Apple Mainstage really cheap

Started by sixeight, December 11, 2011, 10:33:20 AM

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Brak(E)man

#25
A question that I don't seem to find an answer to.

In mainstage , can you assign the keyboard to a plugin parameter ???
the input one on the laptop and I don't mean the musical typing option.

In Guitarrig you can and very easily too.
I'd like to have the possibility not to bring a big midi foot board.

swimming with a hole in my body

I play Country music too, I'm just not sure which country it's from...

"The only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist!"
- Lydia Lunch

BackDAWman

#26
Just an update...

I eventually got myself an iMac, a Macbook Pro and a Behringer X32. The Presonus went belly-up.

I put Mainstage and Logic Pro X on it and got to work translating everything over from Logic Pro 9 and setting up Playback plugins in Mainstage and looading them with audio. 42 songs worth set up in 3 Sets.

I thought all was going well, although tedious, until last night I set the rig up with the X32. I was suspicious of timing issues when I found I was going into Logic to fix timing issues that I thought was the original playing ;-). When I ported each channel strip to seperate channels on the X32 the timing of the click track (audio file) was atrocious! Unusable!

Background:
I have a current Macbook Pro with a SSD. I have an external USB 3.0 HDD that has all my files on it. The Mainstage Concert files are on the SSD. I thought in order to make the whole thing portable I would put all the files (concerts, patches etc) on the external HDD). Maybe that's the problem?

This has made my foray into the Mac world less than satisfying. I don't want to present my Mainstage solution to the band unless it is rock solid.

Any ideas?

I still like the idea of some sort of multitracker (hardware or not) that is simple to use to play the backing tracks. No frills.

Elantric

QuoteI thought in order to make the whole thing portable I would put all the files (concerts, patches etc) on the external HDD). Maybe that's the problem?

All Media files will always run faster from an SSD drive. Also using a large mechanical USB 3.0 drive on a vibrating live music performance stage is not recommended, as it can cause many problems - including crashed hard drives.

Hopefully an expert with  Apple Mainstage  can offer more advice.

and be sure to check with the Apple Mainstage forums  here:
https://www.apple.com/support/mainstage/

https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/logic_studio?view=discussions&tagSet=1256

http://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=17


   

BackDAWman

I'm not very confident in Mainstage.

I put all the backing tracks on the SSD and the timing is okay now. But if I try to put any more than 32 songs on it MS spits the dummy. In the process of changing it all over it crashed unexpectedly about 3 times as well. It recovered okay but any sort of crash is a bad one.
???

arkieboy

ymmv with audio interfaces :-(


I've tried it with my MOTU 828 MkI and a Lexicon Omega both with excellent results.  I sometimes get instability with hungry plugins on older hardware so I tend to stick to ES2 and ESX for mono mode stuff
Main rig: Barden Hexacaster and Brian Moore i2.13 controllers
Boss SY1000/Boss GKC-AD/Boss GM-800/Laney LFR112

Other relevant gear: Line 6 Helix LT, Roland GR-33, Axon AX100 MkII
Oberheim Matrix 6R, Supernova IIR, EMu E5000, Apple Mainstage, Apple Logic, MOTU M4

BackDAWman

The mac crashed without any audio interface plugged in. I was using earphones to set it up. I am yet to try this setup with the X32.

Elantric

#31
QuoteI eventually got myself an iMac, a Macbook Pro

What Year? What OSX Version? What CPU? How much RAM ?


FWIW - most Mainstage users on the forums say there are lots of "bugs" due to OSX 10.9 Mavericks.

Myself I'm sticking with OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, as that version of OSX still supports most of my older gear.   

Be sure to read this too

http://www.tekrevue.com/updates-final-cut-pro-motion-compressor-mainstage/

BackDAWman

I bought it brand new about a month ago. I assume it to be the current model. It has a 128GByte SSD. I think it has 4 gig RAM. Not sure on the CPU and it has OSX 10.9.

MS does some unexpected stuff...I tried to unload the metronome plugin but it keeps coming back so I set preferences to have it turned right down. I use click tracks so don't need it. I'll check out the MS forums.

arkieboy

that's nothing like my experience with it ...


could you post your concert to dropbox/onedrive and I'll see if I get the same problems


steve
Main rig: Barden Hexacaster and Brian Moore i2.13 controllers
Boss SY1000/Boss GKC-AD/Boss GM-800/Laney LFR112

Other relevant gear: Line 6 Helix LT, Roland GR-33, Axon AX100 MkII
Oberheim Matrix 6R, Supernova IIR, EMu E5000, Apple Mainstage, Apple Logic, MOTU M4

BackDAWman

Since finishing all of the editing and putting everything on the local SSD it has been stable. I will be using it for rehearsals tonight and over the weekend to test it.

It is working nicely into the X32. I have seen a youtube video where one guy was having stability issues when running anymore than 4 backing tracks in a preset. I have anywhere from 2 to 7 tracks per song.

My Mainstage set up is now 10gig so it may be a little unwieldy to put on an cloud drive...

BackDAWman

I just re-read this post of mine and thought I better update it...

I ditched MS in the end. It just wasn't stable enough or predictable enough. I find the same thing with Logic, too quirky. I now use Ableton Live 9 which is rock solid, completely flexible and predictable/intuitive. I have been playing gigs in the band and in my solo show with this setup and have never looked back. I even have my light show and my lyrics (scrolling as well) controlled from Ableton.

This all runs into my Behringer XR18.