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Mainstage is an expensive lesson....my advice, stay away.


everydayjones

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I purchased mainstage to get rid of the enormous setup I have to do for each show (I've gotten it down to under 30 mins). $500 later, plus a FCB1010 and the Uno Firmware, I've come to the conclusion Mainstage is a toy for unprofessional use.

 

The looping doesn't work at all like a Line6-DL4 does. Whats the use in having pedal lights if they don't correspond to what's happening in MainStage? When I hit record, it takes a few seconds to start....when the loop is done, it's off by several seconds sounding like crap. You never really know if you're looping or not because the lights on the FCB don't correspond to what's going on. No professional would ever look at a computer screen during a live performance.

 

Good try Apple, but you've got A LOT of work to do before it's halfway decent to take on stage.

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FCBs don't really have good support for MIDI information and so on. Have you tried Gio or the new Line 6 controllers? Before complaining about Mainstage, maybe best to look at the MIDI controller itself...

 

Whatever that means ? :roll:

 

Mine (FCB) works flawlessly, with or without mainstage.

 

I look at mainstage more in a light of replacing an entire rig set up like Guitars or keyboards, and not as a total production software.

 

I would never put all the eggs into one basket. I would like my set up to be as compact as possible, but you are SOL should your drive fail. I prefer the hard wired equipment over the software although I do use a hybrid mix of the two.

 

There is still midi delay and the audio latency involved with software.

 

There are trade offs to either method. I don't want to lift 1000 pounds of equipment and the have to wire it all up. I have external guitar and vocal processors, a mixer, and a looper. I am too comfortable with my RC-50, but I have not tried the mainstage looper to it's limits.

 

I don't think mainstage is ready yet either. I mean, it is based on what your computer can do. If the computer can't handle the load, then you shouldn't force it to. You could have a set of computers sync'd together with a technician manning each one. One running lights, one for guitars, one for keys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing live with the real stuff is always a crowd pleaser.

 

>

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Kent - I think you should read my other posts before telling me not to complain.
Gio won't work and I haven't seen a line 6 product that does midi. Please show me if there is one. Regarding Gio, it only interfaces with the mac via USB. I run everything into a Presonus Firepod that utilizes firewire. I would need a midi product.
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You never really know if you're looping or not because the lights on the FCB don't correspond to what's going on. No professional would ever look at a computer screen during a live performance.

 

That is a limitation of the FCB, not MainStage. On the GiO the LEDs do work (even in full RGB color), on other controllers it works too. But the FCB is a cheap pedal board which doesn't listen to MIDI messages to light up the LEDs.

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You never really know if you're looping or not because the lights on the FCB don't correspond to what's going on. No professional would ever look at a computer screen during a live performance.

 

That is a limitation of the FCB, not MainStage. On the GiO the LEDs do work (even in full RGB color), on other controllers it works too. But the FCB is a cheap pedal board which doesn't listen to MIDI messages to light up the LEDs.

 

No, but scripts have been written which allows feedback. :lol: So I guess it is once again an awesome foot controller.

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Kent - I think you should read my other posts before telling me not to complain.
Gio won't work and I haven't seen a line 6 product that does midi. Please show me if there is one. Regarding Gio, it only interfaces with the mac via USB. I run everything into a Presonus Firepod that utilizes firewire. I would need a midi product.

 

http://line6.com/footcontrollers/fbvshortboardmkii.html

 

Gio was used to test MainStage 2.0.

 

FCBs are known not to properly update the MIDI text information or lights, for example.

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Does no one sing? It seems odd to me to have a footpedal only send USB to the mac. How is one supposed to hook up a firewire 8 channel audio interface and also deal with a USB audio interface?

 

I have not hooked mic to Mainstage even if that would be an interesting approach, albeit exotic.

 

I would recommend focusing on getting the best possible USB controller for guitar use and then focus on the singing with a separate audio interface. Doubtful any manufacturer would produce one that has the best capabilities of both as it's a very narrow market.

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I've hooked a Mic up, first through an M-Audio Ozone and now through a Yamaha GO44.

On both occasions I also had my guitar going through the same interface.

Now, I'm neither lead singer nor lead guitarist in my band. That said, I've found the results acceptable.

I can control vocal effects and vocal looper from my MF-1 pedal board. (Along with Guitar fx & looper.)

Although I've found the looper difficult to use, the effects have been working fine.

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Does no one sing? It seems odd to me to have a footpedal only send USB to the mac. How is one supposed to hook up a firewire 8 channel audio interface and also deal with a USB audio interface?

 

I have not hooked mic to Mainstage even if that would be an interesting approach, albeit exotic.

 

I would recommend focusing on getting the best possible USB controller for guitar use and then focus on the singing with a separate audio interface. Doubtful any manufacturer would produce one that has the best capabilities of both as it's a very narrow market.

