JimDavidson

Playing with 3.6.1. Same issue with a selector window that I use to see markers in a playback plug instance losing the markers and going blank. Well, almost the same. It seems that sometimes I can go into the editor mode and " reconnect " the selector to the markers. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Before ( ver 3.6 ) I never saw that happen. Once the markers were gone, only deleting the playback plug on that set and then adding a new one would get the markers back. So maybe something is changed on that issue. Ah, but I did stumble on a sure fire way to cause the problem. I have a concert with a separate " set " for each song / instance of playback. If I set up a few songs, get it all working, then move one of the sets ( songs ) position in the concert, save and close the concert, then reopen, that's it. The song I moved will now have lost the markers as shown in a selector window. And, one or two more songs below that will have the markers gone also. Eh, if I can track this down further, I should send in a note to apple. Hadn't done that before because the behavior was so erratic, but now it's only half maddeningly weird.

Did a solo gig with MS 3.6 today. One hour, used MS in my 2015 MacBook Air. MS was doing one guitar patch and a single playback plugin per tune. Had about 20 tunes ( sets ) in the concert. A nice simple setup. The good ... MS runs nice and easy in that MacBook Air. No issues with its puny i5 processor. No problem with only 4 gig of ram. MS sounded good, didn't crash. The bad ... the playback plugin ( or the selector when used to view playback markers ) is basically chock full of weirdness. When I turned it on this morning, there were two songs ( sets ) where the markers ( as viewed from a selector set to do that ) disappeared. Just blank. The fix is to delete the playback plugin on that set, put a new instance back, load the AIFF, then relink any screen controls liked to that plugin. Doable, but not at a gig. If MS randomly loses the markers of a given song at a job, that song is just off the list for then. So at the job, it didn't lose any markers. It DID tho, refuse to scroll the markers in two, iirc. The highlight moved down correctly for a few sections, then stopped moving. The backing, playback plug, continued to play, but the markers as seen in a selector set to view markers, just froze. Do I trust this thing ? Not really. I may spend some time trying to use the waveform to view markers in a playback plug. That seems to work. Or, maybe I can just use the Current and Next markers in text windows. Or go back to using Logic live. Logic has way more screen clutter, but it's predictable. Weirdness at a live gig isn't something I can live with.

It's late, but I had a thought. Perhaps the problems I was seeing are related to trying to use old MS projects and just updating the songs. I know that at least a few of the interface things I did in the the past just flat don't work anymore. As an example, it use to be possible to use a level meter to indicate the progress of a playback. That doesn't work anymore. Now you have to use the circular progress indicator. Makes sense. They have tightened up what graphic objects will respond to what data types. Ah, but what happened to the internal memory pointers and such if I use my old projects as templets ? The graphics don't work, but the code is probably still trying to send data to them. And where is that data going ? Who knows. This isn't the entire picture, as I have had totally new, built completely from scratch concerts lose their minds. But trying to update old concerts from earlier versions of MS may explain some of the problems I'm seeing.

Quick update, it survived band rehearsal. No keyboard patches in this version of my " concert ", just some backing tracks and guitar patches. I really like MainStage when it works. Really like the synths and guitar effects. I'm far too lazy to carry much gear out now. So I'd really like to sort these disappearing lyrics and the thing where the file size grows up into the 100 meg range. Gonna load this concert into my little MacBook Air and use it for an hour gig tomorrow. Wish me luck.

