RedBrooklyn

Check if you're overheating the cpu

you can disable the motion sensor (which briefly stops the HD heads during vibrations) via the terminal. google for details.

If you are running MS anywhere near it's limit, cpu wise, you HAVE to put extra fans on the bottom of the a macbook! It will overheat and performance will suffer and/or it will crash. I used some usb powered fans... there are things you can buy for this purpose. seriously.

I'm using the softstep w Mainstage. It's working really well, but I'm using it very simply and haven't got into anything beyond the foot on/off stuff yet... The software is not exactly intuitive to use that's for sure.

the looper in mainstage is pretty much useless

dod you get loop machine working in mainstage?

I'm a professional and I occasionally look at the screen during a live performance... although I don't let the audience see me with my face jammed into the laptop. I like Mainstage b/c I can see the info on the screen on the sly from 5-10 feet away. I agree, the looping in manstage sucks. I'm trying some other looping plugs... guitar rig... sooper looper, etc. Mainstage works pretty well for some things, but if you overload the computer it's gonna be nothing but trouble. I can't really say this enough... nothing will work well if the computer is choking. I've noticed the presonus interfaces used with Mainsatage have a high rate of dissatisfaction in forums discussions. I hear ppl complaning about the presonus drivers. I do know that different types of midi interfaces and different midi gear can have a wide range of midi latency, timing issues, performance issues and other problems. So it's possible that your hardware gear is contributing to the problem. I've ditched the midi interface and am going with usb controllers, still hard to find usb foot controllers, check "eowave". Another thing I've learned is that a mainstage rig still takes a lot of tweeking and tlc, you may free your self from the hardware and it's 30 min setup time but you will still have maintenance, diagnostic work, etc to be done. it can be overwhelming. If you look around (the videos above) there are a lot of people using it successfully but you need to work within it's limitations, having a crew spend a lot of time with it doesn't hurt either. Another thing ppl overlook is the heat isuue, cpu's perform poorer as they get hotter. get a fan control program or an actual fan/heat sink thing if you're trying to do all that stuff on a laptop.

did you; - choose the "sync" option in the plugin? - set the tempo for the patch? - try "command, option, forehead?

you have to reprogram the 1010... it's a PITA... search around for FBC1010 groups... i think there was a yahoo group that had all the info when i did it, a few years ago. I stopped using it b/c it's it's so huge.

i'm about to try this with an expression pedal and a few little sustain pedals. http://www.eowave.com/controllers.php?prod=53 I like small stuff that fits in my carry on sized case.

did i see that NI announced the version of guitar rig, due oct 1, will allow rig kontrol to send midi to other apps?

Ah, I see. Thanks for the tip. Hopefully the next release will allow this, or is it a limitation of the Duet? I guess I thought all those extra buss channels would eat up some cpu... but I'm not really not an expert there. Sure wish someone would drop some hints about how functional MS is gonna get.... : ) -R

Is there a way to get MS and the Duet to send out two mono outputs instead of a stereo L+R out? I am I missing something really obvious? I am using the L and R out as two channels by doing some complicated panning/bussing but it's eating some CPU and I would like to put separate effects on each of those outs. -R

maybe you have the direct monitoring routed thru the fireface? check the total mix settings... That RME total mix program is so hard to see what is routed to what... at least for me. -r

Been using it live with a bass... no serious problems lately. I have it on an effects loop so I can bypass it if it acts weird. I rarely use the amp sims. I will admit that it is very complicated to do. When you factor in the interface (duet now, sometimes an RME MF) and the all the things that can possibly go wrong it can be overwhelming. The biggest two issues for me are gain/volume balancing and that I'm riding the edge of the quality/cpu/latency/sample rate ratio trying to get the best sound without the cpu choking.