Mainstage as an alternative to the new Waves Live Multi Rack??

Question

Mainstage as an alternative to the new Waves Live Multi Rack??

Hi All,
I'm a LOOONG time Logic user (since it was called Notator!) but I also do live sound and I recently saw a press release about the Waves Live MultiRack which is basically a software set up to allow you to use waves plug ins (of which I have many) in a live situation by inserting them into, say, an analogue desk using a hardware I/O and a laptop....Sound like fun to me! I have 2.4GHz MBP with 4GB RAM and I'm looking at buying a Focusrite Saffire 40 to handle the I/O.
My question is "Do I even need Waves Live Multi Rack?"
I have Logic Studio (LP9) so that means I have Mainstage. From reading the manual it looks like it's really for instruments, BUT it can be used for processing audio, so is there any reason it would not handle, say inserts on 5 vocal mics, delay and reverb on an aux and eq on busses?
Is that too much for it to handle?

Message was edited by: Gareth Henderson

8 core Mac Pro (3GHz) 16GB Ram, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Feb 2, 2010 2:45 AM

Reply

Answer 1

mlehmann

Level 4

3,206 points

Feb 2, 2010 4:55 AM in response to Gareth Henderson

It definitely should work but I can see a little problem and it's the same thing with Waves Live Multi Rack. As soon as you have audio coming in & out of a computer, you'll get latency. Of course, with something like an Apogee Symphony or Symphony Mobile system, it's not really a problem because you can as low as 32 samples of latency. However, usually, with a Firewire interface, I've found difficult to go lower than 64 samples. I guess you would have to try it to see if it works for you.

Reply

Answer 2

Feb 2, 2010 1:17 PM in response to mlehmann

If doing vocals and latency is a problem, you can also experiment with taking your live (dry) signal direct (if you interface allows this) into your mix, which will be zero latency. Live signal also goes through MainStage to apply effects such as reverb and delay, and you feed the wet only signal to a separate "vocal fx" mix channel.

Of course, you can't apply plug-in based eq and compression to the realtime signal (or your back to the latency problem), you would have to rely on hardware/mixer for that. I have experimented with this method with good results...

Others have reported not being bothered by the amount of vocal latency, but I wonder...

Reply