3.5

20MainStage User Guide
Add and edit patches to customize your sounds
You add patches for the sounds you want to play and edit the patches by adding channel
strips, instruments, and effects, and adjusting their parameters to “dial in” your custom
sounds. In Editmode, you can select and play patches, choose channel strip settings, and
edit channel strip and plug-in parameters. You can quickly define key ranges for channel
strips to create keyboard layers and splits, scale expression and other parameters using
transforms, and filter incoming MIDI messages. Your patches are “live” so you can hear
the results of your edits instantly. For more information, see Overview of Edit mode in
MainStage.
Organize patches for easy access
In Editmode, you can order patches in the Patch List, organize patches in sets for added
flexibility, and add channel strips at the set level, so they are available with every patch in
the set. For information about organizing patches, see Reorder and move patches in the
MainStage PatchList. For information about creating and editing sets, see Overview of
working with sets in MainStage.
Customize the visual layout of your concert
In Layout mode, you arrange screen controls to create the visual layout for the concert.
Screen controls include keyboards, knobs, faders, and other hardware controls, as well
as controls to display parameter and system information, text and images, and a patch
selector. You can group controls and add grouped controls to your layout. For more
information, see Overview of screen controls in MainStage.
Make connections between MainStage and your music
hardware
In Layout mode, you connect hardware controls on your MIDI devices to screen controls
in your layout by assigning the hardware controls to screen controls. You can move and
resize screen controls in the workspace, and customize the visual display of parameter
values and other information. You only need to make controller assignments once for an
entire concert, minimizing the amount of work required to connect your hardware with your
computer. For more information, see Overview of controller assignments in MainStage.
Map screencontrols to the parameters you want to control
Editmode is where you map screen controls to channel strip parameters. You can map the
parameters you want to modify for each patch to easily control them from your hardware
when you perform live. You can also map screen controls to MainStage actions, such as
selecting the next patch to play. For more information, see Map MainStage screencontrols
to channel strip and plug-in parameters.
You don’t need to follow these steps in a strict order; however, in most cases you may
want to create your layout before making hardware assignments and make hardware
assignments before you map screen controls. If you use a concert template without
significantly modifying its layout, you can concentrate on editing and organizing your
custom patches and mapping their parameters to the screen controls in your layout.