Oh no! It must be some compatibility thing... Both of you have very similar systems. Very Strange...

Well... keep working it I guess. I know there is a winning solution out there. I recently saw a video on youtube of a group called Disclosure and one of the guys uses MS on his setup. Of course he has two running simultaneously and if there are any issues with one they quickly change to the other...

As usual, I am a bit late to the thread.

I had a fairly complex keyboard/Stick system a few years back that used Mainstage and a PODHD500. The POD served as an audio interface for keyboard sounds in Mainstage and also as a hardware processor for the Stick. I used a 2009 Macbook 2.4 khZ (I think) with 8 GB of RAM. I tried routing audio into Mainstage for looping but never could get reliable performance out of the setup using a SoftStep to trigger recording and playback of loops.

While I had a mostly good experience, one very bad experience convinced me to go back to an all hardware rig. Anytime you are working in a performance environment with a computer, things will crop up and you will usually not have a lot of time to troubleshoot.

Case in point: My band was playing an outdoor festival with minimum set up and break down time (15 minutes between acts). For some reason, I was not getting any sound out of Mainstage. I did not have time to troubleshoot and decided to use my Yamaha S80 piano sound for the keyboard portion of the gig instead of the more complex Mainstage setup,

Unfortunately, another keyboard player had been using the Yamaha keyboard at our rehearsal space (with my permission) and had transposed the tuning. I had never used the transpose feature before, and, given the time constraints, could not find it buried in the menus nor could I transpose our entire set in my head on the fly. I ended up playing all the keyboard parts on the Stick on the fly instead which was extremely nerve racking for the whole band!

I have not used a computer on stage ever since. While I do not have the flexibility and options offered by Mainstage, I am much more relaxed! Of course, hardware can fail but it tends to fail much less frequently.

Since I now play alternate MIDI controllers like the LinnStrument and Seaboard, I am actually contemplating using a computer or an iPad on stage again. I would still use the POD as the audio interface. But since I have two hardware keyboards and floor pedal, if the computer did not work for some reason, I could readily adapt.

My suggestion is to at least have a hardware backup you could live with if the computer/software/interface system fails (e.g., Zoom makes several inexpensive and highly regarded pedals that could serve as a backup).

Having a backup and/or ability to have the show go on is essential! I don't think I can afford two computers running simultaneously in case of a crash... (I watched a video online about the group called Disclosure and they run MainStage and Ableton with two computers for each. Check out 13:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXaBgCuTAtY)

I would probably maintain some outboard gear that can run my basic sounds but the whole exercise is to minimize and having outboard just puts me back to where I was.
I'm getting ahead of myself here since I don't play out that much... but important to think about...

I must admit that I'm pretty confident in the system. I think I would be able to maintain a solid system if I have a music only laptop and not use it for anything else.

It's been three more weeks and my MS system is holding up wonderfully.

The amp sounds have been great but I wasn't happy with the "pedals" that MS offers. I downloaded Positive Grid's Bias FX demo and it was far superior to the MS versions. I went ahead and purchased the Pro version of Bias FX and really liking it. The noise gate function alone is worth the purchase. The boost sounds great too. The amp sims are great too. To simplify things, I'm trying to put everything in Bias FX but I'm finding that I like the delay plugins better.

I think I'm almost ready to start selling off my pedalboard for funds towards a laptop...

Update from me...

Since the update I haven't had any issues with Mainstage. I think the main component is the computer (late 2012, Mac Mini, 2.3ghz quad core i7, 16GB memory).

I'm going to put up an ad in craigslist to see if anyone will trade their Macbook pro for my TC-Helicon Voicelive 3 Extreme. I'm thinking to try out a Macbook pro and put it through the paces. I will stipulate that I need to do some basic testing with Mainstage before I make the trade.

I've been thinking about getting the Keith McMillen K-Mix (https://www.keithmcmillen.com/products/k-mix/) to replace my Behringer Xenyx UFX1204.
The K-Mix has more outputs, tactile interface for Mainstage, and can be used as a stand alone mixer.

I've been thinking of how I would set up a personal monitor mix (thinking to get in ear monitors) and being able to adjust levels quickly is important. If needed I can mix FOH as well.

As a stand-alone mixer I can maintain a backup pedalboard should the computer crash... (I'm still waiting on my MOD Duo...) and use the K-mix for that situation as well.

Let us know how the Kmix works. That looks pretty sweet. If and when My Berringer mixer goes I might look in to that mixer. I just got a softstep 2 from Keith McMillen. It works great as a controller for my big sky pedal. My next step is to link it up to mainstage so I can use the pedals and to use the soft step to trigger the loopback features in Mainstage. Wish there were more videos on line for both Main stage and Keith Mcmillen stuff.

Do you know of any other virtual pedal companies that can be used inside mainstage?

Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob!
I have the Softstep1 and used it with loopback and love it!. You can set up multiple channels with a looper in each one if you want... It did take me a while to figure out how I can incorporate that with a pre-recorded loop...

I'm currently using PositiveGrid's Bias FX and love it! The biggest reason I got Bias FX is for the gate... it works so much better for me than the one in Mainstage. Maybe it's just easier to use and tuned in for guitar/bass sounds. The effect pedal sims are just great compared to the Mainstage pedalboard plug in.
I have three channels of bass, each with Bias FX... One is a very sub/bass sound, second channel is a more treble-y sound and the third is an overdriven distortion and I blend these into one channel and use Waves Renaissance Bass plug in. Blend to how it sounds best for the song. I just kept playing around with the different amps/cabs and effects.
I still really like the amp/cabs in Mainstage. But to keep things simple I try to stay with Bias FX.
For melody side of my NS I have a blend, inside Bias FX, of two amps, plushed Plexi and a Tweed. For pedals the main sound is the Klon... sounds amazing!

I'm not having much luck with the delays so have an aux channel with the Waves Manny Marroquin Delay plugin. Sounds great but has some latency but I don't notice it because it's not in the direct signal chain. Great delay plugin.

I hope to raise some funds in the next few weeks to get the K-mix. My first priority is to get the laptop...

That k mix is pretty sweet. Might go for that someday

Just and update with Mainstage...
It's been working great for me. I've even integrated my vocals using some plugins and everything is coming through great.

At this point my biggest drawback is that I'm still working with a my Mac Mini desktop. At this point I'm still a little hesitant to drop the money for a MacBook Pro with the right amount of processing and memory.

In the mean time my MOD DUO has showed up. I was a backer in their Kickstarter campaign and it finally arrived. I've been playing with it for the last week and really liking it. It has much less processing than my Mac Mini so I can't process as many amp models at one time but I've come up with other solutions to get to the sound I want. It's a powerful piece of gear and will be putting my energy into this one. (There is another string regarding the MOD DUO but it's long and from when they were kicking off the kickstarter so I will probably start a new string.)