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What's new in Mainstage 3?


Atlas007

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haha... double click on the CPU usage or memory usage graphics (you have to enable these first on MainStage's preferences).

 

Voila... realtime CPU and or memory usage per plug-in it seems...

 

Never saw this before - was working thru old concerts where MS used to max out, and saw the CPU graphic was highlighted as yellow, thought "hmmm... what's this trying to tell me?" - double-clicked and thought "ooh, I should post this!"

 

Yippee!

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Hi

 

Yep... very very handy for tracking down memory hogs, CPU hogs etc, and perfect for showing why it's not necessarily a good idea to use multiple SpaceDesigners (ref the default Concerts) ;-)

 

 

Here's 2 more for ya:

 

Support for Bank Select when changing Patches (not tested this yet)

 

 

Patch Bus

 

 

CCT

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Patch Bus

 

I read this when v3 came ou, forgot about it, said "oh yeah" here, but seeing as I'm dense - when would I want to use this? The example reasoning in the MS 3 manual doesn't "turn the light on" for me...

 

assuming I'm not running into the global max # of busses, what's the advantage to patch busses?

 

like I said, it's me that dense here :-)

 

thanks!

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Hi

 

At first glance you are right... but

 

By default, MS will make Bus/Aux channels at Concert level unless you specifically add your own Aux channels at Set or Patch level before routing anything to that Aux.

 

A PB makes it quicker to (say) route several Instrument channels to a PB as a subgroup for easier Patch Volume control etc.(as mentioned in the manual) without getting into confusion about 'what's at Concert/what's at Set/what's at Patch level?', and without using up the "global Bus count".

 

I'd probably use them for mix grouping Playback channels, RMX/multi-out instruments etc. I may use them for Patch level signal processing of channels too.

 

I have a feeling that I'd like a "Set Bus" capability too.

 

 

CCT

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Thanks.

 

Multi-output plugs-okay I can understand that.

 

I guess the reason why the volume example doesn't hit me is because I use expression to well, express, and I set channel strip volumes according to how I want the individual channel strips to relate to each other. I then set the scaling, min and max values for expression based on where should fit while playing. I use volume pedals sending expression values, or breath controller as expression. The values for volume don't change much for me, they're set "as mixed".

 

Way back in the early days of MIDI, I participated in a discussion around the use of expression versus volume. The thing about volume is, it takes up or down everything under that slider, causing an unnatural situation as effects get pulled down together with an instrument being played softer/expressively, whereas expression lets one alter the dynamics without taking the effects with it, in particular, reverb halls don't shrink just because someone played softer. I guess I should add that I did a bunch of WX7 sound design for Yamaha during those "early days". MIDI wind controllers used breath control messages instead of expression but the idea is the same. Those guys heard volume versus expression in a heartbeat! Everything we did while I was there worked this way, expression or breath did stuff within the patch, and volume was the same as pulling down the volume sliders on the front face of a DX, TG, or SY...

 

Of course, with external effects devices one could use volume, as these reacted independent of the midi volume messages. In MS, sends can be pre-fader, and then there isn't a problem, but since sometimes we have effects in the strip and then sometimes matrixed via busses, the behavior is different depending on how one sets it up... I'll bet more than 90% wouldn't even notice, but I would... Cursed I guess!

 

So maybe I'm getting what I want via all this focus on expression setup versus patch busses.

 

I uses busses a lot though, as I alias strips all the time, such as Ivory, send the output to a bus, paste the strip using Ivory into a patch, add an audio track to pick up audio from the bus and make a patch-specific strip setting for the patch. One instance of Ivory gets EQ'd and effected differently per patch this way. This could be a patch bus, as it doesn't count against the global limit I suppose it's more autonomous to the patch itself this way, probably imports and exports better, dunno, gotta try it I guess!

 

Once again, thanks!

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