Maddcow Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 Hi guys, I'm a sax/EWI player doing live gigs, sometimes with other horns. I use a relatively complicated setup and have some questions. I should also mention that I currently use Ableton Live to successfully do everything I've outlined below, but would like to look at using MainStage 1 or 2 instead. My I/O's and softsynths are as follows: AUDIO INPUTS: -Single mic input from multiple saxes (soprano, alto & tenor - used one at a time though) -Monitor send from FOH -Mic sends from 1 or 2 other horns (if present) MIDI INPUT: -EWI controlling 4 different softsynths (WIVI, Surge, SampleTank, Gladiator) but using single output to FOH and monitors. OUTPUTS: -Submixed monitor send for my in-ears -1 or 2 submixed monitor sends for the other horn players (if present) -Output to FOH for sax -Output to FOH for EWI -Output to FOH for Horn 1 (if present) -Output to FOH for Horn 2 (if present) MY SITUATION: The other horns are easy to manage: use separate channel strips at the Concert level for the inputs and multiple outputs (monitor & FOH). However, it's the sax and EWI situation that has me a little stumped as to the easiest and most efficient way to handle them. I know that I could simply create separate MainStage patches for everything outlined below, but there are some issues with this (esp. with MIDI program change for the saxes) that I'll outline later. Because I'm constantly switching between sax and EWI during and between songs, I don't really have time to be switching patches for BOTH instruments (and I can't use MIDI program change when playing sax - details below). I use 12 different EQ/FX setups for the saxes in different songs i.e. I might use alto sax for a ballad with med-long delay, but then have to switch to tenor sax for a funk tune with short delay and chorus, etc. And each sax needs a separate EQ....so there are 3 saxes (3 x EQ setups) with 4 different FX setups for each sax (Verb only, Verb & Short Delay, Verb & Med Delay, Verb & Long Delay) BUT, I'm also playing an EWI and am constantly switching between softsynths/patches....so I use approx. 40 different synth patches between the 4 softsynths. MY PROBLEMS/QUESTIONS: 1) EWI Ideally, I'd prefer to only use single MainStage patches for each of the 4 softsynths and then use MIDI program changes to call up the various patches on each softsynth as I need them....but MainStage apparently can't do this (seems really, really stupid to me, BTW) and so I need to have approx 40 instances of the softsynths all loaded simultaneously - which, despite assurances to the contrary, definitely chews up a LOT of system resources in having so many instances loaded simultaneously, even if they're not all being used simultaneously. Is there ANY way at all to minimize the resources being used for the EWI? I've seen it mentioned that channel strip aliases can be used to reduce resource usage but am not sure how I can use this to my advantage in this situation?? 2) Saxes I can use the EWI to send MIDI program changes to switch patches, but I can't do this on the saxes to switch between the EQ/FX presets for each sax. I'm also trying to avoid using an external MIDI controller to do this because I travel a lot on planes and need to keep gear to a minimum. So it seems that the only way to do this is to create buttons or something on the Performance screen that will do this. I tried to create buttons on the Performance screen that could be used to switch between the various sax presets at a Concert level, but I can't find a way to have these buttons disengage when another button is pressed i.e. button 1 is EQ for alto sax, button 2 is EQ for tenor sax. Pressing button 2 doesn't disengage button 1.....so I end up with both EQ configs being "merged" unless I press button 1 to turn it off.....which means that I always need to first disengage a preset before engaging another one, which is more complicated than I want. What I'd like to do is set up 4 buttons for each sax EQ/FX preset (12 button presets in total) where only ONE of these can be active at any given time. So pressing a preset button will automatically engage the new preset and disengage the previous preset. Is this possible? Perhaps there are other ways I can get the same results? I'd greatly appreciate some input from experts out there! Cheers Gary EDIT: I'm pretty sure this can't be done in MainStage, but I don't suppose there's any way to have 2 patches selected simultaneously? I think this would solve the majority of my problems. I could then use MIDI program changes on different MIDI channels to change patches separately for sax and EWI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKHouse Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Hi Gary, I'm hardly an expert, but hopefully I can shed some light. Complex setups like yours are my favorites to work with! I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can, although I will say that I haven't worked with those four particular softsynths, so I can't give direct experience in that regard. 