Is it possible to use MainStage 2 to manage 4 musicians (Live Band)?

Hi dadare,

My Mac Setup control differents things in the show:

• Patches (as sound module)
• Process Voices
• In-ear for the band
• Click track for the band
• Play Recorded Loops
• Midi change of 2 Vocalizer Hardware (midi cable)
• Midi change of Guitar Setup Hardware (midi cable)
• Main Video Out - VJ (ArkaosVJ)
• Lyrics for the (VGA Out)
• etc

This is something you can do BUT not with Mainstage alone.

What do you want to controller for the band?

Mainstage is only for one player BUT depending on what you want you can make it work with a band mainly to process audio.

Give some feedback

@Bruno Filipe

Can you help me with how to setup a template for my full band to play thru MainStage 3, Live..?

Our live setup is fairly simple: 1 Bass patch, 2 Vocal patches, 1 Guitar patch, 1 Drum Trigger Module, and 1 playback track per song...

What I'd like to do, is figure out how to get all of my patches in one template, that I can then use for each individual song of our live set & only have to change the playback track for each patch. Then I would like to create 4 custom in-ear mixes for click/playback monitoring...is this possible with MainStage 3?

@Bruno, that's not accurate. You can have as many players as your computer can handle, simultaneously in Mainstage. I do it all the time.
Just make sure that you have an audio interface that has enough hardware inputs and outputs to successfully route your bands inputs to multiple outputs. An 8x8 Audio interface with Preamps should be sufficient to do what you want. The more, the better.

After that, it's very simple:

1) At the Concert Level, create 4 auxillary Busses, and rename them for each band members headphone mix. Set the output of each bus to the Hardware outputs on your interface that will go to headphones (i.e Output 3-4 or 5-6). Do NOT set the output of these busses to the Main output.

2) Create Sets for each song that you want to do. In the set, create a channel strip for each band member's instrument, then add whatever plugins and effects you want. Also create a channel strip with the Playback plugin at the SET level. (Don't accidentally create it at the patch level)

3) Select all of the channel strips that you just created, so that they are all highlighted, and add 4 Bus sends to each of them: One to each headphones mix that you created in Step 1.

4) Make as many patches within each set as you need to do the song (i.e. Verses, choruses, etc)

Hi Authentic Identity

maybe my post not the most accurate. what I was trying to say is that is not the most practical way to use 4 musicians with one MS. Suppose 1 song , 1 patch with 1 channel strip for voice, 1 for guitar, 1 for keys and 1 for bass. When the guitar sound changed from clean to drive for example will need a new patch, drive to delay a new patch, when keys change from piano to organ a new patch, organ to pad new patch, etc, etc. so just one song will have a lot of patches, and each musician will have to be very careful to change the patch correctly or could mess up the other musician. Ok you can say that are others way to do the same, yes but it will not be strait ahead.

Of course if you have just need a very simple setup that could work nice.

TheDistant

The config is as said by Authentic Identity. That´s the way to go.

@Bruno, again, not quite.

So let's make sure we're talking about the same things. Mainstage has 4 hierarchical levels:
1) the Concert Level
2) the Set level
3) the Patch level
4) Channel strips

Each of these is a "container" of settings. Mainstage's "Patch Level" isn't the same as a patch/preset on a guitar effects board for example.

You can create channel strips at any level of the concert, depending on how you use them.

You can then change Channel strip settings in real time using hardware controls, at any level of the concert.

You can use Patches as a sort of "Preset", but you could also use it as a bank of sounds that you can access in real time.

There are several solutions to these, it just depends on how you want to address them.

Option 1

So let's say you have a band, and you want 1 Patch to be for 1 song, where each band member can switch sounds if they need to during the song.

1) In the patch, create each band members channel strips, and add all effects plugins to their respective channel strips that you plan on using through the song.
2) Map each effect setting that you will change during the song (i.e. guitar distortion/delay on-off) to a hardware controller using a specific channel and MIDI CC message within the patch.
3) Repeat for all other band members. Make sure that each switch is set to it's own MIDI message.
4) Within 1 patch, you can now switch distortion, delay, etc. without having to change Patches, and it will only affect that 1 parameter.

Option 2
Another idea is to have 1 song be contained in a Set, with Patches for each section of the songs. (Verse/Choruses, etc.)

1) At the set level, map a hardware footswitch to "Next Patch" and "Previous patch." For band members whose sound will be the same through the whole song, create their channel strip at the Set level.
2) Create multiple patches for each section of the song, and label them "verse" "chorus" etc."
3) Within each patch, create the channel strips for band members who need to change at the Patch level with their effects settings, and set up the effects for each section of the song. During the performance, just hit "next patch" at the right time in the song.

Option 3
Automate everything using a sequencer, and pre-plan all changes.

I just made a tutorial on how to do this if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGwlp1hpl_k

I run a complete band with electronic drums using patches, bass amp and guitar amp plugins and fx, ten wireless mics, all wireless instruments, auto tune live on everything, click tracks, loops, multi-tracks, multiple keyboard rigs, wireless midi, in ear monitors, trigger dmx lighting, change pro presenter lyrics, etc. All within MainStage. Yes, it's very possible. That being said, there have been many head aches along the way.

What are the specs of the machine you're using for all that, if you don't mind me asking?

I finally setup what I thought was going to work, with my bass/guitar/2vox/1playback (at the set level), but I'm getting latency with my bass...

I know I'm using some older gear, but I don't think it should be trippin with this simple of a setup..the patches aren't loaded with fx or anything. Pretty straight forward, but regardless of settings I've adjusted, it's still getting latency.

My gear:

Macbook pro 09 w/2.66ghz intel c2d, 8gb 1067ddr3 ram, 500g hd, 1.07ghz bus speed, firewire 800...

Mackie ONYX 1640 w/firewire 400...

Line 6 pod x3 pro rackmount head for bass/guitar...

Akai lpd8 for daw control...

Is that not enough power got what I'm trying to do?

Or am I just doing something wrong?

I'm running a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 duo MBP with 16 GB RAM, 500GB SSD, and an external SSD over thunderbolt.

One thing that definitely helps is having your concert and plugins on a fast external drive. It's good practice to keep the Concert and streaming plugins on a separate drive from the one running the OS and Mainstage.

What is your buffer set to under Mainstage->Preferences->Audio->Advanced?

What you want to do is set it to the lowest setting (16 on my machine), set the slider to Low Latency, and turn off the I/O safety buffer.

Try playing. Most likely, you'll hear pops/crackles and poor audio quality. Keep changing the buffer setting up (32, then 64, etc.) until you get the popping to stop and you get clean audio.

On your machine, you should be able to get 256, which is generally reasonable latency. If it's more than that, then go back down one and try turning on the I/O safety buffer, and adjust the slider.