Nine Inch Nails working with Mainstage

A little "How do they do it" documentary about NIN using Mainstage on Apple computers with their live shows, the footage is from their recently finished Lights In The Sky tour over North America
I took it from Apple's website, don't own the rights to this video, thought only that it should get more coverage.

[@bluesdealer]

Well, yeah, he meant for his live vocal effects. When you're a band the size of NiN, especially one that got huge before the internet laid waste to the music biz, that high end gear comes with the territory. I think the selling point is that Trent still prefers the convenience and usability of MainStage for live stuff, despite the fact that he has all that great gear available.

[@Paulthompson1981]

I just stumbled across the option to learn about MainStage 3 whilst looking through GarageBand during a recording session. I've always been interested in combining background sounds during Live concerts. Nine Inch Nails happen to be one of my all time favorite bands, so needless to say, I'm sold... Now to actually learn how to use it in regards to my own methodology and necessity.

[@gorny540]

all of the live footage and interviews (except trent's of course) were taped at the izod center show, it was one of the better concerts i've ever been to

[@ZyliceLiddell]

Fun fact: Trent did the ‘Quake Guy’ sounds. Yes, including that gut wrenching lava scream! 🤣👌

[@nepntzerZer]

back then that was just trent waking up in the morning

[@PhotonVideos]

I read the thank you notes for Hesitation Marks, The Slip, Year Zero (all the recent stuff). I see no mention of Logic, only Ableton. That what his "desk" is. But he never uses the internal sounds, its always VST plugins like Massive.

[@Perldrummr]

15 yo video but just recently got deep into MainStage and this makes so much sense from the guy that used a Mac Classic to make an entire album. Legend.

[@RussX5Z]

Cool!! I hope NIN comes back to Hawaii again because I missed the opening of the concert last time. :( But it was still a GREAT concert.

[@cianjg]

I noticed Battles also use Mainstage 2 when I saw them live a few weeks ago :)

[@user-xc6zw5rc8t]

cianjg dude!!! This is awesome was this gloss drop era?

[@LeePresson]

Back when I saw this vid for the first time I was using a sampler. A big 35 pound rackmount Kurzweil sampler than I had to drag everywhere. Then I saw this vid. Got myself a MacBook & never looked back. Mainstage is fabulous.

[@perboysen]

I'm using both Mainstage and Ableton Live and would say they are quite different. If I play live audio and synths (like this NiN video shows) I prefer Mainstage because everything is neatly included. But if I need to play back pre prepared audio files from disc Ableton is what I use. I tried last year to set up eight surround files in Mainstage's File Player and it just crashed the appl. Ableton rocks for playing back long files (if you turn off warping).

[@Sebastianandthedeepbluemusic]

looking into bitwig studio for this kind of thing as well, currently running a nine piece band through ableton so we get in ears, the biggest problem there is visibility. have you tried bitwig? its solid but MainStage is tempting me now too.

[@LoserDub]

Trent uses logic so do i!

[@Dejoblue]

I am using Main Stage with Guitar Rig 3 and GTR 3 and then I am able to use the Logic reverb and delays as well. it is mid blowing. Setting up your own interface for any preset...

[@SalLara1]

@bradnightmare It could be an X-Serve (that's a Mac server that mounts on a rack). The keyboard+trackpad you see there is probably just a third-party keyboard with a trackpad. It's NIN, so they probably did go all-out :)

[@AlexPlaysGames]

@2009CODMW Yes, but you'll need to route output from the amp into a mixer/interface and into the mac.

[@relaxedgorn]

funny thing is.. nin use (used) all of the major programs. But on stage ive actualy seen display of one of engeneers and he was clearly using Ableton Live. (If you look at NIN onstage videos its in one of them). So this looks to me just like commercial. Maybe they changed it who knows.

[@joaohornburg]

Works extremely fine on my MBP Late 2011. Had some issues when I still had only 4 gigas of RAM. No issue at all after upgrading to 8GB.

