Hi! Is there a mac that can process omnisphere, keyscape and four audio strips with effects at the same time through mainstage without too much latency for live use? In general, what are the premises for this to work? 32 gb ram? Or big cpu? Thanks <3
A Mac Pro if you have the bucks. A less expensive workaround is to network two Macs and share the load. Omnisphere and Keyscape operate only within a host, like MainStage or Logic, but Kontakt, UVI, Arturia, and some others will work in stand alone mode, which makes it easy to set up an external instrument channel strip and route it to the other Mac on the network. The cons: you have to set up a new network session each time you start or wake your Macs. If you use audio interfaces you may need two, or you can run the internal audio out on Mac 2 into the audio interface on Mac 1.
I've been successfully using this configuration for about a year. Both Macs have 16 GB RAM. Mac 1, which runs MainStage, is using 13.5 GB, with Ivory II, Omnisphere II and Keyscape patches. Mac 2 is running a Kontakt multi setup, with Sessions Horns Pro, Session Strings Pro, Scarbee EPs, etc. It acts as a virtual MIDI module. It's using well over 3 GB with plenty of room to grow. The second Mac is an older model, a Mini 2.6 ghz Core 2 Duo.
There are two aspects to your question: more RAM to run the big sample-based plugins, and faster CPU to reduce the latency. If you can wait, I'd hold out for the next upgrade to the MacBook Pro (probably later this year) which is rumoured to be upgraded to 32gb RAM. Otherwise, buy a machine with the latest and highest specs that you can afford, but with a minimum of 16gb RAM. I'd also highly recommend an SSD.
MainStage is amazingly flexible but that flexibility comes with a price tag of considerable system resource usage. I've found that it's nowhere near as efficient as Ableton Live, but MS can also do things that Live simply can't do....everything is a trade-off. Whenever I've upgraded my MacBook Pro machines (3 times now in 11 years, and their primary use is live performance with MS), I always buy the highest-spec machine and upgrade the CPU, RAM and HDD to the max. That gives me considerable life and performance from each machine.
For me, low latency is the biggest factor and for that, you want the fastest CPU. Also, I strongly recommend that you only consider the 15" MacBook Pro if you're looking for a portable option, as the 13" models have historically been problematic with MS due to its heavy graphical requirements and the lack of dedicated GPU in the 13" models.
Multiple audio strips + spectrasonics
