The best way to see exactly how much RAM is being used by StageBox™ is to open Activity monitor (on Apple). There are two things to look at, one is the amount of RAM used by the StageBox™ application, and one is the memory pressure graph. If the memory pressure graph is green, that means only physical RAM is being used by the application. If the memory pressure goes into the red, that means some of the files (usually samples) have exceeded the amount of physical RAM and have now been ‘paged out’ to the hard drive. In practice, this can be problematic. The nature of the operating system is that once files get paged out, the OS can de-prioritize them after a time, and when StageBox™ tries to access them again, there may be a small delay which can cause glitches when changing from one Song to another. Once the OS has been ‘reminded’ that these files are still in use, it works fine, but for a more reliable playing experience, it is recommended that you dont exceed the amount of physical RAM on your system. That way, all files will reside in physical RAM and stay ‘hot’ at all times. On a laptop with 16 gig RAM, this means you can reliably use about 10-11 gig RAM for StageBox™ files and samples.

Large sample libraries such as Keyscape can use a huge amount of RAM if multiple instruments are loaded, and this is part of the reason that such libraries can sound so good! However, depending on system resources, there may be times when it makes sense to try and reduce the RAM usage. Firstly you can use Shared Instruments, so that only one resource is shared between multiple Songs. Secondly you could try using the “thinning” function that a lot of libraries provide. In the context of a live show, sometimes these compromises can be worth it if you are running short on RAM.

Many plug-ins come with pre assigned MIDI cc maps. This can be useful as you don’t have to set one up for yourself. However, in the context of a host like StagBox™ there might be good reasons NOT to use the built in cc maps.

Using a new mapping made inside StageBox™ has the advantage that it will allow you to set limits on the high and low values, as well as decide if you want a particular cc value to be recalled each time you launch a song.

Sometimes it’s useful to have performance related cc’s like a wah pedal or rotary speaker speed mapped inside the plugin, since often it doesn’t matter if those settings are recalled precisely at the start of a song. Whereas a filter sweep setting or a reverb send might be more important to have mapped using the StageBox™ mapping so that you can always start a song with those parameters in exactly the right place.

Many plug-ins come with pre assigned MIDI cc maps. This can mean that when you try and make a new mapping within StageBox™, and external controller can end up controlling two parameters - the one mapped within StageBox™ and the one pre assigned within the plug-in. This can get very confusing, and so by default, MIDI ccs are filtered in the MIDI setting page on each Sound. This makes mapping in StageBox™ much easier, and if you do want to use the built in mappings, all you need to do is re-enable MIDI ccs in the MIDI settings for that instrument.

By default, StageBox™ will send audio from each Sound layer through the Song effects and Song volume, and then to whichever output you have assigned for the main out, usually 1+2. However, it may sometimes be useful to send Sounds to output 1+2 without having then go through the Song effects, and you can do this by selecting “1+2” as the output rather than “Song Bus”.

Using a virtual MIDI device can make changing midi controllers much easier! Let’s say you have 35 songs in a set, and each one has the same MIDI controller assigned to each Sound. At some point, you may want to change that midi controller, and then you would have to go through all 35 songs and re-assign the MIDI input to this new device! However, if you create a virtual MIDI controller, you only have to change to this new device in one place,

For example, you could create a virtual MIDI device called “master keyboard” and assign your physical MIDI controller to that virtual device. Then as you create Songs, you would set “master keyboard” as the MIDI input for each song. Now if you want to change what that physical controller is, you only have to re-assign it once in the virtual MIDI setup, rather than 35 times in each song!

In larger setups with multiple physical controller keyboards, using virtual devices as the MIDI inputs can allow for much more flexibility with changing setups.

Clicking the ‘Song Section’ checkbox in a Song will do two things:

• indent the Song tab on the left

• ‘group’ the selected Song to the Song above it so that when you move (re-order) the Songs, any ‘grouped’ Songs will move with the ‘top-level’ Song

The most common use for this would be if you want to have access to multiple Sounds within one Song. Sometimes the easiest way to manage this is to create a new StageBox™ Song, even though it may actually be part of the same ‘actual’ Song. Using Song Section means that you can see which ‘sections’ belong to which Song, and also means that if you make a new Setlist, you only have to import the ‘top level’ Song in order for the ‘sections’ to be imported with it.

