Facts about using DP Live

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dewdman42
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

Thanks for those clarifications. I can vouch also for HD heat, even while its just sitting here idle. Mainstage is not easy on the computer.

I think $29 is really an amazing price for Mainstage....even with these problems... There are other more expensive solutions for sure, but all the instruments and plus you can download like 20GB of Appleloops with it too. I mean, someone could literally plug their laptop into the PA and have a working keyboard rig with B3, pianos and all the basic sounds you need; for $29.

Its probably not going to work for my needs though I guess. If Apple cleaned up Mainstage a bit in terms of resource usage and then provided some kind of virtual racks or ability to use one instance of each plugin needed, with program changes to change the presets....then I think it would be the steal of the century. Perhaps its only $29 because to a certain extent you get what you pay for and Apple probably is not going to spend anymore time on it.

All the other solutions out there are double to quadruple the price but they offer many advantages.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Todzilla »

dewdman42 wrote:Thanks for those clarifications. I can vouch also for HD heat, even while its just sitting here idle. Mainstage is not easy on the computer.

I think $29 is really an amazing price for Mainstage....even with these problems... There are other more expensive solutions for sure, but all the instruments and plus you can download like 20GB of Appleloops with it too. I mean, someone could literally plug their laptop into the PA and have a working keyboard rig with B3, pianos and all the basic sounds you need; for $29.

Its probably not going to work for my needs though I guess. If Apple cleaned up Mainstage a bit in terms of resource usage and then provided some kind of virtual racks or ability to use one instance of each plugin needed, with program changes to change the presets....then I think it would be the steal of the century. Perhaps its only $29 because to a certain extent you get what you pay for and Apple probably is not going to spend anymore time on it.

All the other solutions out there are double to quadruple the price but they offer many advantages.
I'm curious what features you find missing from Mainstage.
The only downsides I've found are the one reliability issue noted and the very real concern about Apple's long term commitment to support (same for Logic, which I fear will be merged with GarageBand in Apple's efforts to become fully consumerized)
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

Tell me if the following things are possible on Mainstage and if so how:

- Set list management with each song having its own unique combination of plugins and mixer settings. Ability to easily rearrange the song order.

- Mainstage responds to program change in order to move from song to song. Zero need to touch the GUI during a performance.

- Only one instance of any given plugin instantiated in some kind of rack, so that as I change from song to song, the same single instance of various plugins are used and the appropriate preset for each plugin loaded for each song when receiving program change from MIDI input.

- Plugins which are not being used in a particular song are disabled so that not sucking any CPU resources.

- Plugins which use samples can be flagged so that when a patch is loaded, it stays loaded in memory even if not being used currently in a song, so that future songs will be able to call them up and not have to wait for samples to load.

- Keyboard splits and layers needs to be different for each song, per above. What other kinds of advanced MIDI transforms are possible on a song-by-song basis?

- Performance mode which shows a nice full screen set list

I was also not thrilled to find out today that all the "content" it downloaded, was downloaded into more than one location which I have still not located, so that's nice that it gave me a lot of content, but its scattered all over the place in a way that is not manageable. Just a side note.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by daniel.sneed »

magicd wrote:Using V-Racks eliminates wait time when switching between chunks.
Thanks for the reminder, Dave.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Music4dw »

dewdman42 wrote:Tell me if the following things are possible on Mainstage and if so how:

- Set list management with each song having its own unique combination of plugins and mixer settings. Ability to easily rearrange the song order.

Yes. I'm not in front of my computer but you have a concert, then set "folders" and in the set folders you have individual songs/settings. Or, if you have complicated/multiple segments of a song you can use the folder as a song and the individual settings as the song parts.

- Mainstage responds to program change in order to move from song to song. Zero need to touch the GUI during a performance.

Yes, just assign a controller - has MIDI learn capability for assignment.

- Only one instance of any given plugin instantiated in some kind of rack, so that as I change from song to song, the same single instance of various plugins are used and the appropriate preset for each plugin loaded for each song when receiving program change from MIDI input.

Depends on the use case. You can setup plugins at the concert level and then override the plugin in a new set or song with a new plugin and the "reveal" it again on another song. You can do the same at a set/folder level. There are a lot of possibilities.

- Plugins which are not being used in a particular song are disabled so that not sucking any CPU resources.

I'm almost positive that's stated in the documentation and based on my use I'd say it would have to be true.

- Plugins which use samples can be flagged so that when a patch is loaded, it stays loaded in memory even if not being used currently in a song, so that future songs will be able to call them up and not have to wait for samples to load.