[@michaos1]

Vocal effects okay! Synths, fine! Don't believe that they play through the guitar rig that comes with MainStage/Logic.

[@TraceMeek]

How do you get your sound out of your computer and USB audio interface, and into the room? Do you plug the USB audio interface into an amp with a clean sound? Or through studio monitors that then get mic’d? Or directly to the house soundboard? If the latter, how do you get sufficient stage volume to hear what you’re playing? Thanks!

[@wesjt2006]

@superchan1903 yes, he uses Logic and Ableton. Surely he uses Pro Tools every now and then

[@dwmoriarty2510]

i guess trent can't throw his mic anymore, damn.

[@vnys]

Monome 256 at 1:52. Nice!

[@arne150]

I think it´s just a habit. Trent worked with apple-stuff from the beginning... But look at this big-ass bladerunneresque background, man.... => 1:30

[@ryanoneillmusic]

@bradnightmare You can put a mac platform on a Windows computer. It can have like Windows Vista and Mac OS, they just can't run at the same time.

[@DrZaious]

Your role in the band, Trent? YOU ARE NIN!

[@stevey500]

It's on the apple Mainstage website.

[@ryanoneillmusic]

@bradnightmare It's not the quality/price of the gear, it's how you use it! Honestly I don't know, it is really strange, possibly because they have it built to their specs running all their gear through it. More CPU power? who knows? lol

[@bkizzleish]

@bradnightmare you can run parallels to run mac software and vise versa

[@aaronchasemusic]

SO SICK!

[@gilllie666]

i dont see the problem if its actually a good product, i reckon trent has a lot of musical integrity so i'd give him a pass here

[@gana669]

Awesome!

[@Lyno1979]

This is cool and man!!! did Trent get buff.

[@EMdemo]

how much of the 'early days' are you talking about? The vocal effects processing (on the mic stand) by Trent has been done since With Teeth Live.

[@samjbrowne]

I believe it's custom made for the man himself.

[@alejandroestrella69]

Well, this would be informative if they could show how to prevent MainStage constant CPU peaks. Are they using a special version provided by Apple? The web is flooded with threads talking about MainStage unsuitabilitybfor real life performance.

[@mdaleo]

@Dejoblue How is the latency playing the guitar? Noticable?

[@mdaleo]

@RealityBend Plenty of tuts online, just do a search!

[@pantherleal]

i would apply at burger king if trent did commercials.

[@nickrtvt2]

trent is too cool for pc's

[@go433]

how can you make the sound come out a PA System? i want to use it live but when i connect via midi my sound comes out my computer speakers not the PA System :(

[@maddogUK69]

2 things: 1. where does anyone claim exclusivity? What Mat Mitchell says is "pretty much 100% of what you hear is coming out of Mainstage" (0.57 in the video). 2. Ghosts was a studio project, this video (and any claims it contains about Logic/Mainstage) are clearly related to the live aspect of the Lights In The Sky tour. You're trying to rebut an argument that no-one is actually making, whilst suggesting things about Apple for which you have absolutely no proof. Good work.

[@vicesquadpunk]

It would be really interesting to know how many Apple computers and how much payment Trent gets from this advert that poses as an inside look at his live set up...

[@mrpuff]

does anyone know what trent is using on his mic?

[@philpower1383]

Wicked. What's the first song they're performing?

[@Exhonerated]

1,000,000

[@SpencerBoechler]

@thermalmaximum more like 1,000,000

[@MichaelSYellandBCR]

What's the song(s)?

[@Exhonerated]

1,000,000

[@MrRyancangri]

So NIN run live vocals through Mainstage? Am I hearing this right?

[@tweekskratch]

uhm, no.

[@sebastianc31]

how are they using mainstage when a year ago they were bragging about using live? but maybe they make more money by advertising for daws or other audio softwares then from music making. also the guy says that pretty much every thing you hear comes from main stage. that's either a lie or is true and very lame. and this video is just a lame copy of what ableton does really good with those artist videos.

[@mybluemars]

MainStage killed NIN