What is MAINSTage 3

MainStage is a music application designed for use in live performance. MainStage turns your computer into a powerful multi-instrument and e ects processor that you can use on stage when you perform. Whether you sing or play a keyboard, guitar, or another instrument, you can use MainStage when you perform live.

• Using a USB or MIDI keyboard controller, you can play a wide variety of software instruments, including pianos and other keyboards, synthesizers, strings, horns, percussion, and more.

• If you play electric guitar, you can play through virtual amps and use e ects such as overdrive, reverb, and compression.

• Vocalists, drummers, and other musicians can sing and play with multi-e ects setups using a microphone.

In MainStage, you organize and access your sounds in concerts. A concert can store all the sounds you’ll use in an entire performance or a series of performances. In a MainStage concert, individual sounds are stored as patches, and each patch can contain one or more channel strips, each with its own instruments and e ects. You can add channel strips, choose channel strip settings, add instruments and e ects, and edit their parameters to customize your sounds. You can even mix channel strips of di erent types in a single patch.

You organize patches for a concert in the Patch List, which includes grouping them into sets, which are folders where you can store patches you want to keep together.

Each concert includes a visual interface, called a layout, with screen controls that you use to modify your patches in live performance. Screen controls include keyboards, faders, knobs, buttons, pedals, drum pads, and other hardware controls and displays. You make connections between your MIDI devices and your MainStage concert by assigning hardware controls to the screen controls in the concert, then map the screen controls to channel strip and plug-in parameters, completing the connection so you can easily manipulate the parameters for each patch in the concert.

CHANGING the tempo when selecting a patch

You can give a patch its own tempo setting so that when you select the patch, the tempo changes to the patch tempo setting. MainStage uses the new tempo until you select another patch or set with its own tempo setting, tap a new tempo, or until MainStage receives tempo information from incoming MIDI messages. For more information about using and changing tempo in MainStage, see Tempo overview on page 90.

Change the tempo using a patch

1. 1  In the Attributes tab of the Patch Inspector, set the patch tempo using the Change Tempo To value slider.

2. 2  To activate the patch tempo when the patch is selected, select the Change Tempo To checkbox.

    

Sharing Patches and Sets Between Concerts

You can export patches and sets from a concert and import them into another concert. When you import a set, all the patches in the set are imported.

To export a patch

• Drag the patch from the Patch List to the Finder.

  The patch appears as a .patch file in the Finder.

• Select the patch, choose “Save as Patch” from the Action menu in the Patch List, then click Save.

  The patch is exported to the ~/Library/Application Support/Logic/MainStage Patches folder. 

To export a set

• Drag the set from the Patch List to the Finder.

  The set appears as a .patch file in the Finder.

• Select the set, choose “Save as Set” from the Action menu in the Patch List, then click Save.

  The set is exported to the MainStage Patches folder.

Note: You can also export an entire concert as a set by selecting the concert and choosing Export Set from the Action menu.

You can export multiple patches or sets. When you export multiple patches by dragging them to the Finder, each patch is exported as a .patch file. When you select multiple patches and export them using the Export Patch command, the patches are grouped into a single exported set. You can import patches or sets from the Finder to another open concert.

To import a patch or set

• In Edit mode, drag the patch or set from the Finder to the Patch List.

• Choose Load Patch/Set from the Action menu in the Patch List, select the patch or set you want to import, then click Import.

Recording the Audio Output of a Concert

You can record the audio output of a MainStage concert. When you record audio output, all audio on the output you choose is recorded (including the metronome, and so on).

Before you record audio output, make sure the correct output, recording location, and file format are set in the Audio tab of MainStage preferences. For information about setting recording preferences, see Setting MainStage Preferences.

To record audio in Edit mode

• Click the Record button in the toolbar.

To turn off recording

• Click the Record button again.

You can also map a screen control to the Record action to record audio in Perform and Full Screen modes, and assign a key command to the action to turn recording on or off using a hardware control.

Using Aliases to Reduce RAM and CPU Usage in MainStage

Using aliases in Apple MainStage is a good way to reduce RAM and CPU usage. Instead of creating multiple instances of the same virtual instrument, an alias lets you create one channel strip that can be linked to from any patch or set. An alias is also useful as a placeholder for a to-be-determined sound. By linking all instances of the sound to one channel strip, you can change all the instances at once. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to reduce RAM and CPU usage by creating aliases in MainStage.

Create a Sounds Folder

If you’re programming a concert with a lot of aliases, finding the original instance can be difficult. The solution to this problem is to create a sounds folder, which you can put at the end of your concert. By aliasing all your sounds from this one folder, you can optimize MainStage’s resource usage while staying organized.

I usually create a patch for each instrument family (keyboards, strings, brass, etc.) with different channel strips for each individual instrument. In other words, a patch called Keyboards may contain channel strips for piano, EP, and organ sounds. Creating a separate patch for each instrument is another way of doing it, but that method gets a little messy if you have a lot of different sounds.

Creating an Alias

Creating an alias is pretty much just a simple copy and paste, except the paste shortcut is Opt-Cmd-V instead of Cmd-V. Alternatively, the Paste as Alias function can also be found under the Edit menu. Aliases can be created at the set, patch, and channel strip levels, which means it’s possible to alias complex patches as a unit. While aliases are awesome, they do have a few limitations you should be aware of.

• Changing the instrument on any instance affects all aliases.

• Audio FX, MIDI FX, Send I/O, and Outputs affect all aliases.

• Channel strip name, color, and icon affect all aliases.

• Solo and Mute affect all aliases.

There are also a few parameters that do not apply globally.

• All Layer Editor and MIDI Input settings can be set per alias.

• Volume, send amount, and pan can be set per alias.

An alias can be easily converted back to a normal channel strip with the Convert Alias to Original function, which can be found by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Channel Strips workspace.

This function allows you do things like use a different delay plugin, change a mapping in Chord Trigger, and change output channels without affecting other aliased channel strips in your concert.

MainStage has two handy functions for alias management. Shift-Cmd-F can be used to jump to the next alias in your concert, and Cmd-R can be used to jump to the original instance of an aliased channel strip. Lastly, audio, aux, and external instrument channel strips can also be aliased. Output channel strips cannot be aliased for obvious reasons.