If anyone cares, that is. Ok, a week or so back, I decided to try and use MainStage in my live setup again. Used it a lot a few years back, but changes happened and I went to either totally live players or using Logic when I needed some backings for my gigs. Things have changed again, post covid, and so MainStage is getting a new look at. My initial issues are that my old concerts don't work correctly now. There are a lot of possible reasons. New computers, new OS, version updates in MS. I basically used MS for guitar and keyboard processing and for backing rhythm-ish tracks for my solo gigs. So my goal is to have about 20 or so songs ( sets ) in one concert. I made different concerts with different songs depending on the gigs. So I'm building all new concerts from scratch. Create a set, add a playback strip, load in one backing track, as an AIFF, per set, along with whatever guitar or keyboard patches that song ( set ) needs. The catch for me is that because I'm old and work in various groups, memorizing different arrangements and keys and such is just not happening. I need to see the markers I've made in the Logic versions of my backings. How I did this in the past with MS was to use a " selector " to view the markers. That worked once a long time ago. Now, it's iffy and I can't figure out why. I build sets, one for each tune, link a selector to the markers, and there they are, as a nice list. It will even move a highlight bar as the tracks plays. Sweet. No, I'm not trying to see all these at once, I use another " selector " to move between sets ( songs ). It works great ..... until ...... ( add scary music here ) .... After I get a dozen of so sets ( songs ) in and all mapped up to various screen controls, it starts losing those markers. When I select various sets ( songs ) the marker selector randomly goes blank except for the empty highlight bar. And once this starts, it loses more, or different song markers with each opening and closing of MS. That's it for now. As I figure this out, I'll try to explain here. Or, maybe I'll just give up and go back to Logic, or go totally live like some coffee shop acoustic act As of now, I have a band rehearsal in a few, and will see how long MS lasts today. I stripped a bunch of stuff out last night and it appears to work. Another option would be to forget using a selector to view markers, and use the " current " and " next " marker options linked to a text box. I could do that but it'd be a mind strain trying to keep the overall arrangements in my head. Doable, but us old people don't like change much

I'm having serious issues with playback plugin mapping misbehaving. It works for a while, then doesn't. I'm using old concerts that worked before, are iffy now. When this happens, it creates a serious memory leak. The concert file size increases by about 50% each time you save it to disc after this happens. Each time. After 5 or 6 open and close cycles it'll be over 100 meg. Went back to 3.5.3 and am rebuilding my concerts to work around. I'd be more specific, and was in an earlier version of this. But eh, I'm just gonna be brief as a heads up. Might send a report to Apple if I can pin down exactly what triggers this.

Yes, but doesn't using an external monitor require the discrete graphics chip being active ? Almost all my Logic work is with an external monitor connected to the MBP, so disabling the GPU wouldn't work. It's been a long time since I've thought about this issue. My solution was an app to turn the fans up a bit when needed. Not all the time, just when the machine is running hot. The fan noise doesn't bother me, but the very hot case top does. I suspect that heat is a factor in the butterfly keyboards failing. One last thing, Logic doesn't really heat things up as much as an astronomy program I have called Stellarium. That thing will send my i9 MBP into the 200 F range in no time at all. And yet, on my MacBook Air, the same program isn't a heat problem at all.

Quick add on to my post. In looking at the original post, it was about iMac / Mac mini vs Mac Pro .... not new vs used. In that case , I'd go with a mini or the iMac. Plenty good enough, way more affordable, and none of these are gonna make you happy in 10 years. Hey, you ask, that's my thoughts. Unless you have boat loads of cash and buying a crazy expensive machine with a very iffy future suits you. I guess this means I see the new MacPro's as something corporations would buy.

This forum seems to favor short, paragraph size replies, conversational style, so I'll try and keep this short. If I were you, I'd buy something used. Your girlfriend may well be dead on. Even is she isn't, Apple has some real issues with servicing their new stuff. Maybe failures are rare, but apparently when they do happen, AppleCare or not, you've got a problem. Youtube is full of videos on this topic. Then there is a good chance Apple will move away from Intel cpu's in the unknown near future. I bought my new MacBook Pro ( 2019 ) with the full expectation that I'll be lucky to get 4 years use out of it. And, as I mention in the Black Friday thread, I just picked up a nice used Mac Air ( 2015 ) that actually does all the Logic Pro things I need. Got that for $300. Paid $4000 ( US ) for the 2019 MacBook Pro. I could have bought a nice 2015 refurbed MacBook Pro with all the old style ports I don't actually need for $1500. Didn't do that because I found some article online about the USB ports in that exact model being a problem with audio apps. One article, just one ... on the net .. so I passed on a perfectly good Mac. I'm a musician, not a studio, so my needs are modest compared to some. That said, with all the uncertainty I see right now with Apple, Intel, Right to Repair ( Louis Rossmann ), AMD .... I'm definitely looking for good near term value. The long term is too vague for my nerves.

Did I buy anything interesting on Black Friday ? Well, yes I did. I bought a used 2015 MacBook Air ( 7,2 ) for my live gigs. Originally this was a longer post, but those few words really said it all, so I shortened it.