1. You are correct, Mainstage does not allow program changes to be passed through to plugins as the delay in changing patches or loading more samples would be costly in live situations. Unfortunately, if all 40 of your presets / patches are different samples / sounds then 40 separate instances of the softsynths will be necessary. Channel strip aliasing could be used, for example, if you would like to use an identical softsynth in two different patches. The plugin will not be loaded twice, but its settings will be identical between patches. Given the description of your setup, I envision this will not be of much help as it sounds that all 40 of your softsynth settings are different. The only tips I can offer in terms of resource management would be ensuring that reverbs and delays are bussed as opposed to being put on individual softsynth's channel strips. Busses are great help any time a plugin setting is used more then once in a given concert. I've heard Mainstage 2 offers much better resource management, I have yet to do anything to really test that out. 2. I have just tried this (out of my own curiosity) and confirmed that you can program four buttons in Mainstage 2 to behave the way you described. Mainstage 2 allows for multiple mappings per control. A single button can, for example, bypass EQ's 1, 2, and 4, while making EQ 3 active. In the "mappings" section for the given button, the settings would read "bypass" for the max and min values of EQ's 1, 2, and 4 and "- -" for the max and min values of EQ 3. Creating a similar button, except with EQ 4 being set to "- -" will act as expected, enabling EQ 4 while bypassing the other EQ's. It is important to note that the color of a button (active or inactive) corresponds to the first mapping in the "mappings" area of the patch inspector. Therefore, you want the EQ (or other effect) to be the first in the list. The various mappings can be reordered by dragging their tabs from left to right in the patch inspector. EDIT: You are correct, there is no way for two patches to be simultaneously selected in mainstage. Alright, now your question as to alternative setups. I suppose there are several ways to achieve what you're asking. From your description, it seems as though you usually adjust presets on the fly using program changes. My biggest question would be, is it practical for you to make a "patch" in Mainstage for all of the songs you play on (one patch per song)? This is where Mainstage can really excel as a live performance centerpiece. The reason I ask is you mention not having much time to switch patches between songs. If you can put in a separate patch for each song, it's then as simple as pressing the down arrow on your laptop's keyboard to move to the next patch. Your microphone could be routed to busses with the appropriate EQ for the given sax, or the appropriate EWI softsynth could be brought up. Given the situation, however, this may not be appropriate if presets need to be managed more "on the fly". Hope some of this helps! -Kenny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maddcow Posted August 3, 2009 Author Share Posted August 3, 2009 Kenny, thank you so much for the informative reply. I've been tinkering away since I first posted and have been able to create buttons but they haven't quite worked properly yet i.e. when I press one button, sometimes one of the others will light up as well so I'll have another go at this using the tips you've provided - hopefully I can get it working properly! As to programming by "songs"...yeah, you're right - I'm not going to be able to work like that. I work with numerous groups and everything is so free-flowing that I never know what's going to happen next! I'm curious as to how channel strip aliasing works. Can you provide a bit more info on how these are supposed to operate? With my 4 softsynths, the only things that change are the patches when they're loaded i.e. I don't have any fancy routing or anything else going on - the patches IIRC are generally "self-contained"....so perhaps aliases might be ok? In Ableton Live, I have all 4 softsynths loaded and use as you've assumed, I just use MIDI program changes to load different patches into each softsynths as I need them. So except for the patches changing, nothing else in each synth is altered. I've currently set up the synths so that if I load a patch into one synth, a blank patch is loaded into the other synths so that only the operational patch is heard. (I hope that makes sense to you!) Oh, and a final question: I assume that if I'm currently using a MainStage patch, all other MainStage patches are "muted" or something along those lines? So if I'm currently using a softsynth patch, then any patches using audio channels etc simply won't sound? Ideally I want to leave my current sax channel running permanently and just use patches for my softsynths....so I guess that means I'd have to set up something for the saxes at the Concert level? Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maddcow Posted August 4, 2009 Author Share Posted August 4, 2009 I've managed to set up all the buttons perfectly except for one thing: they're all lit constantly which means that except for when I initially click a button, there's no way to tell which button preset is actually engaged. Anyone know why this is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKHouse Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Hey Gary, it sounded from your post as if you were more the "free flowing" type of player. That's how I am on keyboards most of the time, so I certainly understand the needs of having a rig that can do exactly what you want, whenever you might need it. For reference, in this post the term "patch" will refer only to a patch in Mainstage 2, not a preset in a softsynth. Channel strip aliasing simply lets you load a softsynth in one patch, and be able to use that instance of the softsynth in other patches. Therefore I can load an EXS24 Piano preset in patch 1, and use that same piano sound in patch 14 without having to load the samples twice. The same limitations, however, still apply in terms of program changes. I cannot change from a piano preset to a bass preset when patch 14 is called up. Therefore I don't think channel aliasing will help in your situation. Have you considered using Ableton as a rewire slave, and hosting your four softsynths in Ableton? You could then use "External Instrument" channel strips in Mainstage 2 to call up the corresponding preset in your softsynths within Ableton. Although it certainly might not be resource-friendly to run Ableton and Mainstage at the same time, I would bet its better then running forty instances of your softsynths within Mainstage. You would still have delays when switching presets in your softsynths, but no more then you're experiencing right now. There would be some