The Summer Of Software

[Jem]

Righto, after these DT gigs, there's a good chance I'm going to be switching to a laptop rig.

The current plan is to use Mainstage with Live 8 for any sequencing that needs doing. I'm gonna get a couple of Lacie Firewire 800 320gb drives (@7200rpm) for streaming samples and whatnot and control it with this Novation 61SL MKII that's sat here in front of me.

My laptop is a MacBook Pro (not the new new ones) Dual Core Intel 2.5gHz Processor with 4GB of RAM. And I'll be running it all out of an Apogee Duet.

My question is this - has anybody here run a similar rig for gigs and is there anything doused in impediment that I need to know before I get my credit card out? Latency, patch changes etc...?

Molto ta!

Jx

[catherine]

That rig sounds great, but how wine-proof is it?

[Jem]

:lol:

It'll be fine as long as Mitchell doesn't make me laugh unexpectedly.  8-)

[Big Black Shed]

I'm not sure what software etc. that he uses, but Rob Reed uses a Mac book live. I have asked Rob what he uses, Logic was his answer. Which confused me somewhat.

And judging buy the panic on Chris Fry's face, his guitar effects / midi runs through some of the interface boxes too.

There was a slight "Shit, where's my sound gone" when Chris swapped guitars during Magenta's gig last Friday.

[catherine]

It'll be fine as long as Mitchell doesn't make me laugh unexpectedly.  8-)

Famous last words!

What you need is one of these as stagewear:


Should prevent any unintentional wine spitting or dribbling.

[Pajter]

I would say that your hardware is able to run a live rig fine. I wouldn't know why you'd get latency with those specs.

What kind of audio interface are you going to be using? Built-in MBP soundcard would probably give a great sound! :lol: edit: nevermind me, didn't read the Apogee Duet part. :oops:

[Pedro]

The latest SoS has a thing on Live8.
I haven't read it properly (since it does not affect me) but did I see mention of some draw-back/glitch or am I mistaken?

This will all fit on the horse, right?

@BBS: I think Rob Reed might have fumbled the question a bit and thought you were asking what he used in the studio? You could always PM him or post in the "Ask" section of the Magenta forum if you can be bothered.  

[Gandalf1986]

Unfortunately I run on a PC so I don't know how a Mac works in terms of latency (which is one of the most important things when playing live). I've been reading some forums and it seems it works on a very low latency (somewhere around 1ms) and keeps it like that no matter how many plug-ins you have opened! So I think this is good news for you (if you didn't already know)!

[Jem]

I've been chatting with Rob via email about this and his set up does indeed all run via Logic, it does seems to be a bit frightening the way he runs it though as he does the entire set set up from within a single song in logic and he mutes and unmutes tracks depending on what the song is.

I guess I just need to have a play with all this stuff first and see what's what. Maybe I can just do the whole thing from within Ableton using it's instrument suite.

Either way, I think a lappy and a few controllers is the way forwards.

Then I've just got to find the guts to jump to PT 8.... :shock:

[gr8gonzo]

Sounds like it would be easier to just grow a few extra arms and play everything.

[EVP]

I have the Logic suite and have used Mainstage,but have yet to in a live performance
situation. It runs really well and the latency seems fine to me using a FW interface.
I never thought of using it with Live for integrating loops and such though.

As long as your VI's are solid it should work well for you. The only question would
be if you would need more outputs to whoever is running FOH. Much like Rob
needed more outs from your Fantom a little while back. I plan on getting a Duet
at some point for a similar purpose. AFAIK the duet seems to be pretty solid for
those who use it.

Once I got in and learned how configure Mainstage, I found it powerful and easy
to setup controllers and route them. As long as I have a decent keyboard controller
I no longer feel the need to buy a brand new hardware synth. With all the wonderful
VI's that are out there there is almost no end to what you could do. Logic's VI's
are really cool and you may even find yourself using them in the Cube. I have a
basic setup where I can run the Logic/AU VI's and record them into Pro Tools
if the need arises.

You may want to try and get in touch with Neal Morse as he is also currently using
Mainstage live for his keyboard rig. There was a video clip posted on his site a
while back where he was practicing back stage sitting at a table.

Let us know how you make out with your rig. Oh and while you're at it...go ahead
and grab Omnisphere while you're at it if you haven't already done so  :shock:

[Jem]

All good stuff and duly noted, thanks all. Keep it coming if there's anyone else with something to add. I chatted to Rob Reed about it this afternoon and he advised me against the Duet saying that the MOTU Ultra-Lite 3 is the one to get. 10 outputs or something mad like that. He says it's great with Logic and some forums suggest it's good with Live as well.

Momentum seems to be building about these gigs with JM and TBE so I need to decide soon.  8-)

[gr8gonzo]

We want Fro!  We want Fro!  We want Fro!  

[Pajter]

I wish I had an afro.

[RacingHippo]

We want Fro!  We want Fro!  We want Fro!  

I'm currently listening to Frou Frou - is that similar?