That sounds odd to hear as mainstage even comes with templates that have voice and guitar settings. It's obviously meant to be used in that fashion.
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I'm taking about controlling the patches, most audio interfaces are not designed for foot-control systems including an audio interface. So you need both.

I'm using a presonus firepod that has midi in/out. I use the fcb1010 to control mainstage. These, along with mainstage are definitely designed to take not only a guitar input, but vocal. Not sure why you think adding vocals to the equation is exotic...
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Maybe I misunderstood your question about getting a device that both handles MIDI foot control for guitar including two separate audio inputs, one for guitar, another for voice and the second one most likely would need a balanced input for microphones.

 

Anyway, I would personally stay away from Behringer gear but this is just my own opinion.

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I'm taking about controlling the patches, most audio interfaces are not designed for foot-control systems including an audio interface. So you need both.

I'm using a presonus firepod that has midi in/out. I use the fcb1010 to control mainstage. These, along with mainstage are definitely designed to take not only a guitar input, but vocal. Not sure why you think adding vocals to the equation is exotic...

 

I tried the looping and it is less impressive and capable than what the RC-50 does. My biggest complaint would be the delay before it starts to play. That could be my error, so I will experiment a bit more.

 

Playing back live along with the recorded material using the PLAY insert works great. I mapped a few FCB pedals to a few GUI buttons. I made the GUI buttons really large and it is so easy to see the pedal state.

 

I did get a few overload messages with hardly anything out of the ordinary. So I am still sceptical about using this out for public performance. :?

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...No professional would ever look at a computer screen during a live performance.

 

Good try Apple, but you've got A LOT of work to do before it's halfway decent to take on stage.

 

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.

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^^^^^ I second sooper looper. With Sooper Looper, Mainstage and my FCB1010 (I can't believe there are haters!) I have a robust gigging rig that has yet to let me down - I work with guitar, vocals and omnichord, all looping in different combinations. If you really need the little lights to go on and off the way you want then get the Uno chip. I like them showing what pedal I last pressed though, suits my set-up.
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Firstly I started my live setup with Logic but thought best to use Mainstage given that it is the "live solution". Now mainstage does not recognise my midi drivers despite my trying everything. Besides, yesterday it just crashed on me non stop. I had 3 hours of rehearsal time at my local rehearsal space booked most of which I just spent swearing at Mainstage! I can't be doing with that as I have a number of shows coming up.

 

My setup is:

 

* Audio track 1 - Guitar in with multiple channel strips set up as "Performances" which can be switched using program change messages from my FCB. Generally use logic only plugins except for couple of occasions I use GR3.

* Audio track 2 - Vox / Omnichord in with minimal plugins (little bit of compression and reverb on a send).

* Bus sent to outputs.

* Sooper looper set up on software instrument track with sidechain input from the bus. Monitoring in SooperLooper set to off and I have 5 tracks set up which I layer on and off on top of each other.

* Have a FCB setup for each song in my set as I vary my looping assignments (sometimes overdubbing, sometimes multiplying, sometimes single triggers, etc)

* Also have the lyrics for each song set up for different markers that I can switch between in the arrangement page (as a back up, I loved that aspect of mainstage)

* Obviously need to have all three tracks (audio 1 and 2 and sooperlooper) armed for "recording"

 

Fingers crossed Logic holds up under live scrutiny. I have Ableton Live Lite 7 which I could use as a last resort (have already set up very basic live set just in case) but I know Logic inside out so would much rather use this.

 

I could do a few acoustic numbers if I was desparate though! :D

 

g

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I have a robust gigging rig that has yet to let me down

 

^^^ Cancel that, have now ditched mainstage and reverted to using Logic live. Should have kept my big mouth shut.

 

We were rehearsing last night.

 

20 minutes into the set MS stopped triggering loops or playback.

 

My guitar feed was still working and I could switch patches but that was it - had to quit and relaunch, taking almost 5 minutes.

The CPU meter never got above 65%.

 

Not ideal.

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so is the gio just a big joke with big buttons and pretty lights. I,m still doing my own research on this but still cant decide as i don. see a whole lot of hands on experience on the gio yet .my other choice wold be the one shivermetimbers is using he seems to have a good grasp on it .ithink its the fcb something. i need a good guitar midi interface one i can get my head wraped around and don,t mine spending my hard erned money on it. .not bieng a keyboard player and having an old one at that dosen,t quite do it for me.mine is a korg O1WPRO WITH 76 keys.but mostly l i,m a guitar player who would like to start using mainstage 2.Hope no one is offended by my little rant .i,m just concerned how i want to spend my next investment dollors on a gio or upgrade to an imac. thanks and hey everybody... have the best day you can have where ever you are.in another hundred years no one is going to care what hwt has bought or hasn,t bought. :D :D
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