I disagree completely --- I think the approach MainStage has taken is brilliant theoretically --- and my only problem with it is that in practice it has not been reliable.
I've looked at both Jamalaya and Rax in the past and although they both work quite well, neither of them adapt to the USER's perspective, both requiring the user to adapt his/her environment to fit the software design.
I'm installing Logic Studio 9 right now and I am just HOPING that MainStage 2 will be reliable. We'll see...
BTW: You should really look at MainStage 2. It does exactly what you are proposing (
every single point), just open one of the templates, go to full-screen mode and you start playing.
And of course you CAN customize it completely to adjust to whatever YOU like.
dhjdhj wrote:
I've looked at both Jamalaya and Rax in the past and although they both work quite well, neither of them adapt to the USER's perspective, both requiring the user to adapt his/her environment to fit the software design.
We will have to agree to disagree, because Jambalaya works "exactly" the way I want it to work and Mainstage works nothing like I do. I don't want to build a UI, I just want everything I see to work.
BTW, enlighten me - HTF do you change the keyboard split point in Mainstage? Clicking and dragging on the big colored bar does nothing and I have been unable to discover it through experimentation. Its hidden somewhere - which is a fundamental fail - all interesting controls should be visible and working. I also can't figure out how to get a lyrics view that I can edit.
I'm just grousing - but you get the point. It lacks immediacy which I totally can't afford live. Dialogs and disappearing panels are lovely for recording studios - not when I've got a screaming crowd in front of me.
Blueberry wrote:
BTW: You should really look at MainStage 2. It does exactly what you are proposing (
every single point)
No it doesn't. Fire up the example concert with patches, choose piano and bass split. Click on the colored range bars to drag the split between the piano and bass down one octave.
Doesn't work. Why not?
Oh, you have to 1) exit full screen 2)choose edit mode, 3)click on a channel to reveal the channel strip inspector 4) select the Layer Editor tab 5) drag the ranges.
What I want - click on the colored bar on your screen and drag it.
I would think you don't want to be messing with keyboard splits while you are performing. You could, if you stay in edit mode though. I think mainstage is meant to be built and then played, not tinkered with while you are performing.
Why do you want to grab the mouse while performing? And why do you want to move split-points while performing? That is just bizarre.
BTW: Besides changing them in MainStage (outside of full screen mode), you can set up two patches with different split points or just use smart-splits, which probably do what you expect it to do fully automatic...
Since this is the Mainstage forum you're probably better off asking Logic questions in the Logic forum.
When you ask this question in the Logic forum you'll need to provide more information than simply saying 'the systemoverload message'. Are you talking about the CoreAudio Overload dialog, disk to slow dialog... (don't answer here.. I'm just giving you pointers). Does this occur right after hitting play... in the middle of playing... with full CPU load... no CPU load... etc... etc.
Tough to ask someone to test something when you don't give any info about what they need to test.
For what it's worth, I see and have seen for many years the CoreAudio overload dialog in many situations. But since Logic is a sequencer, and I'm working in the studio, it's simple enough to hit play again. If it occurred because of a full CPU load.. then I know what to do. If it occurs when there's no load it will most often only occur once... then Logic is off and running. It's 'priming the pump' so to speak!
The whole point of MainStage is to create a "virtual" representation of your physical hardware (keyboards, knobs, sliders, foot pedals, etc) so that your physical controls can trivially adjust the sounds you are playing during a live performance.
While I agree that it would be nice to be able to adjust the splits by simply dragging the layer images above the keyboard, that omission is minor compared to the overall feature set. As I said before, the only thing that has stopped it from being perfect (for me) is its unreliability.
It's certainly the case that at runtime, I would have no interest in wanting to change the split during a song but if I did, it would be trival to have two adjacent patches, identical other than with different split points. Alternatively, one could just use a split keyboard with each "side" going to a different channel and then just adjust the splitpoint on the keyboard itself.
dhjdhj wrote:
the only thing that has stopped it from being perfect (for me) is its unreliability.
Which made it basically worthless and I ended up writing my own host to get the job done. Why was it unreliable? I'd guess too much emphasis on overly-complicated and poorly tested features. I'll stick with dead simple and rock solid when on stage.
