Hey Jake You're cutting it pretty close on the CPU Side with this setup, if you have a lot of FX in Mainstage this will definitely will have issues however if you are just using few FX in mainstage you're good to go. As a general idea on the specification side of things if anyone wants to run this setup you need at least a Macbook with an i5 to i7 processor (or Mac Mini with a 6 core version, the new mac mini is 6 cores) 16GB of ram and that's it. As you can see in the Statistics monitor mainstage is almost a 100% if by chance you run a lot of FX pretty sure you'll face issues but if you are running a few FX like reverbs it will be fine. =)
We've been doing this for several months, and at first it seemed to go fine. But the longer we've run it, the more problems we've run into. mainstage sometimes drops out for several measures at a time. Mainstage sometimes overloads and sends solid clipped signal to the board. We added a panic button to the layout to give the musician the ability to stop it. the most common problem is sustained notes. Seems like sometimes the Midi Notes don't send/recieve their "off" value and continue to hold forever (until the cpu overloads or we clear everything with the panic button). it sure seems like this settup should work (running a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4X). We used a umc404 audio interface and swapped to a playaudio12. we might be having issued running USB midi through a USB hub. open to ideas, but for now we're using onboard keys sounds until we get a dedicated machine for mainstage.
shrommerjr I think it was just for the demonstration. Either way, I’d recommend you do use a charger because if you use both of these programs (well primarily Mainstage) for long periods of time, your computer will die. Definitely don’t want that during a worship song or special moment.
I found this video cause I was gonna try using MainStage for my sounds and Ableton for tracks, and there's an additional question I have (two actually). First, are you running your click and cues directly to your monitors? And by extension, are you running your keyboard outputs into the main channels and your tracks to the aux input, or something else? My other question is for using session view (which is what I currently have set up for my band), and using a Novation Launchkey to move between scenes. If I'm assigning knobs to control parameters/switch between patches in MainStage, will there be adverse effects in Ableton? I'd hate to accidentally mess up something in my Ableton Session that was mapped to, say, the filter cutoff knob for my MainStage patch.
For your second question, as long as you don’t have parameters midi mapped to the same knob you should be good. If you use CC 1 for example with Ableton’s Click and CC1 for mainstage tap tempo, it would mess with both and would definitely affect it.
Hey Jake, long time fan. Have you ever used mainstage for playing backing tracks? I am the worship leader at a small church in California and have been using mainstage for both my keyboard playing and playing backing tracks for about a month now and have seen good results. (I also make my own tracks in logic). I see it as an affordable alternative to using Ableton, that works well if you already use Logic Pro X or Garageband. For 30$ anyone any budget can use it, and I think a lot of leaders/keyboardist may already using it.
I'm aware this comment is old now, but I thought I'd leave this here for your benefit and anyone else who stumbles across it! I ran tracks with MainStage for a year and can say that it's definitely a solid program for running tracks and keys! It integrates really well with Logic, which you can use to set markers in the backing track .wav files so you can jump to song sections if needs be! Definitely a bit more accessible than Ableton but you do sacrifice some of the flexibility and extra features that Ableton can provide, but if you're looking for a quick and easy method of just running tracks from start to finish, I'd definitely recommend it!
Hey Jake: I am thinking of doing this for a theatrical show that was supposed to have a dedicated Ableton controller but now may not. How, in this set up, do you trigger the Ableton Backing tracks? Is this via Midi send from MainStage? Hope to hear back from you even thought this very helpful video is 3 years old now.
if i have midi files in Ableton, can i have these files being played with by the sounds in main stage, so sort of using main stage as a plug in ? say i want the rhodes or bass from main stage and already have the part created in midi, can i have main stage play it and then record into audio ?
Hi can anyone tell me please what is that software with tempo and with a person talking if the song is going verse , chorus etc. I want that for our church worship service, im new forgive me. Thank you
I'm having some trouble with the midi using ableton and Mainstage simultaneously. When I run the Ableton tracks, the midi triggers for the ProPresenter cues are also triggering the midi for Mainstage. Is there a way to limit the range or fix the midi settings so the Midi cues for ProPresenter do not conflict with the mainstage keyboard?
