AU/VST Hosts
I've been using The Sax Brothers, The Trumpet and The Trombone for just under a year now. During that time I've struggled to find info on good AU/VST hosts for live performances. I'm on a Mac, but am also interested in learning what people are using for Windows machines.
I've used these on both Snow Leopard and Lion. Upgrading to Lion did not affect these programs in any way that I could tell. I've also used Kontakt 4 and 5 with all three programs. No difference in functionality noted between the two versions. I'm using a Akai EWI USB
I've used three products, all with varying degrees of success. Below is my experience with them.
RAX - http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/rax/
This was the first software I used. They offer a fully functioning demo that times out after two weeks. The list price is $79.99, but I think when I bought it, it was on sale for $49. It ran Kontakt well, however, it has a ton of bugs. I purchased Version 3.0 roughly in August 2011. It is now March 2012 and we're still on version 3. Annoyances/bugs that I found were: Using the remote control function to change to the next song crashes the program There are no keyboard commands to change to the next song - you have to use the mouse, which is a pain on stage. When using a midi send (in my case a foot switch) to solo a channel, the program doesn't behave like an on/off switch. There is one command to turn it on, and another to turn it off. This means you have to use two buttons, one to turn it on, another to cancel it.
However, it did work pretty well with Kontakt. I got quick responses from their support staff, however the program hasn't been updated in years, and when I asked when an update would be released, I was told there wasn't a date set.
Bottom Line: I wouldn't recommend it until they actually issue an updated version - if nothing else to show the program is still alive!
Jambalaya - http://www.audiofreakshow.com/
After getting annoyed at Rax, I went searching and found Jambalaya. While Rax is from a software company, Jambalaya looks to be just a guy on his own who wrote this to use himself. You can download a demo version for free, which is fully functioning, with the exception of the save function. The full version costs $50.
The look is VERY different from Rax, and in many ways functions much better. I do love the fact that it has an option called "Murph and the Magictones" which puts pink shag carpeting around the edge of the window. (If you haven't seen the Blues Brothers, you will have no idea what I'm talking about.) It doesn't seem to interface with Kontakt as well as Rax. While it ends up saving everything correctly, sometimes when you load a new AU on a channel, Kontakt will already have an instrument loaded in it. It crashes. A lot. For example, if you hit the next song in your set, sometimes it would hang. If you hit it again, before the next song completely loaded, it would crash. Bad news on stage, especially since it takes a good 30 seconds to load back up. It also will let you quit without saving. <insert swearing here> Sound card issues. The program has the ability to switch to send sound to a different sound card. Perfect for me since I use a usb dongle to run sound to my amp. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to actually do anything. The only way I was able to make it work properly was to set it to use the default system sound, then change the default sound card to the USB dongle in MacOS.
On his website, the programmer has a few nice new functions listed "coming soon." I bought the program in October 2011, and was told the next version would be coming in two to three weeks. Its now March 2012, and nothing. I emailed him about a month ago, and have not received a response.
Bottom Line: Same as Rax - I wouldn't recommend it until the programmer shows signs of life. Definitely has a lot of potential though.
Main Stage 2 - http://www.apple.com/logicpro/mainstage/
This used to be part of Logic Studio, which no longer exists. All the components of Logic Studio are now available individually through the Mac App Store. Like everything else in the App Store, you can download a fully functioning demo by simply purchasing the program at full price. </sarcasm> Main Stage costs $29.99.
Version 2.2.1 just came out. Hallelujah! An update for SOMETHING! This version fixed one big issue from 2.2 which was extremely CPU utilization. Well, "fixed" might be a bit much. "Made it better" might be a better way of putting it.
Once you get it figured out, it plays nice with Kontakt and has VERY quick load times when changing between songs. (See this post for issues I had getting Kontakt and friends to play nice with Main Stage)
Documentation. I'm not sure what it is with Apple products, but I actually feel dumber after trying to find an answer in one of their manuals. If you are not use to using Logic, MainStage is NOT intuitive. Expect to take some time to get everything figured out. I should have pointed out that the documentation on the other two programs basically sucks too, but they are much more intuitive and you can generally figure things out pretty easy on your own.
However, once you get Main Stage figured out, it is BY FAR the best of the three programs I've used. You can pretty much customize the Performance view to be exactly what you will need on stage. You get the added bonus of all the Logic instruments and inserts which are very useful.
Bottom Line: This is the best I've found so far, and recommend it - if you have the patience to figure it out. Its also only $30, so you're not out a lot if you can't figure it out.
I'm sure there are others out there, but these are the ones that I've used. Hopefully this proves useful to someone else-
Justin
I've used these on both Snow Leopard and Lion. Upgrading to Lion did not affect these programs in any way that I could tell. I've also used Kontakt 4 and 5 with all three programs. No difference in functionality noted between the two versions. I'm using a Akai EWI USB
I've used three products, all with varying degrees of success. Below is my experience with them.
