"Song" or "Scene" mode in Mainstage?

[analogman1]

Hi folks...

 

I've been using MainStage since its first introduction, years ago.

 

Until now, it's covered so many bases wonderfully...however, I've been gigging in situations where I need variations of a patch for a chorus or solo, etc.

I duplicate the patch and make the necessary adjustments; then name it "Solo 1" or "Bridge synth solo" etc. It's the awkwardness of stepping through the various parts, back and forth, that is so distracting when performing...

 

I know other VST performance software offer scenes or variations on a patch; I purchased Camelot Pro for the iPad, as well as a demo of it on my Mac; and I have a demo of Gig Performer (which, ironically, I owned many years ago when it first came out as well!). I'm going to test both of those to see if they could suffice better, but I know MainStage so well, that I hate to get started from scratch to learn something new! 

 

Any insights on how MainStage could handle this more elegantly, or am I using it the way others would, to achieve the patch variations I need?

 

Thank you so much, I really appreciate any insight you may have!!!

 

[obxa]

 

 

 Couple work arounds I've done might be useful.  May not totally apply to your situation.

 

First and foremost, you need to find a way to call up MS presets via Program Change without touching the computer keyboard.  Preferably with Bluetooth Midi.  I lean heavily on Forscore to send PC for each song and section variations to everything in my rig.   Other set list-song type apps can do this.  Or use a phone/ipad: Free IOS  program change app I've recommended before. 

   When I was hot and heavy and needed hardware, used a combination of Keyboard Maestro and/or some of these:  Controller keyboard's numpad,   separate little USB number pad  box (favorite), or Korg Nano.

 

I had used this older post which has great idea of using multi-timbral capability of your synths,  or "Mute- unmute method"  to access variations.  The latter which i've done.

 

If not using a ton of  multiple synths, you can solo/mute to call up variations within the MS song patch..   You duplicate the synth channel(s) with variation used within the patch. Name them clearly. Solo, Mute and unmute the channels that contain those variations as needed via midi or by click.  In theory, might use a tiny bit more  resources, but since each instance is not active,  usually ok. Obviously, using alias helps there too.   

 

Nowadays, I've simplified my concerts and treat MS as a secondary sound source. I just call up sounds, not songs... and recycle them.   I have a big honking midi activity indicator in my concert setups, and that's as far as I need to occasionally glance at the screen.  If using a Kontakt string/brass/synth type library, I'll just use single patch and call up the articulations via midi.

[analogman1]

Hey obxa!

I’ll definitely give the preset selection and mute/solo buttons a whirl. 
the real challenge is that a lot of this material is by “the Cars” and they have a lot of synth layers I’m covering. 
 

But it’s really not too crazy. 
 

I also bought Camelot for my iPad as stated above; it seems to handle “scenes” really well and I’ll try to set that up as a parallel source or backup, though I have MainStage tweaked pretty efficiently.  
 

Thanks for the great insight, I’ll start to incorporate some of those ideas asap!

[obxa]

You bet.   Noticed you have an Electro 5- Used to use my El2 buttons to call up presets from Mainstage. Does that really well, including mapping knobs to IK or Logic Organ. Had  Electro volume off, but plugged in for back up.   Currently using  6d or Stage depending on gig.

 

BTW- for Cars songs- check this guy out.   Might save you some time.

 

https://www.jimquesta.com/downloads/sounds-of-the-cars-mainstage-sound-set/

[TommyRude]

I’ve got my stuff packed away at the moment, but there are iPad Mainstage apps that can help.  It’s another device to connect to your hub, but not too bad once you get the hang of it.  What I would do is place the iPad on my board (with a little putty for stability), and voilà, you have an easier way to call up patches.  This is not the exact app, but you can make them look kinda like this, or just "buttons”.  If you have a setlist, you can have that show up on the iPad as well.

 

 

[Tusker]

23 hours ago, analogman1 said:

Any insights on how MainStage could handle this more elegantly, or am I using it the way others would, to achieve the patch variations I need?