I believe I read this in the docs too, not sure if it's restricted to esx samples though.

- Keyboard splits and layers needs to be different for each song, per above. What other kinds of advanced MIDI transforms are possible on a song-by-song basis?

You can do this. Not sure about the more advanced MIDI features.

- Performance mode which shows a nice full screen set list

Yep.

I was also not thrilled to find out today that all the "content" it downloaded, was downloaded into more than one location which I have still not located, so that's nice that it gave me a lot of content, but its scattered all over the place in a way that is not manageable. Just a side note.

I've been using mainstage for years (pretty basic) and my only complaint is CPU usage went up in MS 2 from what it was in MS 1. I'm more old school in that I like one sound per keyboard so I have 6 MIDI kbd controllers going into a 5 year old MacBook pro. I run the following:

Built in ESX samples (mostly strings, pads, guitars, horns)
Built in ES2
Built in ESM
ImpOscar
Kontakt samples
VB3
Sampletank
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

I'm losing interest in Mainstage every minute I keep trying to use it. Spent all afternoon fumbling around over the stupidest things that should have been simple. Spent a bit of time this afternoon working with DP8 on the same task, and so much easier... But...

I love that DP has V-Racks, something Mainstage does not. I'm able to create a sequence for each song and one V-Rack to hold all the instrument plugins, no redundant instances. Can output those to busses, so that each sequence can have AUX tracks with those buses and mix each song differently. FX sends on V-Racks also.

So far so good.

Can assign keys to sequences, and ultimately MIDI commands, so that's good. When my setlist changes a lot, which it does, I'm not sure how that will go, but it works!

The problem comes in related to a few things that I can't figure out in DP, might not be possible.

1 - The keyboard mapping issue someone mentioned before is a real concern. I still don't have a workaround that really works for keyboard splits and layers. Sounds like DP's VST host implementation can not accept MIDI only plugins at this time, which would solve the problem if it could.

2 - This is probably something simple that I should know already, but how can I store the VI settings or preset-used; in each sequence, while the the actual instrument is being hosted on the V-Rack?

3 - Does anyone know whether DP is smart enough to disable instruments in the V-Rack that are not being fed any MIDI input, or rather are not currently connected to with a MIDI src? I'm just wondering if I have a big V-Rack with all my instruments and I'm only using 2 or 3 at a time, with the MIDI coming from this or that sequence, are the other not-used instruments disabled in some way so as not to tax the cpu at all?

4 - Per the above question I wonder if it would be better to have all the plugins duplicated in each sequence rather then use a V-Rack due to my question#2, so that the proper preset will be loaded for each sequence. But maybe someone knows how to work #2. Supposedly V-Racks are always live, while sequences are only live if they are either the current one or perhaps in song mode with multiple at the same time... I'm not 100% clear on that. But I would assume that inactive sequences are not taxing the CPU with any of their plugins, but what are unused tracks on a V-Rack doing?
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

music4dw, thanks for your responses. Since this is MOTU site I guess I should take those questions elsewhere, but it does sound like I need to spend some time digging deeper into Mainstage. I do like working with DP because I'm familiar with it and I was able to figure ALMOST everything out in very short time. Mainstage was just not at all obvious to figure out and will take a lot of time to get through it, but some of the things you mentioned do give me motivation to keep digging, so thanks.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by jbyerly1 »

Don't quote me on this but in reading what your game plan is, I fear you will hit load time issues while on stage depending on how you operate. Please don't take this as discouragement. It may very well be that V-racks will over come this issue. i've not used DP live as you are, I use it to send MIDI to a Korg keyboard so I am just loading straight MIDI files. The 3 or 4 times we had used vi's in our show it seemed to take forever but I was extremely new with DP so I really did not know what I was doing. I would shy away from any effects plug-ins, and go external.
Theres a lot of knowledge in these parts and hopefully someone will give you some ideas

You just need to try different the different ideas that you have suggested and see whats going to work for you.


I guess it would help if I had read the couple of post before. Magic dave says that v-racks will solve load times. Makes some mistakes and see what works
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

Anyone have any idea about these questions?
dewdman42 wrote: 1 - The keyboard mapping issue someone mentioned before is a real concern. I still don't have a workaround that really works for keyboard splits and layers. Sounds like DP's VST host implementation can not accept MIDI only plugins at this time, which would solve the problem if it could.

2 - This is probably something simple that I should know already, but how can I store the VI settings or preset-used; in each sequence, while the the actual instrument is being hosted on the V-Rack?

