Anyone have experience using Logic Pro/Mainstage as a mixer?

[BNM]

I play in a 5 piece rock band (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, Bass, Drums). When we do our own live sound we run the guitar, vocals, and keyboard through a simple Mackie mixer and into our monitors and main amps. We have an EQ on the monitors to control feedback, but other than that our setup is fairly basic. The keyboardist runs his stage piano through a Macbook running Mainstage 2 to process effects, and then into the mixer.

We've recently become interested in adding reverb, compression, and EQ to the tracks running through the mixer, however the mixer does not have an effects loop and we do not own any of the desired effects yet.

The solution in question is to run everything (mic'd guitar, midi keyboard, and 3 vocal mics) through a firewire or USB audio interface and into a laptop running Mainstage, Logic Pro, or some similar software, and processing the individual EQs and effects for the tracks there before sending them out to the monitors and FOH amps. In doing this we'd eliminate our hardware mixer and EQ, and deal with everything on the laptop. The upside is that we'd have access to a greater number of effects than we'd have otherwise, however if the laptop or software crashes we'd be dead in the water.

Does anyone have any experience with using a setup like this to work their FOH mix? I'd love to hear any positive or negative feedback on such a setup.

[D.A.R.K.]

It just so happens I did a gig in Claremont, Ca. at the university this past friday and mainstage was used as eq for the monitors and mains, as well as reverb.
I have extensive experience mixing on digital consoles and with integrating software into live processing.
Did it work?
Yup.
Do i think it sounds as good and is it as quick to use as analog gear?
Nope.
Is it as bomb proof as analog gear?
Nope.
(neither is completely fail safe, but modular gear has the advantage of not relying on a single source for operation other than power)
Same as it ever was.
The digital realm has some serious advantages as far as patching, recall, and minimal footprint, but has yet to provide the speed and ease (and sound quality) of analog. Once computers become powerful enough to adequately sample harmonic content beyond our hearing range without inducing latency and distortion, things will be peachy. But it ain't there yet.
So, yes it will work, but there is a trade off.

[BNM]

Thanks for the reply, DARK. My main concern is one that you mentioned - a computer crash can bring the whole show to a stop, and the reliability might not be there yet. Hopefully more people can reply who have used a setup like this and give an idea of what the reliability is like. I'm not too concerned about having perfect sound quality of the effects, as under live condition in the kinds of places we play, I'm not sure having a hardware reverb over a software reverb will make a huge difference.

[D.A.R.K.]

Reliability issues using a computer are going to come down to factors including the available processing power, cooling capabilities, interface quality, and ambient temperature. I have done many shows with computers as a primary source using ableton live mostly, and these factors all have come into play.
You also have to take into account how the drive will react to bass frequencies and vibration, which can cause failure.
To solve this issue i've equipped my performance computers with solid state hard drives. The less moving parts, the better.

[TimmyP]

Latency is often the problem with computer based solutions that were not specifically developed for live use.