Mainstage with Ableton - First Thoughts

[dylandigits]

Does MS rewire into Live or the other way around?

Live to MS. Obnoxious, but not unworkable. Here's the workaround: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsbaMAKDe8

I worked this out this afternoon and found that I had to compensate for delay to get the timing tighter, but otherwise it was essentially like using a plug-in.

One thing I hadn't considered was how Freeze/Flatten would work, so was I ever surprised when Live did this in real time and audible. Still, it's a good system-- it tracks the CPU hiccups that occur during the Freeze and give you the option of restarting the process at any time if it's not to your liking.

I'm glad I dropped $30 on Mainstage.

[Machinesworking]

the one thing people seem to forget here is you can rewire Live and Mainstage, it's just that for older projects with third party instruments in Live you would need to do the whole Soundflower routine etc.

Does MS rewire into Live or the other way around?

I'm curious

Other way around, MS is the master so you lose the ability to host soft synths etc. in Live.
This seems like a really good set up for live performance though, in that MS can change whole synth and FX racks instantly with far less glitching than Live does.
Plus changing the whole MIDI assigned knobs and sliders on your controllers without having to open a new Live Set.
I have MS 1 here as part of Logic 8 Studio, and it's not a huge issue to use IAC to get Live to switch instrument racks in MS, and it's brutally efficient. I put Massive, Kontakt and Absytnh on three different patches in MS and had Live send program change messages on the quarter note to MS with no glitches, brutal CPU use, but MS 1 isn't that optimized for multiple CPUs and 2 is.

[milfhuntr]

The problem is that Mainstage is really incompatible with Ableton as a plugin type of thing. I have tried multiple routing and it does not work well. So therefore I will simply have to buy Logic Pro. I will continue to use Ableton because I like the workflow but I am going to ease my way over to Logic Pro. Perhaps that was Apples intent by making Mainstage not work as a VST, I don't know. I only know the difference in sound is so stark and overwhelming to me, a user of Ableton for 3 years and never even touching Logic, that I have to make a change.

You're switching DAWS solely because of the bundled instruments???

that kinda blows my mind. do you even know if Logic will work for you as a functional DAW? It's very dated in many ways. And lacks tons of the sequencing functionality you've been using for the last 3 years...

-M

When stuff gets affordable I sure like to mess around with it and see where it leads. But I'll never leave ableton as my main DAW.

[Forge.]

the one thing people seem to forget here is you can rewire Live and Mainstage, it's just that for older projects with third party instruments in Live you would need to do the whole Soundflower routine etc.

Does MS rewire into Live or the other way around?

I'm curious

Other way around, MS is the master so you lose the ability to host soft synths etc. in Live.
This seems like a really good set up for live performance though, in that MS can change whole synth and FX racks instantly with far less glitching than Live does.
Plus changing the whole MIDI assigned knobs and sliders on your controllers without having to open a new Live Set.
I have MS 1 here as part of Logic 8 Studio, and it's not a huge issue to use IAC to get Live to switch instrument racks in MS, and it's brutally efficient. I put Massive, Kontakt and Absytnh on three different patches in MS and had Live send program change messages on the quarter note to MS with no glitches, brutal CPU use, but MS 1 isn't that optimized for multiple CPUs and 2 is.

not being able to use control surfaces makes Live in rewire is a bigger bummer IMO.

[mholloway]

Live in Rewire mode is, functionally speaking, a complete joke. It can't host any 3rd party instruments or FX. It can't have controller setups. If you have a startup template that includes these, and you open live in Rewire mode, it freaks out and erases your current saved template and replaces it with a rewire compatible one, e.g., nothing in it. Always wondered why Live is the only DAW I've seen that doesn't offer upon project creation a choice of templates; it would be a quick solution to this problem.

anyway, I love the program, but in terms of being a Rewire slave, it's garbage. As a Rewire host for Reason or Renoise, it's fantastic and offers the tightest integration I've seen. Funny.

-M

[mrfracas]

I think Apple could do no better than to make Mainstage a slave to Live.

I write in Logic, and would kill to be able to have stable control over my Logic channel presets with Live.

I've used IAC drivers, but there's an instability issue to some extent.

