Realtime processing on Macs

[jmdh]

Hello,

 

Mainly my (amateur theatre) sound work is prerecorded sounds via QLab, but occasionally (such as last weekend) I find myself in a situation where I'm somewhere with my Mac Mini + Sapphire Pro 40 rig (bought for multi-channel output, used for recording too) connected to a basic analogue desk with no outboard effects, wanting to add reverb to some live vocals.

 

Now, I'm dimly aware of things like Mainstage and Ableton Live (and have a demo of Live on my Mac - which is currently out in a theatre) but can I ask for some general guidance here? Firstly is using software such as the above the best way of getting that kind of occasional effect on a budget (and without having to lug more kit around?) And if so, which programs should I be looking at? I had a very quick look at Live Lite out of general interest and found a rather steep learning curve. On the face of it, Mainstage looks like it will do the job (and is pretty cheap) but I'm sure there must be other options too.

 

Thanks,

Dominic.

[DrummerJonny]

Live will do this, and although it has a steepish learning curve, once you've got the hang of it is incredibly easy and powerful.

 

The only thing you'll need to be aware of with it is latency. It shouldn't be a problem with a powerful enough machine and decent sound card, but I know my current setup (which is very old and bodged together!) would struggle with realtime audio processing.

[peza2010]

Ive done it on painfully slow machines with cheapo soundcards. For the use of reverb latency would have to be painfully high for it to make using it for reverb inpossible.

[Oldradiohand]

Or. for about £50 get a behringer minifx - small and lightweight reverb unit that sounds quite good, plugs into your desk (I assume it's got at least 1 aux send?) and is dead easy to set up.

[jmdh]

Thanks for the suggestions; first port of call when I get my gear back will be Live Lite, I think. Regarding the option of a cheap hardware unit, the idea will be that if I don't have to carry anything extra with me, I'll have it with me when I need it... sounds like software solutions are quite usable for basic effects.

[jmaudio]

For effects such as Reverb, delay, flange etc etc, soundcard latency isn't too much of an issue, since the effects are all distorting time anyway. However I'd suggest using computer soundcards for dynamics processing is a bit of a no go. Firstly the delay, and secondly, if your soundcard was inserted into the lead vocal signal chain, glitches/dropouts or computer crashes would cause the signal to be interrupted.

 

Most DAW packages have the option to do software monitoring so its fairly straight forward to implement.

 

HTH

 

J

[jmdh]

QLab 3, released earlier last week, has live mic cues, with AU effects, making it a rather attractive option (since I'm likely to have QLab running on the machine in many cases anyway!) Once my current show is over, I'll be upgrading the Mac mini and having a play...