In all other ways, a Song section is identical to a Song

If StageBox™ is displaying your plugins twice in the dropdown menus, the most likely reason is that you have both VST and Audio Units plugins appearing. To remove the duplicates, clear either VST or Audio Units plugins in the Settings pane.

There is no reason not to use VST and AU plugins, but having both versions in the StageBox plugin lists can be confusing. So we recommend to use either VST or AU plugins — you can make this selection in the Setting pane of StageBox.

This will depend on the type of computer you are using. Most modern computers will allow you to run with a buffer size of 128 samples, and this will provide a very responsive playing experience with latency very similar to a hardware workstation. DSP usage increases with smaller buffer sizes, so there is a tradeoff to be made here, and different setups will behave differently.

The easiest way to copy MIDI mapping from one sound to another is to Duplicate the Song. When you Duplicate a Song, the Sounds in the resulting duplicate are Shared Instances. If this is not what you want, you simply turn the Shared Instances into Real Copies (see How do I turn a 'Shared' Sound into a 'Real' copy?) and now you will have independent Sounds with the same MIDI mapping. This can be useful if you have something like a Hammond Organ and you map 9 controllers to the drawbars, but you don't want to do that for every song that has the Hammond Organ in it! Sometimes it can be useful to make 'template songs' with all your commonly used MIDI mappings, and then Duplicate those templates into the actual Songs. You could also Export the Song, and then import it into a new Project or Setlist, and this will bring the MIDI mappings with it.

When you use a Shared Instance in StageBox, you are literally sharing an instance of a plugin between two or more songs. For example, if you know you have one main piano sound that you want to use in many different songs, rather than having to load a new instance of that plugin for each song, which would use much more RAM and DSP than necessary, you can just use a Shared Instance, and only use the RAM and DSP on one plugin. Any changes made to any Sounds that are 'Shared' will have an effect on all other Songs using those Shared sounds. When a Shared Instance is in use, the green box 'Shared' appears under the Sound name. If you click on this box, you get the option to 'turn into a real copy', and this will create a duplicate of the Shared Instance which you can now edit without effecting the other Songs in the set.

When a Shared Instance is in use, the green box 'Shared' appears under the Sound name. If you click on this box, you get the option to 'turn into a real copy', and this will create an independent duplicate of the Shared Instance.

The perform page is a way to de-clutter the interface for live performance. When you enter 'Perform' mode, all you will see if the Setlist in the left and the currently selected Song on the right. As you enter Perform mode, you will see a checklist of things to verify before your performance. This is a freely editable list, and will depend on your exact setup. If you don't want to see this list, just select "don't show this message again". If you change you mind afterwards, you can re-enable the Misc section of the Settings. You can also add notes to each Song when in Perform Mode.

The Setlist is just a container that references Songs. So, if you make a change to a Song in one Setlist, it will change that Song in all other Setlists that contain that Song. If you want to make a change to a Song that will NOT have an effect in other Setlists, you need to Duplicate it first so that it becomes the only instance of that Song in the session.

The meters turn yellow when the level reaches -12 dBFs, and turn red when they get to -3 dBFs. In general, keeping the levels in the green (ie less than -12 dBFs) means you always have plenty of headroom.

The Next Song / Previous Song (and Tap Tempo) buttons can be mapped Globally in the Settings page.

Global

Start New Project - ⇧⌘N

Open Project - ⌘O

Save project - ⌘S

Save project as - ⌘⇧S

Undo - ⌘Z

Redo - ⌘⇧Z

Quit - ⌘Q

Settings - ⌘,

Close Plugin Window - ⌘W

Perform Mode toggle - ⌘P

All Notes Off - Esc

Next Song - Arrow Right

Previous Song - Arrow Left

Song

Remove Song from Setlist - ⌫

Delete Song from Project - ⇧⌘⌫

Create New Song - ⌘N

Duplicate Song - ⌘D

Sound

Copy Sound to Clipboard - ⌘C

Paste duplicate from Clipboard - ⌘V

Paste shared instance from Clipboard - ⌥⌘V

Duplicate Sound - ⌘⇧D