New iMac 27 into MOTU Ultra-lite

Yeah, I've had that noise problem with MainStage, too.
You might want to check out this thread over at the Apple Support Communities: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/64 ... 0&tstart=0
You'll see a familiar (recognizable) name pop up near the bottom of page 4 (of 6 pages at the moment).

Shorter story: For me, I had to give up on MainStage for performing, because the noise problem was just unpredictable and really REALLY annoying. I went back to Ableton Live, which works fine, but is a bit of a shame because the MainStage layout feels more "logical" to me.




I use a MOTU Ultralite mk3 Hybrid with a 2013 MacBook Pro (2.9GHz i7, 8GB memory) and OS X 10.10.5 (Yosemite).
With USB Ableton Live reports 3.15ms latency (1.56ms in, 1.58ms out) with a buffer size of 32 samples. The MOTU sample rate is set at 48000. I believe I got the same or similar results with Firewire.
I'm simply reading this information off the screen right now; it's been a few months (!) since I've practiced with this setup. If memory serves, I had no trouble with these settings while processing bass and treble separately (two instances of Amplitube on separate tracks). (But, I don't use a lot of effects, just amp models mostly.) I think I might have had minor intermittent popping and crackling sounds when I tried to add minimal synth on another track.

Anywhere below 5ms feels great to me, considering that I started with interface/computer setups about 10 years ago ... when I felt lucky to get a latency of 12ms.

I'm glad you posted something on main stage. I've been saving my money up to buy a Keith McMillen soft step 2 to trigger the main stage stuff that gets mapped to it. So far I just use a drum pad to map and trigger stuff. I plan on diving into main stage when I get my chops on the stick up to the point of performing live. It is so powerful what it does. I haven't played with it enough to have had crashes. I use a focusrite 18i8 as my interface and a two year old MacBook Pro. No issues yet but I haven't tried doing backing drums and stuff yet. Someday.....

I've gone back and forth between my old rig and a Mainstage based rig 2-3 times. The digital rig has so much potential but I've just never gotten to the point where it is reliable for me.

The stability of the Mac environment is largely overblown in my opinion. Under an older hardware setup, I had issues where a mish mash of audio and MIDI data would cause my Mac to hang to the point where a reboot was the only thing that would bring it back to life.

Today that issue appears to be gone but there is the noise issue that has come up several times now. I'm not entirely sure who the culprit is be it my MOTU Ultralite, Mainstage, or a combination of both but after talking with several parties at both Apple and MOTU I finally gave up.

Lastly, working with loops that require some pretty exact timing, any latency at all drove me crazy.

I will likely give it another try one day when I can switch over to a nice Thunderbolt interface.

Slowly but surely there are affordable Thunderbolt interfaces coming around.

I'm looking at the Resident Audio T4. $249.99 http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/T4
With four in and four out it should be able to handle what I want to do. If they have a 8 channel version I would go for it since I may want stereo outputs for each instrument for mixing in FOH in a live situation.

Has anyone ever used Resident Audio?

I'm very interested in getting a functional Mainstage rig working - it's an amazingly flexible and portable setup. At work and home I've been using both a Zoom TAC-2 and TAC-2R which offer really low latency (easy to get 3-4 ms round trip on a 2013 MacBook Pro) but I'm not 100% confident in the drivers yet. The audio buffers often crap out when saving a project, requiring a restart of the driver or app. But when just playing through the effects it seems generally solid - just haven't attempted it in a live performance yet when problems would be more prone to occur!

I have a Keith McMillen 12 Step which can combine as a controller for effects and one octave foot keyboard for triggering some minimal soft synth notes.

There is also an 8 channel Zoom TAC-8 for anyone interested in a thunderbolt interface with more I/O.

Oooo I have a 12 step, too but that's for playing bass with my feet one day haha! 12 step rocks!

I have personally never had a problem with the OS X environment, and in conjunction with Logic, Mainstage is great. Latency, though... even just a subtle bit drives me insane. I have a fast computer, and a fast interface, but it's still there. Really noticeable when playing super fast guitar licks...

But my biggest fear is that my laptop will get knocked over, or someone will trip over some cables from the rack... Or some drunk will spill his beer on my stuff. All legit fears haha I have played some rough places! Haha

I finally got through the discussion about the Motu and MS...
I think my symptoms are a bit different. My sound gets distorted and the BPM get's super low so the playback is very slow and distorted. Other things like videos on YouTube and iTunes works just fine. So I'm thinking it's not a interface issue but more in my computer. Some kind of conflict of processing the sound internally. It happened to me last night then I shut everything else down (iTunes, web browsers) and it seems to be solid. No audio issues.

If I can get the functionality going with the loops, sounds, vocals, etc... then I would buy a dedicated computer for my playing so that I'm not bringing in miscellaneous programs which may have a conflict with MS. With everything on my pedalboard I think I can raise enough funds to get a used Macbook Pro. Just need to make sure I get one that will have enough processing power.

Alright... so my distorted sound issue is definitely interface related...

Everything was working great with my current interface and then it just $#iT the bed and everything is all distorted. I kept it there and changed the output to HDMI (through my monitor) and the sound is fine. I would then put it back through my interface and it's still distorted. So there is definitely some kind of communication not happening between my computer and this interface.

When I read the string from the apple site about the MOTU (firewire) with MS there were people going back to USB units and having no issues. However, I wonder if they are just not noticing the latency from the keyboards they use. I think that from an electric string instrument we may notice latency even more... so...

My current interface is Firewire. The input side doesn't have any issues. So I'm wondering if I should go with a more stable USB, which may have latency issues...
OR
Got with the new super fast, not sure about stability, Thunderbolt.

I'd like to hear opinions..... GO!

My MOTU unit can run either USB or FireWire and the noise issues I have occur with both.