around Italy, and for the first time I left my amps, pedals and other stuff at home and relied only on my mac-based new setup.

I already had experience of going direct, since I have been using a Palmer PDI-03 extensively, but always had a real amp on a real stage...

Setting things up wasn't easy... Mainstage can be a real pain, the programming time can be huge, as the capability of this app are. Anyway, this is my new (stereo) setup:

Guitar (radial dragster) --> Apogee Duet 2 --> Macbook Pro mid '14 running Mainstage (plugins: Thermionik and S-Gear for amps and modulations, Recabinet 5 with OH IRs, Bias FX for dirt/dynamic pedals, Guitar Rig 5 for wah and delays). I also tried Eventide H3000 Factory plugin for delays, which is really nice, but I am not going to use it anymore since it's a bit tricky to program, I prefer to keep things as simple as possible.

Pedalboard is a Voodo Lab Ground Control Pro, with two Ernie Ball expression pedals (one for volume, one for wah/whammy)

I had no dedicated FRFR monitors for guitar, just asked for two monitors (with stereo mix) on stage at every venue. Worked great: I thought that on large stages I did not really hear my amp anyway, since it was placed too far from me (or even in the backstage), so it is pretty the same here... I just hear the monitors. I have to try IEM...


Here are my impressions:

Weight / ease of lugging: here, such a setup wins hands down. No weight, little real estate on stage, everything is setup in less than 10 minutes, and everything is packed in less than 10 minutes after the gig.

Reliability: Mainstage is rock-solid, and did not had a glitch, or a pop, nothing at all, with buffer at 128 samples and less than 8ms of roundtrip latency, which I really didn't noticed. I could have set it even to 32 and virtually no latency - <4ms - , but i felt safer giving the CPU a LOT of headroom. But... in two gigs a preset (the same preset) did not produce any sound and I had to switch to another one... this is a programming error, but I could not figure out what the hell was going wrong, so I just lived with it. It's the price of Mainstage complexity... On the other hand, MIDI implementation is beautiful, and going from one preset to another is as fast as it can be... spillover happens smoothly, very musical, and you can even control the time you want the previous patch delays and reverbs to go on over the new one before being silenced. I set this to 3 seconds, more than enough. I use Instant access button on GCP to turn on and off effects dynamically on the patches as I change presets, so that I could use aliases in MS and switch effects on and off depending on the song, directly from the preset on the pedalboard. Using aliases reduces the CPU usage, and has other benefits also.

Tones: well, this mostly depends on the plugins you are using... and I have to say I am really satisfied... One of the gigs have been recorded and I will try to post something as soon as I can make a decent mix. But it was really good IMO. Again, tones are subjective and you can craft virtually anything with this setup. You can decide to use a different plugin for every sound, or just rely on one. I kept things as simple as I could given the number and tonal requirements of the songs in the setlist, and I just used two cleans, two crunches and two leads, aliased in the MS songs so that any change to anyone of them reflects to all the aliases, and I don't have to reprogram 15 or 20 songs just because I changed the mids in one of the crunch presets, for instance. Of course, patches volumes and sends, as well as screen controls mapping, are always independent and patch-related. One word for S-gear and Thermionik, which you probably all know. If you don't, give them a try, demo versions are fully functional for a period of time. They are very different and honestly amazing... the vintage flavor of S-gear and the authentic emulation of some amps in Thermionik (including, yes, the hiss and noise of a cranked plexi, if you ever tried one you know what I am talking about) are just to be heard, and used. I can effectively use guitar volume to clean up crunches, or to smooth tone. It works perfectly and both S-Gear and Thermionik react very well to dynamics. Finally, one word for these new Ownhammer Marshall multicab IRs also, that are just *wonderful*.

Well I guess this is basically the same kind of experience many of you guys may have with hardware modelers, just I did not use any. Why? Because I had a beast Mac, and thought that given the money I spend on it, and that I already had tons of plugins, I could even give it a try instead of spending another 2-3 grands on an Axe or KPA J. Moreover, it was a nice challenge to set this stuff up and running... and the faces of my band mates the first time I showed off at rehearsals with a computer were just priceless! And they were right... first rehearsals were a nightmare under any point of view, but I am stubborn, you know... eventually they started to like the tones, now they love them.

Just a final note: I posted this so that if anyone has similar experiences, curiosities on this setup or just different impressions, they can come and share/ask, and we can even point out the pros and cons of using hardware modelers/profilers against computer based modelers. I did not imply this setup to be better than an Axe, or KPA, or Helix, or whatever (actually, I don't think it is)...