RAX - http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/rax/
This was the first software I used. They offer a fully functioning demo that times out after two weeks. The list price is $79.99, but I think when I bought it, it was on sale for $49. It ran Kontakt well, however, it has a ton of bugs. I purchased Version 3.0 roughly in August 2011. It is now March 2012 and we're still on version 3. Annoyances/bugs that I found were: Using the remote control function to change to the next song crashes the program There are no keyboard commands to change to the next song - you have to use the mouse, which is a pain on stage. When using a midi send (in my case a foot switch) to solo a channel, the program doesn't behave like an on/off switch. There is one command to turn it on, and another to turn it off. This means you have to use two buttons, one to turn it on, another to cancel it.
However, it did work pretty well with Kontakt. I got quick responses from their support staff, however the program hasn't been updated in years, and when I asked when an update would be released, I was told there wasn't a date set.
Bottom Line: I wouldn't recommend it until they actually issue an updated version - if nothing else to show the program is still alive!
Jambalaya - http://www.audiofreakshow.com/
After getting annoyed at Rax, I went searching and found Jambalaya. While Rax is from a software company, Jambalaya looks to be just a guy on his own who wrote this to use himself. You can download a demo version for free, which is fully functioning, with the exception of the save function. The full version costs $50.
The look is VERY different from Rax, and in many ways functions much better. I do love the fact that it has an option called "Murph and the Magictones" which puts pink shag carpeting around the edge of the window. (If you haven't seen the Blues Brothers, you will have no idea what I'm talking about.) It doesn't seem to interface with Kontakt as well as Rax. While it ends up saving everything correctly, sometimes when you load a new AU on a channel, Kontakt will already have an instrument loaded in it. It crashes. A lot. For example, if you hit the next song in your set, sometimes it would hang. If you hit it again, before the next song completely loaded, it would crash. Bad news on stage, especially since it takes a good 30 seconds to load back up. It also will let you quit without saving. <insert swearing here> Sound card issues. The program has the ability to switch to send sound to a different sound card. Perfect for me since I use a usb dongle to run sound to my amp. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to actually do anything. The only way I was able to make it work properly was to set it to use the default system sound, then change the default sound card to the USB dongle in MacOS.
On his website, the programmer has a few nice new functions listed "coming soon." I bought the program in October 2011, and was told the next version would be coming in two to three weeks. Its now March 2012, and nothing. I emailed him about a month ago, and have not received a response.
Bottom Line: Same as Rax - I wouldn't recommend it until the programmer shows signs of life. Definitely has a lot of potential though.
Main Stage 2 - http://www.apple.com/logicpro/mainstage/
This used to be part of Logic Studio, which no longer exists. All the components of Logic Studio are now available individually through the Mac App Store. Like everything else in the App Store, you can download a fully functioning demo by simply purchasing the program at full price. </sarcasm> Main Stage costs $29.99.
Version 2.2.1 just came out. Hallelujah! An update for SOMETHING! This version fixed one big issue from 2.2 which was extremely CPU utilization. Well, "fixed" might be a bit much. "Made it better" might be a better way of putting it.
Once you get it figured out, it plays nice with Kontakt and has VERY quick load times when changing between songs. (See this post for issues I had getting Kontakt and friends to play nice with Main Stage)
Documentation. I'm not sure what it is with Apple products, but I actually feel dumber after trying to find an answer in one of their manuals. If you are not use to using Logic, MainStage is NOT intuitive. Expect to take some time to get everything figured out. I should have pointed out that the documentation on the other two programs basically sucks too, but they are much more intuitive and you can generally figure things out pretty easy on your own.
However, once you get Main Stage figured out, it is BY FAR the best of the three programs I've used. You can pretty much customize the Performance view to be exactly what you will need on stage. You get the added bonus of all the Logic instruments and inserts which are very useful.
Bottom Line: This is the best I've found so far, and recommend it - if you have the patience to figure it out. Its also only $30, so you're not out a lot if you can't figure it out.
I'm sure there are others out there, but these are the ones that I've used. Hopefully this proves useful to someone else-
Justin
Comments
I use Reaper for live performance and highly recommend it. It has a lot of capabilities for recording, mixing, and editing midi and audio which I don't use, but they're there if you need them. The price is $60, but that gets you a lifetime of updates and support. There is an excellent website:
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
and an active community. The documentation is very good, and there are several books devoted to it. There are hundreds of included FX plugins and it is highly customizable as to look and feel. I use the PC version on an HP laptop with an Intel I5 processor and 4GB of RAM, but it also runs on Mac. I would be happy to share how I set it up for my SM and other instruments, if you decide to go with it.
Dick