BTW, the reasons you might want to gin up a new patch fast include 1) you play in the house band on open mic night (I did) or, 2) your band occasionally allows guests to come up or 3) your singer gets injured and you have to play a bunch of songs you know but don't have patches for. I have created patches on the fly while the singer was chatting up the crowd more than once.
I guess if you only play the same songs every night edit speed might not matter to you - but being a "I can fake it if you hum it" player, it matters a lot to me.
To change a keyboard split, you pop over to the edit page and adjust the splits using the learn keys. Super easy.
Having submenus and panels is a fact of life in software - it keeps things manageable and clean. Have you ever set up a split on a keyboard or sound module or in Logic? I was totally stoked when I saw the split setup in MS I think it's great.
Well, duh! Why do you think I started this particular thread? To figure out whether MainStage 2 addressed the issues that made it unrealiable in the first place.
I play the wind controller and sax. My hardware based rig used to be 12 spaces with various pieces of gear (i.e. mixers, synths, etc.). At the heart of my midi setup was a MOTU MTP/AV as my central switcher that was controlled with my pedal board. When I built the setup, I included functionality to have a PANIC button, just in case something were to happen in the middle of a set (i.e. stuck note, volume spike, etc). Funny thing was, even though I was always prepared to use it, I never did and things went pretty smoothly. This rig was fairly complicated, but also didn't incorporate any softsynths.
When soft synths / samplers began to appear on the scene, I always dreamed of having all my rig in a laptop to save my back. But that didn't really happen until I created a rig (with help from a friend) using Logic's environment (inspired by Michael Brecker). In that rig, we also built in various levels of redundancy and panic abilities, but never had to use them and it worked very well except that we couldn't do certain things like propagate midi timing, etc. to the devices because of limitations of Logic. It was also difficult to map hardware controllers to the software controllers (mainly Logic's own instruments, not third parties). But for the most part it worked fairly well and never locked up on stage.
Then MainStage came on the scene and it seemed like such an amazing piece of software ... exactly what I had been waiting for (except that it didn't have any way to control external midi hardware). For the most part, MainStage has been fairly easy and straight forward to use. However, it has brought a new level of excitement to my live performances, which is the fact that it does produce CPU spikes, it has locked up in the middle of a set and has basically forced me to constantly watch for things that could go wrong requiring a press of the PANIC button or quick reboot of the machine.
The bottom line to all this is that I think MainStage could be a great app for use on stage. However, I don't think MainStage 1 received the attention that it needed to be a true bullet proof pro app. I will continue to work with it and have already ordered MainStage 2 in the hopes that my solution will be complete. But until Apple demonstrates that they are committed to making this a true pro app, and not some hobby level gimmicky app, I will always keep my eye out for something better to come along (i.e. have a back up plan). I hope I don't have to go back to the Logic Environment way, because MainStage is so elegant.
I've been gigging with Mainstage for the last 3 months with good success. I'll be the first to admit that there are bugs and I certainly wish Apple was offering more regular updates. I'm still running MS1 but will be installing MS2 in the next few weeks. After reading the above posts I felt the need to address a couple things.
1. Every pro act that travels with a computer based system has a backup. Mainstage or not. They also use really high end switchers that sense audio to keep performers from having Ashlee Simpson moments. That is true of Pro Tools users, Digital Performer, Logic, and Mainstage. It just makes sense.
2. One of the main reasons I like using Mainstage is that I can now do my own monitor mix and drive my own in ears or stage monitor w/out relying on a sound guy to get it right. To me that is a huge feature. All my band members are jealous of that.
3. Finally regarding using Mainstage vs real keyboards, Use what works for you. There are times I'd rather not have my laptop out on a gig and a keyboard makes more sense. For me, I only had enough cash for more than one keyboard and I already had a great laptop, so it was common sense for me to just use Mainstage with the audio interface I already have and I've been really happy with the results.
Matt Adams2 wrote:
3. Finally regarding using Mainstage vs real keyboards, Use what works for you. There are times I'd rather not have my laptop out on a gig and a keyboard makes more sense. For me, I only had enough cash for more than one keyboard and I already had a great laptop, so it was common sense for me to just use Mainstage with the audio interface I already have and I've been really happy with the results.
The "other" problem with using a laptop onstage: Depending on stage conditions, they are susceptible to drive and component vibration errors which usually ends up with Logic/Mainstage losing contact with the audio device.