HI jake, Really appreciate your videos. I have a situation here, I want to use Ableton and Mainstage using a single computer which is macbook. my purpose is triggering few clips or loops from Ableton and using my mainstage patches with my midi keyboard. I am using APC40 ableton controller to trigger the loops and a midi keyboard for mainstage. But when i connect both the midi devices (APC40 and midi keyboard) the APC40 buttons also produces sound of the mainstage patch. how to connect them so that Ableton only receives data from APC40. and mainstage receiving data from the midi keyboard. Pls help me out.
@@ZacharyAghaizu you need to set the keyboard or the APC 40 to a different midi channel and make sure main stage is only getting midi from the channel that the keyboard is on
Would it be possible to just use Ableton live for everything? and save yourself some processing power. The reason I mention this is because I will never (and I mean never!) use a Crapbook pro (Macbook) as I find PC's/Laptops to be far more reliable and less expensive (also much easier to upgrade RAM, SSD etc). But running a PC only setup obviously means no mainstage. But after looking at how much processing power it requires, I would prefer to use Ableton Live anyway. So my question is; Can you simultaneously run Click and Tracks through output 1/2 and have your keyboard rig with Sunday sounds going out output 3/4?
Hey Jake
You're cutting it pretty close on the CPU Side with this setup, if you have a lot of FX in Mainstage this will definitely will have issues however if you are just using few FX in mainstage you're good to go.
As a general idea on the specification side of things if anyone wants to run this setup you need at least a Macbook with an i5 to i7 processor (or Mac Mini with a 6 core version, the new mac mini is 6 cores) 16GB of ram and that's it.
As you can see in the Statistics monitor mainstage is almost a 100% if by chance you run a lot of FX pretty sure you'll face issues but if you are running a few FX like reverbs it will be fine. =)
We've been doing this for several months, and at first it seemed to go fine. But the longer we've run it, the more problems we've run into. mainstage sometimes drops out for several measures at a time. Mainstage sometimes overloads and sends solid clipped signal to the board. We added a panic button to the layout to give the musician the ability to stop it. the most common problem is sustained notes. Seems like sometimes the Midi Notes don't send/recieve their "off" value and continue to hold forever (until the cpu overloads or we clear everything with the panic button). it sure seems like this settup should work (running a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4X). We used a umc404 audio interface and swapped to a playaudio12. we might be having issued running USB midi through a USB hub. open to ideas, but for now we're using onboard keys sounds until we get a dedicated machine for mainstage.
This is a great video! Can you do a follow up with the latest gear that we have today? Maybe try it with Macbook air. Thanks!
You better sing Jake! 5:32
Would love to hear you continue in that falsetto voice 😵💫😣🤣. Thank you for the tutorial tho 👍🏽
Most equipment you show... I end up buying lol
I would like to know how do you send tempo and patch changes from Ableton to Mainstage.
Also interested. ReWire?
Good stuff
Are you using only two cables out of the macbook for this setup and not having a charger plugged in?
shrommerjr I think it was just for the demonstration. Either way, I’d recommend you do use a charger because if you use both of these programs (well primarily Mainstage) for long periods of time, your computer will die. Definitely don’t want that during a worship song or special moment.
I found this video cause I was gonna try using MainStage for my sounds and Ableton for tracks, and there's an additional question I have (two actually).
First, are you running your click and cues directly to your monitors? And by extension, are you running your keyboard outputs into the main channels and your tracks to the aux input, or something else?
My other question is for using session view (which is what I currently have set up for my band), and using a Novation Launchkey to move between scenes. If I'm assigning knobs to control parameters/switch between patches in MainStage, will there be adverse effects in Ableton? I'd hate to accidentally mess up something in my Ableton Session that was mapped to, say, the filter cutoff knob for my MainStage patch.
For your second question, as long as you don’t have parameters midi mapped to the same knob you should be good. If you use CC 1 for example with Ableton’s Click and CC1 for mainstage tap tempo, it would mess with both and would definitely affect it.