3 - Does anyone know whether DP is smart enough to disable instruments in the V-Rack that are not being fed any MIDI input, or rather are not currently connected to with a MIDI src? I'm just wondering if I have a big V-Rack with all my instruments and I'm only using 2 or 3 at a time, with the MIDI coming from this or that sequence, are the other not-used instruments disabled in some way so as not to tax the cpu at all?

4 - Per the above question I wonder if it would be better to have all the plugins duplicated in each sequence rather then use a V-Rack due to my question#2, so that the proper preset will be loaded for each sequence. But maybe someone knows how to work #2. Supposedly V-Racks are always live, while sequences are only live if they are either the current one or perhaps in song mode with multiple at the same time... I'm not 100% clear on that. But I would assume that inactive sequences are not taxing the CPU with any of their plugins, but what are unused tracks on a V-Rack doing?
I spent some time watching some Mainstage training videos today at http://en.elephorm.com/audio/mainstage.html and it does appear to be a very powerful program that I think probably would be the best solution on the Mac for gigging.

I think the reason it may have gotten a bit of a bad rap in the past may have been because its not trivial to set it up for a large situation. But the tools are really all there to handle everything..

I'd still love to follow through the discussion with how to use DP for live use though, for anyone that wants to continue on that...
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Kurt Cowling »

MainStage 3 is out. Couldn't tell exactly what's new other than some new included VIs and maybe some MIDI plugins. Didn't appear to be anything like a V-rack from the screenshots or description. Wanted to buy it and install it, but it requires 10.8.4. I'm still on 10.7.5.

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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Kurt Cowling »

I just saw this in the MainStage 3 description:
Aliased channel strips lighten the load on your system by reusing the plug-ins you’ve already loaded.
Might be as effective as a V-rack.

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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

Yea I saw that. I'm trying to see if Apple will give me a grace period since I just bought Mainstage2 a week ago. I haven't changed to 10.8 yet either but maybe its time. (sigh).

from what I can tell, they basically updated the gui to use modern controls, in a style more similar to Garageband. Some new instruments... ho hum... basically its not much new over Mainstage2 other than a fresh UI but maybe there are some new small improvements hidden under the service, we'll find out in coming months. Probably not worth worrying about the upgrade.

As for V Racks in mainstage2 or 3, I don't think it really has anything like that, though you can accomplish some of the same thing by using concert level or set level channel strips and/or aliases. Another possibility is to connect Mainstage to DP or some other host with Rewire perhaps and then setup a V rack of sorts that way. I've never used Rewire and I'm not sure if it can work for that or not. But its always possible to just send IAC MIDI over to DP and have DP send the audio straight to the soundcard, etc.. there are lots of possibilities for something like that.

In the meantime, I have actually decided to setup my MBP as dual boot with bootcamp, so that I can test out both Cantabile and Forte, in comparison to Mainstage for live use. Running Windows7 on my MBP has been kind of fun. So far I am most impressed by Forte on the windows side, but sticking with Mainstage is also being considered as I get my head wrapped around how it works. What it will come down to for me will be resource usage and stability between the two. Forte is way easier to get my head around, but it looks like Mainstage has a lot of interesting features... and....you do get all those Logic instruments if you want to use them in Mainstage (or rewire to DP). Some of those instruments are pretty darn nice.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Kurt Cowling »

Adding instruments at the concert level doesn't work as well as I thought it might. They appear in every patch with the same key range. It doesn't work like DPs V-racks.

I'm hoping this new feature they call aliases will work to save RAM and processor resources.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by Prime Mover »

Some day I'll probably give Mainstage a try. But I just went on tour with Jambalaya, and have run it successfully for years. Yes, it's garish, yes, it has some bugs (playlists don't work with the latest version under OS 10.8), yes, as far as I can tell, the project is dead. But, I have about 2.5 years of back work in it, and I've made it really work for what I need. It's also just very fast at setting anything up. The new rack (only available in beta) is killer.
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Re: Facts about using DP Live

Post by dewdman42 »

dewdman42 wrote:Yea I saw that. I'm trying to see if Apple will give me a grace period since I just bought Mainstage2 a week ago. I haven't changed to 10.8 yet either but maybe its time. (sigh).
Well Apple agreed to refund me for Mainstage2 purchased last week. So that was kind of them. Now I am testing out 10.8 on another partition, but I will likely purchase Mainstage3 soon, so I'll report back when I have any experience about it.

Did anyone else find ML to be running noticeably hotter temperature wise than SL? I'm like 10 degrees or more hotter across the board, with louder fan noise on my 2010 MBP.
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