Mainstage 2

[Jem]

Rob Reed keeps trying to get me to get MainStage and do everything on a lappy live.

I do have it here, but I'm scared of it. Anybody had any practical "out in the field" gigging experience with it?

[Drarok]

Pretty sure that people do use it live... I think there was a case study on the Apple site of Keane using it as their main live system. But they had two laptops, each set up exactly the same in case something went wrong with the first, they could just switch to the 2nd one. Might be worth a read.

[Jim Takacs]

Ive heard good things about it!  Im actually starting with the New Presonus Studio one pro and Capture with the Studiolive 16.4.2 Console. Only Problem was of course the POS PC and Its firewire chip set. Threw the Mac on it and Vwualah!
   Maybe take a look at the Presonus stuff!  Just a thought.

[Jem]

I've been chatting with lovely Ronnie from Pallas tonight and he's switched to it too and can't sing it's praises high enough.

I guess I'm just gonna have to dive in for a few days and see what happens.

Thanks for the Presonus tip too Jim, I'll take a look.

[MarkOneMusic]

At the Transatlantic gig, both Neal and Daniel Gildenlow were using mainstage (Well, they both had macs and I was close enough to spot Neals screen and it was definitely Mainstage!)

Over the weekend I've been having a right old play with it and it is brilliant.  Easy to build your rig, and then build your setlist.  I set up a great rig with two MIDI controllers, a foot pedal to increment through the set.  As you add a switch, pedal or whatever, you hit learn, press the hardware switch, pedal or slider and that's it, learnt.

Then at the concert level you can hook stuff up, or override that at combo level (like a folder of patches) or at patch level.  You can do layers, and splits with different virtual instruments, and it has a really cool thing called floating splits where you can define a zone where the split is dynamic depending whether you run up to it or down to it.

Map a bunch of one shot samples in ESX24 and you can have a whole arsenal of cleverness to hand alongside your fave virtual instruments.

My live ventures these days are fairly infrequent, but the MBP with mainstage will definitely be the way I go next time

[Jem]

That's very interesting to know mate. Thank you for sharing.

[Pedro]

Crikey, once Jem gets his mitts on that lot he'll be controlling the lights with his eyebrows!

[Jem]

Right, I'm gonna do it! :shock:

I'm going to run 2 lappys live though with Mainstage on both. And an audio switcher. Just in case...

[Pedro]

...and don't forget you can always do your little dance if all else fails!

[Gman]

What like this?? God forbid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVA51sgB ... re=related

[Jem]

:shock:  :lol:

That'll do.  

[Drarok]

Right, I'm gonna do it! :shock:

I'm going to run 2 lappys live though with Mainstage on both. And an audio switcher. Just in case...

There you go!
Might want to keep your setups on a pair of USB sticks in case you lose one again, too

[Mooncat]

Sorry Jem, but I'd got this down as more 'you'
//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kry53iHR7w


(get's coat and shuffles off quietly.............................................)

[keithd]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the purpose of using laptops on stage :?

[Pedro]

Others will know, I plan to research it for myself but my guesses would be four things :-
1. As an easy way of changing between very complex keyboard configurations from song to song
2. Soft synth sound sources
3. Autocue....lyric prompts
4. ....to check the forums of course!