Mainstage signal flow/concert level

To control the volume of the patch, as you say, i would operate like that:

1. set up the patch with all your virtual instruments (or audio or whatever you have)

2. balance each volume of your channel strips so that the mixup is correct

3. select a control in edit mode (a fader or a knob ora pedal)

4. go to the screen control inspector (the pane at the bottom) and link your control to each and all your patch channel strips volume

5. in the first tab of the screen control inspector select "Respond to Hardware Move: RELATIVE"

Now by moving the knob/fader/pedal/whatever each volume will raise or lower accordingly.

To have a channel strip that takes all the inputs from your patch do like that:

1. in the channel strips pane click on "+" and create a new AUDIO strip. Format: stereo, Input: Bus4 (or the first unassigned bus), Output:Output1-2 (or your main output)

2. go to your virtual instruments channel strips and select "bus4" as the audio OUT (Under the label "I/O")

3. repeat step 3 for each channel strips

4. there you are.

I hope this helps a bit. Good Luck

I'll be happy to answer, just... what do you mean with "alias of a software instrument"?

If you mean a channel strip created at concert level, just create a knob (or fader or etc etc, won't repeat it anymore 😉 ) and map it to the volume of the strip while having your concert selected on the left pane.

then you go to the patch you want to change, select the same knob and check "override Concert mapping" and then "on patch change: RESET".

You can also create a button and map it to bypass or mute or expression so that your volume will remain unchanged and you'll just have a button activating or disactivating your virtual instrument.

Mainstage is very object oriented and interface oriented. So rather then using it as a DAW you should use it as a synthesizer building facility 🙂

Once you'll get accustomed to its different principles you won't be able to detach anymore.

1. First of all you should be sure to link that mute button to your channel strip mute in every patch.

2. while in edit mode click two times on that button (first click to select it, second to activate) in order to have it muted or not muted, the way you want to find it when you select the patch.

3. in "attributes" select "on patch change: reset".

4. repeat steps 2 and 3 for every patch that uses that alias (plus the original one of course)

Now whenever you select a patch that mute button will revert to what you prefere for that patch.

Remember you can also manage that "on patch change" preference in whole application preferences.

PS: thanks for the virtual beer (I'd rather prefere a ginger, i don't like beer ;-) ) cheers!

hmmm, maybe you can go with the application preference setting...

If this piece of information can help you, i am at my third concert and I learned a lot from the past two... For sure, like in any software, you learn from past errors, I think it's unavoidable.

thanks for the scotch anyway pal ;-)

GL!

Hey chicorosso,

You seem to be the man in the know so here goes. I liked your workaround for the initial problem posed in this thread. The only problem is, that once it's set up this way, it seems impossible to change the volume of an individual channel, without undoing all the mapping. If I do attempt to change the new 'main' out control the individual channels returnto the position they were in before the mapping was executed.

If I use he bus method, then I need a new bus for every patch which can get a bit messy having loads of channel strips.

Is there a happy medium? A 3rd majical workaround for this task?

Thanks buddy

Luke

mickey swift wrote:

Is there a happy medium? A 3rd majical workaround for this task?

Hi

How about using a Screen Control mapped to Expression (cc11) via "Send to ALL". This way the individual strips volume faders can be set (or adjusted), and the CC11 will turn up/down all within these overall volume settings.

CCT

Yes that's a solution. Or you can route every patch to a single bus. Link a slider to that bus for the overall volume and setup other controls to each patch.

I got round this by creating aux channels at the patch level and now only the aux channel relative to the patch open is visible. Keeping it tidy.

One more question. Is there a way to automatically stop the click when a backing track has finished? It's just some times we go into free jams at the end of songs and the drummer doesnt want the click in his ear for it, or to have to press spacebar etc....

And another. Is there a way to auto play the next patch when I hit the down arrow key? At the moment it starts the click in the new tempo of the new patch but doesnt start the audio backing track.

These are my last two issues and then Im ready to make a fulltime switch from Ableton to Mainstage!!

Luke

mickey swift wrote:

And another. Is there a way to auto play the next patch when I hit the down arrow key? At the moment it starts the click in the new tempo of the new patch but doesnt start the audio backing track.

Hi

You can do this within the Action menu in the Playback plug: choose Start on Patch/Set change

CCT

As if i missed that!!!!! Cheers bud. Finally any idea how to get the click to stop automatically when the backing track is finished???

Cheers man