Pushing the limits on Mainstage but keeping it light-weight

[Mitch75]

Hi,

After years of transporting gears/racks of synths for rehearsl/live, I admit Mainstage is a great and feather-light replacement. It was a pain to configure each rack individually with its menus/sub-menus; also the sound does not cut-off when switching patches in Mainstage! (and no, roland Fantom-G is limited compared to Mainstage) And so far no big troubles, even with complex patch, provided certain rules are respected (no SpaceDesigner, sculpture, few send fx,..). However, in my current set, I have little remaining CPU activity margin (nearly all the time in 'red' with big chords): basically I'd like to keep the same unique framework (Mainstage) but delegate some plugins I use to other 'light to transport' systems, like small external DSP cards, hybrid soundcard/DSP cards, node machine (?if feasible?), etc.. (your advice goes here).

 

External DSPs systems: There are a lot of ready-to-play channel strips in Mainstage. Most of them involve a lot of effects: is anybody using Mainstage (not Logic) in conjunction with UAD or Powercore cards with little latency mode?Any disappointments using these?Also, for example, if different Powercore/UAD effects are assigned to two consecutive patches in Mainstage, is there any 'effect-cut' when switching between both patchs? What about other hybrid DSP/soundcard, like MetricHalo 2882+DSP, used in Mainstage context only? What about the Konnekt cards / MOTU 828Mk3 ? I don't know about Digidesign products, but probably it would not work with Mainstage, right? Would you think of other recommendations (external boxes providing effects that can be used in Mainstage for example)?

 

Node:

I read that nodding works well, not for all plugs but only for some plugins, within Logic. Is it also possible to use nodes system in Mainstage? Did anyone tried? How well does it works? Another option would surely be to use two machines with 2 mainstages, but I'd better stick with one unique interface from where to arrange my patches and everything..

 

Have a nice day!

 

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Current setup: Roland A-37, Yamaha MFC-10, MacbookPro Merom 2.6Ghz/4G/120Gb/ Logic 8 (about 12kgs)

 

Previous setup: A-37, VK-8, S90-ES, A-70, K2000R, XV5080, Triton Rack, JD-990 (hello backpain)

[belizefan]

i'm also very interested in this question. i have an mbp with a slower processor than yours, but so far haven't had any latency issues using several midi controllers simultaneously. i do keep the effects to a minimum. cheap dsp add-ons would be ideal... anyone have ideas or experience with this (even links to reliable products would be helpful)? thanks!

[Mitch75]

Just a quick FYI update for people who might be interested:

Few weeks ago, I bought a used Traveller (not mk3) and Firewire Powercore and daisy-chained them with my Mac. Overall, I am happy with these so far.

Under Mainstage, using Motu traveller, I can reduce the latency (128) when compared to integrated builtin output (512). The reason for initial 512 is that I usually have 10-15 synths on a patch, split/layered. Using PowerCore, there is enough room to replace the software AU effects I used within mainstage with the ones running on Powercore DSPs... still it will require a little bit of time for re-programming similar effects. Using Powercore synths like virus under mainstage might not be practical (single license for virus, thus need to share it at concert level), I just sample the virus sounds to use them under EXS.

So far so good, anyway I still hope that SnowLeopard will introduce major improvements (finally use all CPU cores under Mainstage without any workaround tricks??)

 

Best Regards