Midi with Mainstage 3

Question

Midi with Mainstage 3

Hi all,

I have a few questions about midi control with Mainstage 3. I'm playing in a musical next week and have every song set up with multiple midi and direct audio patches. Is there a way to control the sound from my Roland rd-300 keyboard by midi? Like I would like to change the piano one setting to piano 2. Is there a way to change this through Mainstage? Also how would I control my behringer effects processor by midi? It also has midi ports but the manual says to use SystEx. I don't know how to program that with Mainstage, if it's possible.

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 14, 2014 10:05 AM

Reply

Answer 1

lifenoise

Level 4

1,019 points

Mar 15, 2014 6:12 AM in response to macintosh1097

You can do all of the above in Mainstage 3, but getting it all done by next week may prove difficult. Even if you get it programmed exactly the way you want it, you'll need to spend time testing and troubleshooting before using it live. Let's begin with the RD-300. How is it connected to your Mac? If you're using an audio interface with MIDI you can use its MIDI in port. If not, you'll need a USB MIDI cable. Any button, slider, knob, or pedal on a MIDI device that transmits MIDI can control parameters in MS 3. As for the Behringer FX, it will need to be connected to the Mac as well. If it doesn't receive program change commands, but receives sysex commands to change patches, it can be done but it's more complicated. What's the model? If you have the manual, look on the the MIDI spec page to see what it sends and receives.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 15, 2014 5:48 PM in response to lifenoise

I'm using a USB MIDI cable to connect my keyboard to my Mac. I found the manual for it online and it seems like I understand how to get Mainstage to control it, but it just won't work. I did find that the two "Externaml Volume" sliders did control the volume in mainstage, I just could not get anything else to map and work. During rehearsal today I just manually changed the piano setting and split feature on the keyboard and it worked out okay. I'd prefer to do it in a patch change, but if I can't get it it won't be terribly bad.

As far as the Behringer, I'm not even concerned about that because I'm just going to keep it on one setting and that's that.

More importantly though, today during rehearsal something really strange started to happen. My direct keyboard sound started to come through on patches where I just have MIDI sounds. I'd be playing just a harp sound and my keyboard sound would be coming through too. If I were to change any audio setting it would stop, but then it would start up again after a few minutes. I don't understand why this was happening because inputs 1-2 were not at all selected to be on in those patches. Does anyone know why this is happening?

http://soundprogramming.net/manuals/digital_pianos/Roland_RD-200_RD-300_Manual.p df

This is the link to the manual on the RD-300 if anybody is interested in looking at the MIDI functions.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 15, 2014 8:41 PM in response to macintosh1097

So I just finished going through the manual on my RD-300 and I figured out how to send program change messages in Mainstage. I believe I just figured out how to change the settings on my piano through Mainstage. I'll know for sure tomorrow when I go to the thearter where all of my equipment is at the moment.

Reply

Answer 4

lifenoise

Level 4

1,019 points

Mar 16, 2014 10:40 AM in response to macintosh1097

It sounds like your making progress. If unwanted RD-300 sound is coming through along with Mainstage sounds, send the RD-300 a volume 0(cc#7) or expression 0(cc#11) command. You can do this by creating an external MIDI channel strip assigned to the RD-300 if you haven't already done that. In external channel strip inspector, select MIDI output and send a MIDI file with cc# 7 or 11 set to 0.

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 18, 2014 6:30 AM in response to lifenoise

Won't sending a MIDI volume file silence the MIDI sounds being triggered by the RD-300? Regardless, how do you do that? I know how to send a MIDI file but I do not know how to create one. I think what I need though is a way to silence input 1-2. The sounds from the RD-300 are coming from input 1-2 and are coming through when I only want the MIDI sounds to play, so how can i silence the audio input 1-2?

Reply

Answer 6

lifenoise

Level 4

1,019 points

Mar 18, 2014 4:54 PM in response to macintosh1097

Sorry. I was assuming you were sending the audio out from the RD-300 to external mixer and the headphone out from the Mac to the external mixer as well. If you are running the audio from the RD-300 into the Mac through an audio interface into Mainstage you can just mute those audio channel strips(I guess the same is true if send it directly to the audio in port, although I've never tried it). The MIDI volume command won't affect the plugins the RD-300 is controlling unless MIDI thru is on, which will cause an unwanted MIDI loop/feedback. You can create a MIDI file on almost any workstation or DAW.

Reply