details to work out if you went down this road, but it can definitely be done. I know ideally you would want to be able to run everything from within Mainstage, but since you already have Ableton this may be a viable solution using the two pieces of software at once. Audio Channel Strips: For our terms, Mainstage 2 patches are muted when switching patches (this isn't totally correct because softsynth sounds can continue between patches). I haven't played around with this heavily in terms of audio channel strips, so I don't know the exact behavior, but I would guess it's a very sudden and hard mute when switching from a patch with an audio channel strip to one without. You are correct, the audio channel strip would need to be loaded at the concert level. And now for the buttons: Mainstage displays the color of a button based on the first mapping in the list. Mapping tabs can be moved from left to right in order to adjust this order. For Example, I've created an audio channel strip at the concert level with three EQ's on it, a channel EQ, a Fat EQ, and a DJ EQ. (They could all be the same type but this makes it easier to see the ordering). I've also created three buttons that enable one of the EQ's while bypassing the other two. The three mapping settings look as follows: Button 1: http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx210/TKHouse/Button1.jpg Button 2: http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx210/TKHouse/Button2.jpg Button 3: http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx210/TKHouse/Button3.jpg However, using these settings, whenever button two is pressed, button three lights up as well. This is because when button two is pressed, the channel EQ is bypassed. Because "Channel EQ Bypass" is the first mapping for both buttons 2 and 3, both light up when the channel EQ is bypassed, regardless of the status of the other two EQ's. In order to correct this, the mappings must be reordered as such: Button 2: http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx210/TKHouse/Button2Correct.jpg And Button 3: http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx210/TKHouse/Button3Correct.jpg The color of the buttons should now work properly. Hope this helps! -Kenny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartp Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 hi, just trying to follow this interesting topic.. i am also using an ewi/wx5 and ableton Live 7. I havent played with Mainstage 2 yet , but it looks kinda tempting. I was just wondering why would you want to switch from Live to Mainstage? My way of working in Live is this: ive got 20 sounds ,still building more.. every sound is loaded on a midi or audio channel (midi for hosting Reason sounds`/vst) ive got my footswitch assigned to the arm buttons on each channel. This way i can tap a sound on when ever i like.. The other sound will be disabled automaticly. I like this way, but the more sounds the more footcontroller buttons i need. that is a pain. so i would love to be able to group my sounds per song. Say 8 sounds in a group. When changing songs i like to be able to change group and use the same footcontroller buttons for the new group. All should load fairly quick ofcourse in a live situation. not really helping you out, just pitching in. best, Bart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmm42 Posted August 4, 2009 Share Posted August 4, 2009 Channel strip aliasing simply lets you load a softsynth in one patch, and be able to use that instance of the softsynth in other patches. Therefore I can load an EXS24 Piano preset in patch 1, and use that same piano sound in patch 14 without having to load the samples twice. Don't do that with the EXS24! The EXS24 doesn't load the instruments twice anyway. The alias channel strip pretty much only makes sense, if you have to use an AudioUnit that uses excessive memory and you want to put it in several patches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKHouse Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Channel strip aliasing simply lets you load a softsynth in one patch, and be able to use that instance of the softsynth in other patches. Therefore I can load an EXS24 Piano preset in patch 1, and use that same piano sound in patch 14 without having to load the samples twice. Don't do that with the EXS24! The EXS24 doesn't load the instruments twice anyway. The alias channel strip pretty much only makes sense, if you have to use an AudioUnit that uses excessive memory and you want to put it in several patches. Interesting, the EXS24 only loads samples once per concert? In other words, if patch 1 and patch 12 have instances of the EXS24 that require the same samples, the samples are only loaded once? Never knew that. I suppose that makes sense though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmm42 Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Interesting, the EXS24 only loads samples once per concert? In other words, if patch 1 and patch 12 have instances of the EXS24 that require the same samples, the samples are only loaded once? Never knew that. I suppose that makes sense though... Yes. It even shares them between concerts loaded at the same time (which is an improvement over MainStage 1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKHouse Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Yes. It even shares them between concerts loaded at the same time (which is an improvement over MainStage 1) Wow! That's awesome. Considering your previous post, however, is that behavior limited to the EXS24 or does that apply to Audio Unit plugin samplers as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmm42 Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 Wow! That's awesome. Considering your previous post, however, is that behavior limited to the EXS24 or does that apply to Audio Unit plugin samplers as well? Only to the EXS24, because AudioUnits do their own thing. A host application doesn't