In case you missed the concert at FWA 2009, I have released the entire concert recording to my subscribers at Matthew Ebel dot net. That’s over an hour of one of the best live shows I’ve ever played, to one of the best crowds I’ve ever seen. If you want the whole recording, just sign up for any of the passes at matthewebel.net before it’s too late!

As a bit of a teaser, I also just released one of the live tracks to the podcasting world. If you’re interested, check out Night Train – Live at FWA 2009 at matthewebel.com/podsafe.

I just spent a couple hours figuring out just how much of an audio juggernaut my MacBook is. Here’s the tested example, using nothing more than my MacBook and a MOTU Ultralite firewire interface:

• Running Mainstage to manage all my live sound

• Processing vocals on one channel with anywhere from 3-6 effects active
• 2-3 Software instruments with at least a compressor on them, occasionally a guitar amp modeler too. Typically anywhere from 1-4 effects per channel. (read: heavy CPU load)
• Busing all 4 channels to an independent monitor mix so I can hear myself and set up my own in-ear levels
• Busing all 4 channels independently to the main house system
• Busing all 4 channels independently to Garage Band, where I can record the whole concert and mix it later. Oh yeah, and also record the raw mic input as well so I have pre-effect and post-effect tracks to play with later.

All this without anything starting to smoke. Next stop, drum loops! (Or maybe I should just get a drummer for live shows?)

[tags]Matthew Ebel, piano rock, Apple, MacBook, MainStage, Mark of the Unicorn, MOTU, Ultralite, Live Audio[/tags]