kid kasio Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Hi This is my first post so you may have to bear with me while i explain my problem Firstly does anyone know whether Mainstage 2.2 has the option of being able to send midi notes to an external device? ( a bit like the "playback' plugin but with midi instead of audio) because if it does all my problems are solved and I will go and buy it now!! If it doesn't then it certainly should ! read on and maybe someone can help me Im running mainstage 2.13 on a macbook pro with OSX 10.6.8 with an RME fireface 400 audio unit. Mainstage is set up so for each song in my concert there is 8 channels of playback running (drums, bass, keys,etc etc) there is also a channel on the mixer strip of each song sending midi clock data to an external sequencer. The external sequencer is set up as the slave so when i change the song on mainstage the metronome on the external sequencer changes in accordance with the tempo of the song in mainstage , so far so good. when I press play on the external sequencer it sends a start/stop midi message to mainstage which starts the playbacks , it also sends out the root chords of the song which i have pre recorded in the external sequencers memory to a voicelive touch box which tunes my vocals in accordance with the song. I noticed that the tuning on my vocals was sometimes slightly out so I ran a midi keyboard from the external sequencers midi out to hear exactly what it was playing and noticed its sometimes out by about half a second. The problem is theres no rule to it, sometimes its early sometimes late sometimes bang on. I've tried changing buffer sizes and i've disabled any softsynth plugins I had running but nothing changes i just cant figure it out The procedure for a song normally goes like this 1. I'll click on a new song in mainstage (while in performance mode) 2. Mainstage will send the midi clock tempo for that song to my external sequencer (i can tell by the metronome light flashing at a new speed) 3. i'll turn the metronome on my external sequencer on and hit the play button bang on the beat in time with the metronome 4. The play button on the external sequencer will simultaneously send a start midi message to "playback" in mainstage while sending the midi notes stored in its memory to the external voice autotune box 5. all the 8 channels of playback start and all runs in time with each other but the notes being sent out by my external sequencer are not synched with playback . sometimes thy're early sometimes late sometimes in time. I have accounted for the slight latency between pressing play on the external sequencer and the playback starting in mainstage by shifting the midi notes in my external sequencer back slightly but the problem is the sheer inconsistency of it! if it was always late or always early that would be fine but why is it so inconsistent? what is causing this inconsistency? and can it be remedied? Any help would be amazing! Thanks Nathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CCTMusic Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Firstly does anyone know whether Mainstage 2.2 has the option of being able to send midi notes to an external device? ( a bit like the "playback' plugin but with midi instead of audio) because if it does all my problems are solved and I will go and buy it now!! If it doesn't then it certainly should ! read on and maybe someone can help me Hi Mainstage 2.2 does have a (very basic) MIDI file playback facility, but currently this feature has some issues (IMHO): viewtopic.php?f=17&t=79022 There are also serious issues with the audio engine that may be a deal-breaker for you: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=79402 viewtopic.php?f=17&t=79922 viewtopic.php?f=25&t=79080 3. i'll turn the metronome on my external sequencer on and hit the play button bang on the beat in time with the metronome 4. The play button on the external sequencer will simultaneously send a start midi message to "playback" in mainstage while sending the midi notes stored in its memory to the external voice autotune box 5. all the 8 channels of playback start and all runs in time with each other but the notes being sent out by my external sequencer are not synched with playback . sometimes thy're early sometimes late sometimes in time. I have accounted for the slight latency between pressing play on the external sequencer and the playback starting in mainstage by shifting the midi notes in my external sequencer back slightly but the problem is the sheer inconsistency of it! if it was always late or always early that would be fine but why is it so inconsistent? what is causing this inconsistency? and can it be remedied? Assuming that you have the Playbacks all grouped etc correctly, this is likely to be because when MS receives a Play instruction (when Stopped), the internal clock has to re-start. There is apparently an audio engine reset when it does this: From the manual... "The Playback plug-‐in can start immediately (if Snap To is set to Off), at the beginning of the next bar (if Snap To is set to Bar), or at the next beat (if Snap To is set to Beat). It can also start when you start the MainStage clock (if “Start with Play Action” is selected in the Action menu). " and "Important: When you star the MainStage clock, the audio engine is reset, causing a brief interruption in the audio output from MainStage. In some cases, you may want to start the MainStage clock at the beginning of a song or performance and use screen controls mapped to individual plug-‐in parameters to start and stop those plug-‐ins to avoid an interruption in the audio output while you are performing." There can also be some 'sluggishness' when starting sync'd Plackbacks, possibly due to disk seek times etc. HTH CCT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid kasio Posted January 21, 2012 Author Share Posted January 21, 2012 Thank you so much for your reply. I remember having a play around with the playback "snap to" options a while ago but i'll give that another try today. We had a huge crisis yesterday where the whole audio just stopped half way through a song in rehearsal!!! The laptop was burning hot so we pointed some big fans at it and the next run through was fine but it scared me a bit. I've purchased a laptop stand with a fan in it today and bought a big desktop fan to point at the laptop and downloaded SMCfan control which I will have on full blast during performance, hopefully this will sort the issue. It could have been the overheating that was affecting disk seek times and the sluggishness of the playback starting too? maybe i'll have another look on here for any threads about audio cutting out. I am running video playback software at the same time as mainstage which would account for the overheating. thanks again nathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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