I'm a non-Logic user interested in Mainstage for the instruments and effects.
I know they aren't standalone AU plugins, but can Mainstage be Rewired to receive MIDI and route audio to another DAW? I know that previous versions of Logic and Mainstage could not, which never made sense to me.
MacBook Air, Late 2010, 11" w/4GB RAM, 128GB SSD
Neither Logic nor MainStage support running as a ReWire Slave. Only ReWire Host is supported.
Gotcha. That's disappointing, and it's a strange decision on Apple's part to limit MS/Logic's capabilities, but I'm glad to know before I spent any money. Thanks.
ReWire support was in Logic for years before Apple even bought Emagic in 2002, but ReWire Slave was never supported, so I wouldn't call it a "strange decision on Apple's part"... the decision is way older 😀
The trick is to use Apple's IAC driver (in the AMS utility). I tested this with Cubase and it works fine. Activate the IAC bus, set DAW MIDI track(s) output to that and MIDI channel, have MainStage channel strips receive on the same IAC bus/MIDI channel. You'll need to route audio from MainStage back into your DAW as well, that technique is hardware dependent.
Thanks Doug, that's very helpful. I found this youtube video which was useful as well for audio routing, and it allows me to route without hardware I/O by using Soundflower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsbaMAKDe8
Welcome - didn't even think to suggest SoundFlower - very good idea and makes perfect sense (and works well!). As I mentioned, I tested this with Cubase and one thing to watch out for there and probably other programs is a MIDI loop. If you get that, check and make sure your MIDI In on the DAW track is assigned to your MIDI controller, not to All.
Rewire master/slave issues resolved?
