Q: exs dropout

Ok so I spoke too soon.

Please apple, have someone look at this problem.

I hate to say it, but I don't think Apple is ever going to fix this problem. How many updates have they released since this problem started, and none of them even address this issue. I don't even think it's fixed in Logic, although I have read that it was. The only way I can get ms2 to be even remotely useable is to crank the buffers to 512, which is obviously useless.

Has anyone had any experience with the Receptor made by Muse? http://www.museresearch.com/
It seems like this would eliminate any major latency and help with streaming samples. I've done a little research with this and it seem like it may be cumbersome to program, but pretty reliable when in live use.

bump

Still having the same problems, only thing that seems to help a little is to crank the buffers to a point that's unusable.. even then it will still do it eventually.

I think it's safe to say that Apple isn't going to do anything about this problem until more than 50% of users are experiencing the same thing. I just don't understand why it's not happening for everybody??

What Apple doesn't seem to get is this:
MainStage is fundamentally different from almost all of their other products.
If e.g. iTunes crashes or freezes or otherwise doesn't behave like it is supposed to, the worst thing that might happen is that you have to restart the app. Maybe you get a bit angry, but that's about it. Nobody will stop using it because of a slight risk that something might possibly go wrong.
With MainStage however, that's exactly the case. If I know that there is just a 1 % chance that something might go wrong, there's no way I'm gonna use it live on stage. And if I can't use it live, there's just no purpose in using it at all. It's either 99.9999 % reliable, or it's utterly worthless. Simply put.

I guess we must face the facts: Apple nowadays is all about phones and games and gadgets. That's where the money is. As musicians, we are part of such a small niche, that from a corporate perspective we are totally irrelevant to them.
Remember antennagate? The iPhone had a minor flaw, but Apple went completely ape about it and even called a press conference.
Here is MainStage 2, having a major fundamental flaw and they seemingly don't care.
Am I frustrated? Quite a bit.

I've been using Apple laptops and software on stage for more than 5 years (way before MainStage even existed).
However, I have recently decided to go back to a hardware rig within the next 6 months. This year's NAMM show opened up some very interesting options.

cronbg...well said, I couldn't have put it any better.

I only recently experienced this, not in my own show, but I'm also a tech for a few pro's and it started to happen just after we upgraded to an 8gb MB Pro and went 64 bit MS (I don't believe the 64 bit thing is the issue since it happened to plenty of people before that). But your point is well taken, the impact and risk of MS going down is nothing short of a disaster. Not only do they need to fix this, but some kind of redundancy or node solution is required.

And talking about NAMM, this was just launched there http://www.the-freddy.com/

Unlike the Muse Receptor it isn't proprietary and runs on...dare I say it...Windows OS and uses VST's.

Ok, this situation is going from bad to worse - if that can be possible.

We moved away from the EXS24 in an effort to avoid the problem and took a good amount time to replace with the ES2 and NI's Absynth but now the dropouts are happening with these as well It looks like this problem isn't restricted to the EXS.

Apple PLEASE HELP...this is now just unuseable!!

Yep, I bought a Receptor specifically to reduce the dependency on MainStage glitches. It works extremely well MOST of the time, although I have definitely seen it crash from time to time with specific plugins --- so just be careful what plugins you want to run on it.

I still use MainStage to control the Receptor via MIDI (i.e, MainStage sends the program changes out as well as CC values).

DH, good points and much appreciated...thanks for taking the time.

We're gonna give the VIP a go, the hardware, AD/DA (RME or Lynx), specs, standard VST's, and storage are all looking good and a few steps up from the Receptor. It's just that we'll have a DAW environment versus a Mainstage one.

We'll see how it goes.

We're also going to call on any Apple contacts we have to see if we can get some attention on this.

When pro's (and am's) start moving away from Mainstage, it's a definite problem and a very sad day...it's too bad, MS is such a good solution.

Hmmm, I can't quite tell what a VIP actually is, from their website.


I wish I could figure out how to move away from MainStage given the tremendous lack of support, but the only thing I can find that even looks like it might work for me is the Vienna Ensemble Pro but I point blank refuse to use any software that requires a dongle.

MainStage conceptually is tremendous but they just don't seem to be able to fix those last few pieces that would make it totally reliable.

Yeah, it's essentially a kinda super high end rack mount audio workstation. VIP means Virtual Instrument Player. It uses a stripped down version of Windows 7. High performance audio cards from Lynx or RME that provide at least 8 in 8 out and up to 32GB of memory and 2x2 bays with removable/swappable 2TB drives in each bay for so-called "unlimited storage".

Runs any Windows based DAW, Pro Tools, Ableton, Studio One, etc and VST plug-in's.

Apparently, you can run simultaneous instances of the biggies such as East West Quantum Leaps, etc and it doesn't skip a beat and can even run multiple band members off it (would like to see that).

Hmmm, doesn't sound appealing to me in a live situation ---- if you're just going to run a DAW, you might as well just run Logic or Ableton on a Mac. I'm very skeptical of any Windows environment being more reliable.

In particular, one of the benefits of MainStage for me (if it would just be reliable) is that it can be a control center to manage routing for a large live rig with multiple outboard keyboards/synths. The indirection mechanism used to associate hardware with parameters is very attractive (indeed the KEY benefit of MainStage in my opinion) and I would hate to lose that. Every other system I have tried, including RAX, forces you to deal with MIDI directly.

I wish I could determine whether Apple is still even interested in MainStage or whether they're moving so much towards consumer space that they don't care any more.

dhjdhj wrote:
Hmmm, doesn't sound appealing to me in a live situation ---- if you're just going to run a DAW, you might as well just run Logic or Ableton on a Mac. I'm very skeptical of any Windows environment being more reliable.

Either Windows XP or Windows 7 is a -completely- stable audio environment.
More so than MacOSX at this point, especially the more recent versions of OSX.

I've set up several Windows machines for studios (as well as Macs) and there a seldom any problems, have had more problems with OSX upgrades than anything else.

Yes, there is a setup procedure for both Win7 and XP but it's well documented online and takes no more than 15 minutes to perform, as long as the hardware is quality (not Dell or any other commercial system) the PC computers are 100% reliable.

pancenter-

Yes, exactly this has been very stable in testing so far...and you're right, this is no commercial mass production unit. It's custom designed and hand built with quality components. The studio class I/O is giving us some real nice sound. Also 16 GB ram and 64 bit all the way seems to be giving us plenty of headroom with very low latency. So far so good.