Just a few quick thoughts, the 13" MBP you're thinking about will be great. I used a 2011 15" MBP with those same specs up until just few months ago. And that was an older i7 and much slower memory. Replaced it as the screen was failing from some ugly delamitation of the lcd itself. As far as the screen size, I'm buying a 13" MacBook Air as my live gig backup. 13 inch screen don't bother me at all. If I need a bigger screen, plug a bigger one in. There will always be some machine with better spec out there to think about. Either real, as in shipping, or promised but not shipping yet. I live in the real world and have to buy things that are actually shipping, but yeah, the promised next version is always something tempting to wait on. I mention this because I bought a 2019 15 inch MBP a few months back, despite the rumored 16 inch that just dropped. Eh, no way I could have comfortably waited. And guess what, despite not having the very latest, very best speced machine as of about a week ago, I still love this one. It works great, I'm making music on it. If I were more practical, I really could have bought a refurbed one a few years old and saved a bundle. It would have worked ---- for me ----- just as well as this new one. But, eh, I'm about to retire from music, getting up there in years, so this will likely be my last portable. I bought one I liked. If you need portability, buy the MacBook Pro, if you don't, look at a mini or iMac. Enough rambling. As to your question about Catalina, I upgraded my 2019 MBP from Mojave to Catalina a few days ago. No problems at all that I see. It went smooth, and all my gear still works. I don't use any third party plugs, just the things that came with Logic. Of course, you should research if your specific gear / plugs will work. I tried. The one thing that was iffy was a Behringer XR18 in my live gig setup, and well, Behringer hasn't given a thumbs up to Catalina. They haven't said anything. Mentioned that to my wife, she had a great, female response " What are you gonna replace it ( the XR18 ) with if it doesn't work once you upgrade ? " She understands. Time and gear move on. The XR18 works just fine. Sigh ..... now I will need some new justification to get a new interface. Ha.

I think I'm the person that brought up the fan control thing. Yes, I agree, in most cases it's best to let the system control the fans. There are perhaps some downsides to overriding Apple's temperature curves. The fans might wear out sooner. It will certainly clog the heat sink radiators with dust sooner. The fans will make more noise. So, don't do it. Let the system run itself. If anyone wants to discuss system overheating or fried graphics chips, I've quite a lot to say about that. Somewhere else, some other thread.

I should add, that 4000 rpm thing is where I have the fans set when I'm loading it down. That's iStats Medium fan setting. If I were to put things back to system controlled, the fans would drop back to their idle value of about 2000 rpm. Then the case would get hot. Not hot enough to bake a pizza, but definitely warm.

Either one of my MBP's periodically will rev the fans way up for a while out of nowhere then things settle back down. It's almost always that mdworker thing doing whatever it does, indexing files. There may be downsides to using a fan controller, but I like at least the iStat thing showing what the temps are. This one right now ( 2019 i9 ), with Logic running, a browser open, an external monitor, and USB hooked to my XR18 mixer is at 130 F and the fans at about 4000 rpm each.

First off, congratulations on the new MacBook Pro. I kinda wish I had waited, but that just wasn't reasonable for me. My old 2011 MPB was on its last and I didn't want to risk total failure. That said, I'd agree, your new system is likely indexing things and will settle down some when that's complete. Give it a few days, then if it's still running the fans hard, think about it. Back to my 2019 i9 MBP, it gets hot running Logic. I use Fahrenheit , see 170, 180 degrees numbers show up all the time. That might pull the fans up to about half speed. The rear left side of the top ( keyboard ) gets real hot. While that might not cause the thing to fry soon, it's hotter than I'm comfortable with. So I installed a fan controller app, IStatMenus, and when running Logic I put the fans on medium ( half way up ). Yes, it's sucking in dust, and making some noise ( I don't really notice that ), but it keeps the case from getting hot on top. And that's my rationalization for keeping the 2019. I can just turn the fans up. The tiny radiators inside the MBP only really work if air is flowing over them. So that has to happen one way or the other. Either let Apple turn the fans up, or do it yourself. Or, let the thing cook. Lots of heat generated in a very small case, it's got to get out somehow. Its not gonna passively cool very quickly. That's why the fans are in there, and they made them bigger.