MainStage 3.6 released

New in MainStage 3.6 Release Notes


New features and enhancements

  • Refined new design.
  • Expands the Sound Library with 120 Patches, 50 kits and 2800 loops from today's biggest hitmakers including Boys Noize, Mark Lettieri, Mark Ronson, Oak Felder, Soulection, Take A Daytrip, Tom Misch, and TRAKGIRL.
  • Adds Korean language support.
  • Optimized performance for M1 Max and M1 Ultra on the new Mac Studio.
  • A confirmation dialog now appears when deleting patches.
  • Screen control buttons mapped to the Tempo/Tap Tempo action can now increase/decrease current tempo in 1 BPM increments.
  • Patch Number and Patch Icon can now be hidden in the Patch List.
  • The current concert can now be renamed directly in the Patch List.


Stability and reliability

MainStage no longer quits unexpectedly in these circumstances:

  • After the audio buffer size has been changed twice without closing the preferences window.
  • When loading a concert that includes the IK Multimedia Hammond B3X plug-in.
  • When editing the Transpose setting of a multitimbral channel strip.
  • When receiving Pitch Wheel or MIDI CC messages via the IAC bus.
  • When adding a plug-in to a multitimbral channel strip after an existing plug-in window has been opened and closed.
  • When pasting a screen control from a patch over a screen control in another patch.
  • When the Edit>Cut command is performed on the Metronome channel strip.
  • When the audio device is disconnected or reconnected while MainStage is running.


Mixer

  • Dragging a stereo audio file to the mixer now creates a stereo Playback channel strip.
  • It is now possible to drag in the Layer tab to set note ranges on multitimbral channel strips.
  • Channel strip busses added to a multi-output channel at the set or concert level are now displayed when changing patches.
  • Converting an alias of an audio channel to an independent channel now preserves the original input setting.


Patches

  • When dragging multiple patch files to the Patch List, the patches are now placed where they were dropped rather than the end of the list.
  • The Tempo Slider in the Patch Inspector now reliably updates when adjusted when more than one patch is selected.


Undo

  • Adding a marker in Playback now creates an Undo step.
  • After pasting over a selected screen control and then performing Undo, the original screen control can now be selected.
  • Performing Undo after stamping a screen control now restores the control to its original size.
  • Patches are no longer unexpectedly set to "Skip" after performing Undo after "New Set from Selection" is performed.
  • Performing Undo after changing the icon the Patch Settings "Attributes" tab now resets the original icon.
  • Undo now works properly after renaming a Keyboard in the Workspace.


Layout

  • In Layout mode it is now easier to manage overlapping background objects in the Workspace.


Loopback

  • Undo in Loopback now only affects the most recent recording.


Playback

  • The Play/Stop button in Playback now works consistently in cases where an empty playback channel strip has the "Start with Play" action defined.
  • The last marker in an instance of Playback can now be deleted using the Remove Marker command.


Plug-ins

  • Mapping screen controls to Scripter plug-in parameters works as expected.


Auto Sampler

  • Auto Sampler now names recorded audio files using Mainstage's current setting for Middle C.


Control surfaces and MIDI controllers

  • Mackie Control motorized faders now respond as expected.
  • Fixes an issue where hardware could receive incorrect values when sending tempo / tap tempo from a screen control.


General

  • Layer Bypass now works with multitimbral MIDI input.
  • MIDI continuous controller (cc) #12 messages now work with external hardware when using the Vintage Organ.
  • The Hide MainStage system keyboard command now works in Performance mode.
  • The On/Off state of the metronome is now maintained when quitting and then reopening MainStage.


Posted on Mar 14, 2022 1:36 PM

Reply

Similar questions

28 replies

Mar 15, 2022 2:22 PM in response to mibolux

Using Dark Mode does help but on closer examination an issue is that 3.6 does not adjust the text colour based on background. e.g. if I use a light yellow colour for my channel strip label, until 3.6, MS would use black (rather than white) for the text, now 3.6 uses white and so the text is hard to read. This remains the case in Dark Mode.


A lesson for anyone reading this and particularly a very recent poster who is having crashes on 3.6, ALWAYS keep a copy of the previous version before upgrading.

Mar 19, 2022 9:34 AM in response to Blueberry

Mainstage 3.6 is unusable... My session file was running smooth with 3.5.3, but with this version, I cannot do Next/Previous patches with my midi controller anymore (never had problems before), had to change manually with the arrow up and down key on my laptop keyboard... Pretty awful on a live situation. Also, the session crashed in the middle of a show out of nowhere... I reverted to 3.5.3 and it runs smoothly. I would highly suggest to wait for 3.6.1 before updating, and as others said, ALWAYS keep a copy of the older mainstage version, just in case this happens.

This is sad, because i'm a user of the fantastic IK Multimedia Hammond B3X plugin, and i really tough 3.6 would be an awesome update, but the session file is way more stable on 3.5.3...


Running on Macbook Pro M1 Max, 4TB SSD, 64gbs RAM.

Mar 14, 2022 8:39 PM in response to Blueberry

3.6 is frequently crashing for me and this never happens with 3.5.3.....so 3.6 is unusable.


Disabling patch icons is also extremely inconsistent i.e. disabling patch icons will disable some icons but not others, and this changes each time this feature is toggled.


The memory meter is also completely incorrect.


I've already provided feedback but why the heck are these sorts of bugs getting through to a release????

Mar 18, 2022 7:15 PM in response to Blueberry

3.5.2 was unusable. 3.5.3 was correct. Now we are at 3.6, and it's worse than 3.5.2. It's not only unusable, but the graphic "improvements" are horrific. It's constantly resizing portions of the windows, doesn't save the window portions, always resetting the view to some setup that's requiring me to readjust. This is a program for professionals, and this isn't even as stable as a Beta. You guys need to stop releasing things like this that aren't ready for primetime. Just stop. Test before releasing. Every complaint on this string is true. Don't release until it's ready. The patch list graphics are horrible. They're taking up too much screen space.

Mar 15, 2022 10:00 AM in response to Madddcow

I have found the M1 can behave differently with some apps and this might be one of them. Running under Rosetta does not cure it in this case.


There is also an issue in 3.6 with the "send value to" on the layout; I had a couple assigned when I didn't need to; under previous revisions, that would cause a zero to be sent when the concert loaded, under 3.6 some of them got sent a 1 despite the control being in the off state. This meant that LEDs on my controller lit up wrongly indicating the status of the control. I have resolved by deleting the setting. However, I'm glad I kept a copy of the previous v3.5.3 as I may revert to it.


This is a really poor release!


No crashing so far.

Mar 31, 2022 7:32 AM in response to Blueberry

It would be super great if one of you kind souls who have version 3.5.3 could send me the application itself. I could provide my email address and you could send it using wetransfer.com. It should only be about 1.6GB. I don't have a backup of 3.5.3 and I don't trust any of the downloads I've found by searching. Apple says there is no other way to get the previous version. Your assistance would be appreciated. :)

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MainStage 3.6 released

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