EricT43
Senior Member
For the last month or so, I've been trying to find a good way to play backing tracks, percussion loops, and sound effects live, while using in-ear monitors running a click track. It has been difficult finding information on how to do this in a simple and inexpensive way. I'm in a cover band that plays local bars, and we don't have monitor mixers and wireless systems and things that the pros use for this type of thing.
I've been doing a lot of research, and I think that now I have come up with the ideal solution that is fairly low-cost and easy to transport and hook up.
I will be using my Macbook Pro as the heart of the system. I can record my loops and backing tracks with GarageBand, and for performances, I'll use MainStage 3 to play them back, control my mix, and generate sounds triggered via MIDI.
I bought a Scarlett 2i4 audio interface for my Mac. It connects with USB and has two inputs and four outputs (4 mono or 2 stereo pairs). The main reason I chose this device is that you can choose which of the two pairs of outputs go to the headphone output. So I can use MainStage to send my click track, cue tracks, and monitor mix to my headphones, and just the backing tracks to the FOH mixer.
The monitor feed from FOH will go into the two inputs on the interface (or just one if it's mono). MainStage has a limiter effect that I can apply to those channels.
The 2i4 interface also has MIDI in/out, so I picked up an Alesis PercPad as well. It has 4 pads on it, and I can either use the built-in sounds and run them into one of the inputs on the interface, or I can use MIDI out and use MainStage to generate the sounds. So I'll mount that on my rack and use it for cowbells, tambourines, claps, etc. Eventually I could use the MIDI out to have MainStage automagically change the presets on my guitarist's effects processor and the keyboardist's keyboards. Oh, and the PercPad also has a trigger input. I think I can put a trigger on my kick drum as use that to trigger sounds and adjust playback tempo in MainStage.
I'm pretty excited about the possibilities here. And not including the laptop, which I already owned, I've only spent about $350 for Shure SE215 IEM's, the PercPad, and the interface. You could do something similar using a Windows laptop, using Ableton Live Lite, which is included with the interface.
I'll let you all know how it goes once I get it up and running. Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
I've been doing a lot of research, and I think that now I have come up with the ideal solution that is fairly low-cost and easy to transport and hook up.
I will be using my Macbook Pro as the heart of the system. I can record my loops and backing tracks with GarageBand, and for performances, I'll use MainStage 3 to play them back, control my mix, and generate sounds triggered via MIDI.
I bought a Scarlett 2i4 audio interface for my Mac. It connects with USB and has two inputs and four outputs (4 mono or 2 stereo pairs). The main reason I chose this device is that you can choose which of the two pairs of outputs go to the headphone output. So I can use MainStage to send my click track, cue tracks, and monitor mix to my headphones, and just the backing tracks to the FOH mixer.
The monitor feed from FOH will go into the two inputs on the interface (or just one if it's mono). MainStage has a limiter effect that I can apply to those channels.
The 2i4 interface also has MIDI in/out, so I picked up an Alesis PercPad as well. It has 4 pads on it, and I can either use the built-in sounds and run them into one of the inputs on the interface, or I can use MIDI out and use MainStage to generate the sounds. So I'll mount that on my rack and use it for cowbells, tambourines, claps, etc. Eventually I could use the MIDI out to have MainStage automagically change the presets on my guitarist's effects processor and the keyboardist's keyboards. Oh, and the PercPad also has a trigger input. I think I can put a trigger on my kick drum as use that to trigger sounds and adjust playback tempo in MainStage.
I'm pretty excited about the possibilities here. And not including the laptop, which I already owned, I've only spent about $350 for Shure SE215 IEM's, the PercPad, and the interface. You could do something similar using a Windows laptop, using Ableton Live Lite, which is included with the interface.
I'll let you all know how it goes once I get it up and running. Feedback and suggestions are welcome!