even know if an AudioUnit uses samples. But AudioUnits could still copy that behavior, but that has to be done inside the AudioUnit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maddcow Posted August 6, 2009 Author Share Posted August 6, 2009 Kenny, I just wanted to thank you again for your help. I've now got working buttons with working indicators! I've had to compromise a little from what I'd originally wanted, but it's not too bad. I'll outline what I originally wanted just in case there IS a way to do it: I wanted to have 3 different sax EQ's with 4 different verb/delay settings for each....that's a total of 12 setups. And so I wanted a 12-button panel so that I could simply click a button and the new setting would kick in. I also wanted a setup where I didn't have to turn off the current setting when a new one was selected i.e. I wanted the new setting to supercede the previous. No matter what I've tried, I just couldn't get this to work perfectly. Maybe you have some more ideas? Below are the configs I'd like: Sop sax 1: EQ, Reverb Sop sax 2: EQ, Reverb, Short Delay Sop sax 3: EQ, Reverb, Medium Delay Sop sax 4: EQ, Reverb, Long Delay Alto sax 1: EQ, Reverb Alto sax 2: EQ, Reverb, Short Delay Alto sax 3: EQ, Reverb, Medium Delay Alto sax 4: EQ, Reverb, Long Delay Tenor sax 1: EQ, Reverb Tenor sax 2: EQ, Reverb, Short Delay Tenor sax 3: EQ, Reverb, Medium Delay Tenor sax 4: EQ, Reverb, Long Delay What I ended up doing was having 3 buttons to select a sax type (with unique EQ and reverb for each sax type), and then 4 buttons for the 4 different delay settings. Due to mapping problems with bypassing the delay FX for the reverb-only setting, I ended up just configuring the delay to "0ms" for this particular setup. I'm using 3 channel strips on the Concert level for each sax type, with a single channel strip for the delay. The 4 delay buttons are simply mapped to change the delay times for none, short, medium and long. So I just have to select the sax type with one button (of the 3) and then the reverb/delay type with another button (from the 4). As I said, it's functional but I'd still rather press one button....but beggars can't be choosers! I think the MainStage mapping system is a bit awkward and could do with some reworking. And it'd be nice to be able to map more than 8 functions to a button. EDIT: Oh, and I should have mentioned that I'm looking at using Plogue Bidule for hosting the softsynths with audio going back into MainStage. I've tested this today and it seems to work, but the CPU load is going nuts when I route the audio output back into MainStage via Soundflower or Jack. I'm going to post my issues with this in another thread if you're interested. Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartp Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 Gary, why do you want to choose Mainstage over Ableton Live? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maddcow Posted August 6, 2009 Author Share Posted August 6, 2009 Sorry Bart, I saw your earlier post and meant to reply but forgot. The reason I'm really looking at MainStage now is because whilst Live is pretty much doing what I want it to do, my setup is quite complicated and getting it to work in Live involves a lot of workarounds and "hacks" for which Live was never intended. Plus, there are lots of little things that annoy me, such as how parameters can't be "locked down" to avoid accidental changes and how difficult it is to change some of my config settings whilst performing live. The ability to configure the performance UI of MainStage is pretty attractive because it'll solve the issues mentioned above as well as some other issues I haven't mentioned. However, I won't sacrifice performance so if MainStage doesn't deliver in this area then it'll be out the door pretty fast! I'd have to properly demonstrate my Live project for you to fully understand how complicated it is. I also run it in conjunction with Bome's MIDI Translator because I have hundreds of key switches/macros in operation as well, which are also linked to my FCB1010 (which I use if I'm working locally where I don't have problems with the amount of gear I use). MainStage would free me up from stuff like that.....IF I can get it to work the way I want it to. Plus I use a Turbo VL70m and I've had to work pretty hard to integrate the control of that module with my softsynths. Not to mention that I often work with other horn players and have to manage their audio inputs, FX, monitoring etc with my equipment also....so that's all a part of the config too, in addition to my multiple acoustic sax processing and personal in-ear monitoring. To put it simply, whilst I believe that the system performance of Live is unparalleled, its GUI and config can't be customized like MainStage. If I could have the performance of Live and the GUI of MainStage, I'd be a VERY happy muso! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartp Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 thanks for answering Gary. I see your set up is way more serious than mine. I really hope you get it all working in Mainstage. If it will work for you it will definitely work for me aswell. i only play the ewi/wx5, so my setup is fairly simple compared to yours, since i dont need to manage audio comming from my saxes. i also do miss the lock down feature a lot. i am still quiet happy using Live. routing Reason and a couple of other softsynth aswell as my inear monitoring and a yamaha footcontroller. I only need to find a way to manage my sounds better. Its getting too big and i need to find a way to create several sets i can load fast. Maybe Live can do this fairly easy, i havent really explored the options for this yet. i also read that Mainstage is earier on the CPU when handling softsynth. That would be a plus for me. i will be following this thread for sure. thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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