MainStage?

[jsterne]

So with the forced time off, and a delayed recording session (cue the tiny violins--I'm fine, donate to your local food shelf, support your local musicians and stores, etc), I'm trying to make some "final" tweaks to a stable setup for performance and recording.

I can write more about my journey with that, but right now I want to know if anyone is actually using MainStage with Linnstrument to perform. It seems to be a favourite of keyboardists and performing musicians, but there are a few things I can't seem to figure out. I've been working with Bitwig and I actually love it but I don't know if I TRUST it. I've had some inconsistent behaviour from it which is fine at practice or even in recording but live would be a bummer. Whereas I don't see a lot of those kinds of complaints about MainStage.

So ... is anyone here actually using MainStage?

[Tj Shredder]

So ... is anyone here actually using MainStage?

I come from a self constructed Max/MSP patch which is still my main live setup. I accompany it mainly with Bitwig now for playing synths with my LinnStrument, though Mainstage would be the more obvious choice. From time to time I fire it up, as the Apple synths are quite nice, but I jump back to Bitwig quickly. The Grid is so much more inspiring and expressive...
The big plus for Mainstage would be the scripter btw... Grid like patching could be done eventually with Lion, which is MPE capable as well and could be acquired relatively cheap during Plugin Alliance sales madnesses...
Share your findings, I am curious, though I doubt it will move me away from Bitwig, which is advancing at high rates...

[John the Savage]

I'm curious what inconsistent behaviours you're experiencing with Bitwig? I remain stanchly apposed to using a laptop onstage; but if I were to go that route, it would be for Bitwig. I have Studio, and absolutely love The Grid. I've never used MainStage myself, but I've toured with a lot of keyboard guys who swear by it.

Cheers!

[jsterne]

Hi John,

My Bitwig set consists of 4 tracks: 2 with instrument selectors and a variety of sounds and configurations for different songs, and 2 with send effects (reverb and delay--not so creative).

For each song (or piece, or whatever it is we do), I set up a scene which has a clip for each track with all the settings I want for the scene. This is very similar to how ClyphX works with Live.

The inconsistency I have experienced is that when I launch a scene, sometimes I don't get all the changes I have "programmed," and sometimes those updates (like track levels) aren't sent to my controller. It's entirely possible it's user error and I still haven't figured out some setting somewhere. Since I'm not playing with that band right now in a physical setting (we are experimenting with playing together online), there's no way to really test my fixes, but I'm optimistic I'll figure something out.

My other frustration has been with mapping controllers, but I got lucky and someone built a map for the MIDI fighter twister so now it's fine for me because I'm not using anything else. I'm not looking forward to mapping a foot controller if and when I decide I want one, though.

Bitwig has never crashed on me, and just yesterday I got see what happens when I load a corrupted plugin. Very solid. So that I wouldn't worry about, though crashes to me are like broken strings. It happens.

I'm really coming around to Bitwig. It allows me to use knowledge and thinking I've developed in front of my modular, and while everyone else is loving on the Grid, I've been just enjoying the modulators as ways of controlling plugins, and they work very well with Linnstrument as well as old fashioned strings and frets instruments (envelope follower FTW).

One other downside to Bitwig: it's a less mature program. Some things available in, EG, Live or MainStage are 3rd party options in Bitwig (like a looper). It's not a huge deal, though, as there's usually something good out there and right now I like supporting small developers.

As for MainStage, I give up. I really just dislike its interface for setting up patches and assigning controls (that's personal preference but I get to have it!), it lacks a couple functions I want and the workarounds aren't satisfying, and the "user friendliness" isn't useful to me after coming from programs that allow high degrees of customization. Apple's amp sims are some of my favourite in terms of sounds I've gotten out of them, but it's not THAT big of a difference. I do still like Logic, though.

[John the Savage]

Thanks for the feedback, J.

I don't use Bitwig quite to that capacity myself (at least not yet anyway), so I don't have any real insight to add. The perspective, however, is appreciated and sure to prove useful going forward; though I doubt I'll be swapping any of my hardware for a laptop onstage any time soon.

Cheers!

[jsterne]

I feel you. I'd still love an easy to use box onstage. I thought I'd found it with the analog four, but there were too many quirks. And the modular worked great but there were too many knob flips to remember in-between songs. No touchscreens for me, or the iPhone or iPad would be good in-betweens.

[John the Savage]

Yep. I've pretty much run the gauntlet with gear, over the last three years, looking for a road-worthy and reliable MPE solution; and have concluded that the best option (for me anyway) is to abandon MPE for now, and resign myself to using monosynths for expressive lead playing, and polysynths with poly-aftertouch for pads. There are several robust hardware synths out there that fit that criteria at least. I'm done with chasing MPE for now. Sadly, the world simply hasn't caught up.

Cheers!

[pabaker85]

I use my Linnstrument with MainStage. In fact, it's my favorite application for it compared to Studio One and Ableton Live since neither of those have implemented MPE and the work arounds are a little cumbersome. MainStage has some of the best MIDI features I've ever seen (I think most are shared with Logic) including the ability to write and use custom JS MIDI scripts that can do powerful things.

I was using Ableton for loop based live shows with backing tracks but I've recently moved more towards a pure performance approach and decided to switch over to MainStage. If you're not doing looping or sequenced songs it's superior IMO... also you the way you can customize your UI and even show song lyrics per patch are brilliant. I'm interested to see what Audio Modeling does with the next version of Camelot too as it's built around a similar paradigm, but they are apparently adding a timeline ability. That is the one feature I miss for those times when I want to arrange something that is time based.

[LarsDaniel]

I spent about a day with Mainstage, and hated every second of it. I don’t even remember what pissed me off about it, but my verdict was univocal.

[Tj Shredder]

A day won't be enough to get to appreciate it. It has a learning curve... What do you use instead? If its a DAW, better look at Logic, has the same instruments a Mainstage.
I use Mainstage for the synths and some AU only plugins. I connect it to Bitwig then...