HELP! Maximum number of Software Instruments Tracks reached!

Question

WHY IS THERE A LIMIT?! I've got 94 patches, but lots of layers and splits.
What is this limit and how can I get more software instrument tracks?!
I've been using it live for a few months, but this could be the endgame. =(
sk

Answer 1

So I'm running a fairly intense mainstage concert.
Macbook (black) 4gb ram, 2.4ghz CPU
My first 30 patches are various general sounds that get used a ton on cover-band/top 40 gigs. They include pianos, rhodes, b3's, pads, guitars, and that type of stuff.
Every one of those patches also has strings layered (I bring them in with a foot pedal) and breath control horns layered.
I have now moved those layers to Set level to reclaim some instrument channels. I'm having to do some less-than-pretty workarounds to make this work elegantly in live performance.
The other 60 sounds are layers and splits for specific songs (i.e.: Madonna Holiday, Jessie's Girl, all the way up to sounds for Britney's Gimme More, and Love Song by Sara Bareille).
Most of the time I have 2-3 sounds/layers I'm going between for each song, usually swapping with a foot pedal.
I also have a small bank of left hand bass + piano, organ, rhodes type patches with the same layered Strings and Horns as above.
I perform professionally with a dozen different event entertainment bands and acts. They are constantly adding and exchanging material. I need (1) mainstage file for all of them. I just can't go between files and constantly be needing to get to other instruments that I have to wait to load.
My load time for my file is a little under 60 seconds, and I'm using about 50-60 of my own EXS multisamples taken from my existing keyboard rig (I've got all the important sounds for most every tune I do on my Fantom, and have been sampling and adapting them to EXS24).
So, while 256 software instruments may appear unusual, once you consider the needs of a flexible professional using the software, 256 is quite a limiting number. I also don't usually see a set list ahead of time (a few bands I work with don't use set lists, they just call tunes) so the idea of building a set ahead of time is not practical nor feasible.
512 would last me for a long, long time. I'd probably eventually hit the limit, but it would be a couple years. 1024 seems like a reasonable maximum, especially if it's an arbitrary limit in code with no bearings on memory management, or any drastic engine-rewriting behavior.
PLEASE increase the limit. Nearing 256, Mainstage still runs snappy, I've got 1.5gigs of RAM open for additional samples. An arbitrary limit of 256 is just silly. Every keyboard out there has >1000 presets and sounds available. My Fantom-X allows me 64 internal performances (with 16 channels each) and 64 performances on a card. That's 2048 'instrument channels'.
Please!! I am addicted to the coolness of mainstage and I don't wanna go back to hardware. I just did a gig in Cancun and all I had to bring was my laptop.
JK