You’re a mad lad lol. If you have the cpu for it go for it. I think for me I’d just host my patches inside Ableton in this case
Hey Jake, long time fan. Have you ever used mainstage for playing backing tracks? I am the worship leader at a small church in California and have been using mainstage for both my keyboard playing and playing backing tracks for about a month now and have seen good results. (I also make my own tracks in logic). I see it as an affordable alternative to using Ableton, that works well if you already use Logic Pro X or Garageband. For 30$ anyone any budget can use it, and I think a lot of leaders/keyboardist may already using it.
I'm aware this comment is old now, but I thought I'd leave this here for your benefit and anyone else who stumbles across it!
I ran tracks with MainStage for a year and can say that it's definitely a solid program for running tracks and keys! It integrates really well with Logic, which you can use to set markers in the backing track .wav files so you can jump to song sections if needs be!
Definitely a bit more accessible than Ableton but you do sacrifice some of the flexibility and extra features that Ableton can provide, but if you're looking for a quick and easy method of just running tracks from start to finish, I'd definitely recommend it!
So I do the same but now using Dante sound card instead of converting to analog then back to digital
Do you know how to do this with Focusrite’s 18i20 audio interface?
Hey Jake: I am thinking of doing this for a theatrical show that was supposed to have a dedicated Ableton controller but now may not. How, in this set up, do you trigger the Ableton Backing tracks? Is this via Midi send from MainStage? Hope to hear back from you even thought this very helpful video is 3 years old now.
if i have midi files in Ableton, can i have these files being played with by the sounds in main stage, so sort of using main stage as a plug in ? say i want the rhodes or bass from main stage and already have the part created in midi, can i have main stage play it and then record into audio ?
Hi can anyone tell me please what is that software with tempo and with a person talking if the song is going verse , chorus etc. I want that for our church worship service, im new forgive me. Thank you
I'm having some trouble with the midi using ableton and Mainstage simultaneously. When I run the Ableton tracks, the midi triggers for the ProPresenter cues are also triggering the midi for Mainstage. Is there a way to limit the range or fix the midi settings so the Midi cues for ProPresenter do not conflict with the mainstage keyboard?
is their a way from ableton with midi to just change the key of waves tune in mainstage not whole patch ?
instead of patch change i want it just to change the root key of plug in not whole patch
mine wants to use rewire how can i bypass that
Hey Jake, what was the latency in mainstage? Thanks
canwe run both obs and mainstage at a time
Jajajaja😂🔥 I’m not a piano player but I can do a C major chord😂 I’m dead ... I want to learn how to use guides in ableton
any solution for pc users?
HI jake, Really appreciate your videos. I have a situation here, I want to use Ableton and Mainstage using a single computer which is macbook. my purpose is triggering few clips or loops from Ableton and using my mainstage patches with my midi keyboard. I am using APC40 ableton controller to trigger the loops and a midi keyboard for mainstage. But when i connect both the midi devices (APC40 and midi keyboard) the APC40 buttons also produces sound of the mainstage patch. how to connect them so that Ableton only receives data from APC40. and mainstage receiving data from the midi keyboard. Pls help me out.
hi did you figure it out. I am also using apc 40
@@ZacharyAghaizu you need to set the keyboard or the APC 40 to a different midi channel and make sure main stage is only getting midi from the channel that the keyboard is on
@@markfisher4746thanks. I've moved over to ableton at the moment. I think i got it working at the time
@@ZacharyAghaizu I’m going though the same problem
Jajaja so funny 5:32 😂🤣🤣
Would it be possible to just use Ableton live for everything? and save yourself some processing power.
The reason I mention this is because I will never (and I mean never!) use a Crapbook pro (Macbook) as I find PC's/Laptops to be far more reliable and less expensive (also much easier to upgrade RAM, SSD etc).
But running a PC only setup obviously means no mainstage. But after looking at how much processing power it requires, I would prefer to use Ableton Live anyway.
So my question is; Can you simultaneously run Click and Tracks through output 1/2 and have your keyboard rig with Sunday sounds going out output 3/4?
Is this the Mac that died on you? Lol
PC
Its better you dont Sing.. Haha