In my dream live setup, Mainstage would be slave with 3rd party AUs available.

[ttilberg]

To anyone eyeing this up who do not currently own Logic, but are looking to pick up the instruments that come with Logic:

Logic instruments: Here's a small list, Sculpture, Ultrabeat, ES2, EVB3, EXS24mkII < -- this one is a super fast sampler. Are all these included?

Nobody ended up answering this, so I just did some research (namely, purchased Main Stage lol)

The $30 Main Stage does not appear to come with the Logic Instruments (i.e. ES2, etc) as you would expect them. I get the impression that you are able to load patches for these instruments, or at least pre-made patches from Apple, but you are not able to tweak them, similar to NI's many "Player" modules. I could be completely wrong, as I'm not familiar with the Logic family, but that is what I've gathered so far.

With that said, some of these patches do sound really great.

This of course might be entirely different if you own Logic.

[ttilberg]

I take it back - It was just very unintuitive to find how to edit the synth itself, if you aren't familiar with Logic (me!)

To anyone who comes across this thread and is interested in playing with the Logic instruments without knowing anything about Logic:

Load up a new blank keyboard set.
Right click the instrument's name (EXS24 in my example) to select a different instrument.
Double click to open the synth's UI, as you would expect to see it.


Even if it's a bit of a hassle to hook up with IAC and Soundflower (and it's not that much of a hassle if you've used these apps before) - it's a complete steal at $30. I can't believe I didn't know about this before!

Lots of great sounding acoustic instruments too. I'll be glad to have the opportunity to learn to use these synths and tools, without plunging into Logic (and spending the cash on yet another DAW lol).

[isaacjunk]

I have used MS and Live pretty extensively on stage. Soundflower will work for getting audio into Live, but I am wearing of linking the two programs using a freeware utility. Instead, I patch 2 outputs directly into inputs on my audio interface. I set up tons of keyboard patches in MS, set up a track in Live to receive the MS input, and route that to a bunch of looping tracks and effects racks. MS can host any 3rd party instrument I want, so any channel strips I use in Logic can be loaded and used in performance. I am able to get buffer sizes low enough that latency is not an issue.

The only issue I have encountered is with Mainstage hogging graphics resources. At times my display was greatly lagging (MS and Live) with both apps running. It never compromised audio performance however. I do really wish MS would run as a rewire slave. It would be much more useful live and in the studio, especially now that it is being sold as a separate app.

Sorry, I'm kind of a newbie at this: your plan sounds awesome, how do you actually accomplish this? I have a RME Babyface, Ableton Live 8 and Mainstage 2.2.1---I cannot get my VSTs from mainstage to send out to an input of the RME babyface, only to the outputs on the babyface. That is, all the I/O options on the instrument tracks are listed as "Out " 1...13; same goes for the I/O plugin...

[ttilberg]

I have used MS and Live pretty extensively on stage. Soundflower will work for getting audio into Live, but I am wearing of linking the two programs using a freeware utility. Instead, I patch 2 outputs directly into inputs on my audio interface. I set up tons of keyboard patches in MS, set up a track in Live to receive the MS input, and route that to a bunch of looping tracks and effects racks. MS can host any 3rd party instrument I want, so any channel strips I use in Logic can be loaded and used in performance. I am able to get buffer sizes low enough that latency is not an issue.

The only issue I have encountered is with Mainstage hogging graphics resources. At times my display was greatly lagging (MS and Live) with both apps running. It never compromised audio performance however. I do really wish MS would run as a rewire slave. It would be much more useful live and in the studio, especially now that it is being sold as a separate app.

Sorry, I'm kind of a newbie at this: your plan sounds awesome, how do you actually accomplish this? I have a RME Babyface, Ableton Live 8 and Mainstage 2.2.1---I cannot get my VSTs from mainstage to send out to an input of the RME babyface, only to the outputs on the babyface. That is, all the I/O options on the instrument tracks are listed as "Out " 1...13; same goes for the I/O plugin...

I believe he was saying that he was physically patching them -- meaning setting the Mainstage outs (i.e. 1/2) and Live outs (3/4) separately, and running a cable from the mainstage outs to an audio in on the sound card, which you can then easily access in Live.