I like to use the One MainStage Patch = One Song convention, to make it easy to step through the set. And I have a physical foot switch for that. But what if I want one layering convention for the verse, another for the bridge and another for the chorus? As in piano for verse, add B3 for bridge, mute the B3 and add poly synth for chorus?

 

I usually load up all the channel strips I need and then toggle them on and off. Each layer is a channel strip. Yes it would be great if MainStage had another level of hierarchy, but it doesn't. So ...

 

I might have a "Bridge" button assigned to a knob, which turns off some layers and turns on other ones. Similarly a "Chorus" button. I don't have my rig in front of me but IIRC I either map the button to Layer MIDI Input Bypass or I create a MIDI Modifier to pass the MIDI into the Channel Strip and I do it there. Remember, it's at the Channel Strip level, so you have to activate a channel strip to see the automation possibilities. So I might have 8 channel strips in a patch (many are aliases), 2 are active in the verse, 3 in the bridge and 4 in the chorus. Or something like that.

 

I have found that with this method, the sequence in which you toggle stuff matters. You sometimes have to go back to your basic (say Verse) layout before going into a more complex set up, so it may be two keypresses, but once I've figured that out, my setlist is One MainStage Patch = One Song, which makes the evening trouble free.

 

Building a new setlist is a breeze: just copy/paste. And if the Band Leader decides to go back to the first verse for some reason, I can be right there with him or her. YMMV.

[TommyRude]

more…. I don’t know how much Mainstage discussion is happening here, but there are a couple of great FB Mainstage groups, lots of discussion on just about every aspect of using, patches, performance, midi setups, live rigs, on and on - with several experts chiming in frequently.  Also, the Sunday Sounds guys on Youtube are really great (even if you’re not a steady churchgoer 😎).  They’ve made a bunch of tutorial style vids touching almost every topic.

[TommyRude]

On 5/22/2024 at 8:19 PM, analogman1 said:

I duplicate the patch and make the necessary adjustments; then name it "Solo 1" or "Bridge synth solo" etc. It's the awkwardness of stepping through the various parts, back and forth, that is so distracting when performing...

it's been a while since I’ve chatted about this stuff, there are many ways to handle these scenarios.  I tend to handle it by a combination of different patches, splits, layers.  In some cases, I’ll switch patches back and forth (either by the iPad button or assigned buttons on the boards).  Find two go-to buttons on your board to assign them for switching (one for ’next patch' & another for ‘last patch’, or putting it another way - forwards & backwards). 

 

It's awkward at the beginning, but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad and it becomes second nature, kinda like a guitarist flicking his pickup switch - when it’s done well it’s almost effortless, just moving along with the music, hitting another note.  With practice and repetition, you’ll get there and you’ll return to playing rather than thinking about how to switch that darn patch.

[Iconoclast]

yeah, they need another hierarchy in their architecture.  They Currently have Concert/Set/Patch and what they really need is Concert/Set/Song/Scene more like the way that Camelot is organized.

So I just promote everything: a patch is a scene and a set is a song, make liberal use of alias's, and it essentially works the same way.

The way I run it: Some songs are a single patch, but many songs might end up being 10+. Say I use the same patch in the chorus 3 different times in a song, I put that patch in there 3 different times in the order that it comes in the song. Two of those patches will be alias's of the first to save memory and also to keep some continuity through the song if I end up editing the patch.

This might seem like a pain, but once you learn the PASTE AS AN ALIAS keystrokes, which are honestly dead simple, the whole thing is easy to create a identical patches exactly where you need them in the setlist that use zero memory.

I think Rosanna has the most patch changes for me and it's got to be near 20. Here Comes the Sun has quite a lot more than you'd think. I also play Pull me Under and that has a whole bunch.

BUT  one of the best things about Mainstage is how seamlessly it changes patches. Much better than any program or hardware keyboard that I've ever used.  I use a footswitch to advance patches and highly recommend that method...piece of cake.  (If you search this forum, I started a thread a year or two ago about how people organized and changed patches and it was quite interesting)

I made a youtube on how I do it, hope it's not too boring and/or confusing:  

 

[analogman1]

Thanks everyone, for all of the great suggestions!

I will try them all and see what works for my situation.  
You guys ROCK!!!

Tom