Issue selecting input on MS audio channel strips

I just started using a GIO with MainStage too, and mostly I'm pretty happy with it (happier, in general, than I am with MainStage). I don't use the GIO for audio I/O (I have a FocusRite 18i20), just for the control surface.

That said, you should be able to drive multiple channel strips with the same input. I often have two channel strips, each using the same input, a different amp model, and pan them left and right. So at a minimum it's true that MainStage can assign multiple channel strips to the same input. I don't know if you can assign for strips to the same output, you can definitely do two. I'm not sure why you don't see any available inputs on the remaining three channels, but by now I'm used to that sort of anomalous behavior in MainStage. Sometimes a quit and restart will fix the problem; sometimes it won't.

Or, maybe this is something MainStage 2 doesn't support. I've only ever used MainStage 3.

Another workaround is instead of sending the output of a channel strip straight to the outputs, send it to two, or four, auxiliary channels, each with the guitar sound you want. After all, an amp model is just an audio effect, and can live on an auxiliary channel the same way a reverb can. So your guitar is at one input, and assign that channel's output to (say) Bus 1 and Bus 2, with whatever amp models, effects, EQ, etc. as insert effects on those buses.

In MainStage, you can assign and save a tempo to a patch. So just have two patches, with different tempos, and switch between them using the GIO. But I don't think you can configure GIO to do any file-level commands, like opening a new project file in Logic.

I don't know if MS 2 supports a config like this, but I have a concert with 5 different channel strips, connected to inputs from the 18i20, for four guitars and one bass, that all feed into various auxiliary channels (none of the input channel strips connect to Output 1-2). This way I have the best of both worlds: I can save plugins by having multiple guitars plug into the same amp, and have the same guitar drive multiple amps, all in one concert.

Another trick is that you can save a channel strip setting as an auxiliary channel strip setting. I'm not positive you can do this from within MainStage, but you can just copy the channel strip setting in the Finder from the "Track" to the "Bus" folder in ~/music/audio music apps/channel strip settings/ folder. Then all the same guitar channel strip settings are also available as auxiliary bus settings as well.

I live in a studio apartment in downtown San Francisco. It would be nice to be able to blast the output of MainStage through the immense, dishwasher-sized loudspeakers I have in my teensy apartment (if for no other reason than for the feedback), but it would be suboptimal to get evicted. So basically the digital output from the 18i20 goes to the Mac via USB, and then the Mac sends the processed signals right back over USB to the Focusrite, where I listen on headphones. The Focusrite is a nice piece of equipment, especially for the price (it's not much more than the GIO), but I don't think they splurged on the headphone amps; they don't have the headroom for the (admittedly deafening) levels I like to listen at.

If I were actually performing live, I would route the outputs of the Focusrite directly to the console, either digitally via SPDIF or ADAT if the console supports it, or just via the balanced outputs. I might have a half-dozen dummy stacks just so I look, you know, serious, but I'm not that vain.

Actually, they're industrial Klipsch La Scalas (fiberglass, corner- and edge-protection, split cabinets so you can bi-amp if you want). They have a sensitivity of 105 dB SPL/w at one meter, and they're driven by an Adcom GFA-545 that supplies 100w/channel. So you can see why I usually use headphones. :-)

I don't perform live, but if I did I'd have serious reservations about using MS. I run it on a 5k iMac 4 Ghz with 32 GB RAM and a Fusion drive, but I still have performance issues. Aside from minor irritants like MS forgetting whether or not a pedal should be active or bypassed by default, I also get occasional clicks/dropouts, every once in a while I'll get a few seconds of incredibly distorted output, channel strips going dead (no input received at all from any source), and other audio atrocities that in my opinion completely disqualify it from use in a performance environment.

I'm hoping two things: 1) that Apple continues to support the product and doesn't just unceremoniously ditch it at some future time; and 2) that MainStage 4, 3.5, whatever it ends up being, does a feature freeze but massively improves reliability and performance. Sort of a Snow Leopard/Mountain Lion/El Capitan kind of update.

They're awesome loudspeakers. Too bad I rarely get to use them! :-)

MainStage is kind of weird when it comes to hardware mapping. Sometimes when I create a new patch, most of the GIO controls map properly (it's like it sort of learns how I like things set up), but sometimes I have to create all the mappings by hand. I haven't tried swapping out a pedal from the pedalboard and seeing if the GIO hardware mappings to that pedal slot survive, but it's easy enough to re-establish the mappings from the Assignments and Mappings window. Give that a look, and let me know if you have any questions. I'm starting (finally) to feel like I know my way around Assignments and Mappings. :-)

1) Create your Main guitar track, but with no output.
2) Create 4, post fader, Bus sends on the guitar track.
3) Make each patch on their respective bus, and blend the levels using the send knobs on the primary track. Now you can control overall volume using the main guitar channel strip once the blend is set properly.

You cannot change Logic Projects directly from your MIDI foot controller.

However, you CAN change Logic projects using an Applescript that's triggered from Mainstage.

I just finished a tutorial recently on a fairly complex Mainstage rig, which you can view here: https://youtu.be/KGwlp1hpl_k

Also, here's a tutorial talking about the Applescript specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg8E9CRPQRg

Sure, I do lessons over Skype or Google Chat.

Follow this link: http://www.srfaudio.com/
and just click the "Contact Me" button, and we'll hash out the details. ;-)