Late to the party: MainStage question

[Tuur]

So, $30 for a truckload of toys & sounds almost seems to good to be true.

You don't need Logic for all that stuff to work? Simply use Rewire and something like Soundflower to use it 'inside' Live?

[stringtapper]

You don’t need Logic and yes it’s a crazy deal because you get all of Logic’s effects and instruments with it.

I don’t think MainStage can function as a slave in ReWire, but I’ll have to check on that.

[scheffkoch]

...yes, you don't need logic...i worked with mainstage as my main music tool for four years but found it to be a cpu hog so maybe that'll be a problem when used via rewire (dont' know if that's possible at all)...it's nice to build your own gui but after nearly every update there were problems with sets not loading correctly and so on...i'm happy i switched to ableton!...but if you don't mind wasting 30 usd it's worth a try...

[Tuur]

Cheers guys!

I think it won't work as a slave, but I don't mind. I'm certain I'll be getting 30 bucks worth of sounds from that thing...

[stringtapper]

I use MainStage professionally performing live keyboards on a weekly basis. I love Live, but it simply can’t hold a candle to MS in terms of flexibility when it comes to performing live.

I haven’t had any of the problems the previous poster spoke of and I use multiple instances of Kontakt and Omnisphere in many of my patches.

[scheffkoch]

"I use MainStage professionally performing live keyboards on a weekly basis. I love Live, but it simply can’t hold a candle to MS in terms of flexibility when it comes to performing live"

...that depends on what you want to achieve...i do live-looping stuff and started with mainstage's looper plugin before i switched to mainstage + mobius looper...while i had a really flexible setup it's not comparable with the flexibility i have now using ableton live in session view...and i can use more plugins and more fx with lower cpu consumption...

regarding "I'm certain I'll be getting 30 bucks worth of sounds from that thing...":
you know that the logic/mainstage plugins are not really plugins...?...so i reckon you have to record/sample the synths or whatever to use them within another daw...

[Tuur]

regarding "I'm certain I'll be getting 30 bucks worth of sounds from that thing...":
you know that the logic/mainstage plugins are not really plugins...?...so i reckon you have to record/sample the synths or whatever to use them within another daw...

Yes, thanks. Soundflower should be able to directly send MS audio into Live.

[stringtapper]

...that depends on what you want to achieve...i do live-looping stuff and started with mainstage's looper plugin before i switched to mainstage + mobius looper...while i had a really flexible setup it's not comparable with the flexibility i have now using ableton live in session view...and i can use more plugins and more fx with lower cpu consumption...

To be clear, what I mean by "performing live" is performing on traditional instruments like keyboard and guitar. For that kind of thing the patch management features in MainStage alone kill Live. I know, because Live was my first choice when I started doing the keyboard gigs. I ended up switching after a couple of weeks because Live is just very fussy when it comes to navigating patches compared to MS.

For live electronic music using nontraditional instruments Live is without question the winner. These days I find Live to be the perfect choice for performing live with my modular rig. 8 channels of CV outs from a MOTU into the modular rig all being driven by a custom M4L patch? Yes, please!

Think of it like the difference between Buchla and Moog. Live didn't even have a keyboard (i.e. MIDI) until v4.

[Tuur]

Hm. Looking at the new Logic update, my $30 is about to increase in value as we speak.

[mikb]

So, $30 for a truckload of toys & sounds almost seems to good to be true.

You don't need Logic for all that stuff to work? Simply use Rewire and something like Soundflower to use it 'inside' Live?

I found this review:

Cannot Run Inside Abelton
Nov 21, 2017
1 star
I would give this 5 stars if it would only run insdie Abelton Live! Without using soundflower (which is not ideal for playing live) Mainstage cannot be run insdie Abelton and this makes it worthless to me! It would be SO easy for Mainstage to do this but I’m giving them 1 star beause they simply choose not to. This is me BEGGING Mainstage to enable rewire inside of Abelton!

by I Like Good Podcasts

[Tuur]

I found this review:

Cannot Run Inside Abelton
Nov 21, 2017
1 star
I would give this 5 stars if it would only run insdie Abelton Live! Without using soundflower (which is not ideal for playing live) Mainstage cannot be run insdie Abelton and this makes it worthless to me! It would be SO easy for Mainstage to do this but I’m giving them 1 star beause they simply choose not to. This is me BEGGING Mainstage to enable rewire inside of Abelton!

Thanks, but like I've said earlier, I don't mind using SoundFlower to get access to such a wealth of sounds.

[stringtapper]

Hm. Looking at the new Logic update, my $30 is about to increase in value as we speak.

No shit!

[Tuur]

In case people from the future might be wondering, it works great.

To use MS as a 'sound module' simply create a virtual midi bus and install Soundflower.

Route midi out from Live into MS with the IAC bus and audio from MS into Live with the Soundflower bus. Decrease latency. Enjoy.