Now imagine you’re at the gig, and you decide the piano you chose is far too bright for the venue you’re in. Let’s say you’ve created a concert that has a piano sound, then you also make a bunch of patches that have layers on top of it-piano and strings, piano and organ, piano and choir, etc.
GOOD PIANO PATCHES FOR MAINSTAGE 3 PATCH
Basically, you can use aliases to create ‘pointers’ that direct MainStage to utilize a previously created patch or channel strip.Īt the channel strip level, this can be helpful to utilize a common sound throughout various combinations and layers. Using aliases is one of the most powerful features of MainStage, and it also helps to make your computer better mimic the behavior of a patch/combi setup of a keyboard workstation. I can simply tweak the sound at the concert level and the adjustments apply across all of my patches. If I determine at sound check that the venue isn’t being kind to a certain frequency, I don’t have to go into each individual patch to make adjustments. I’ll often put some EQ controls at the top level. This is incredibly helpful if you want to create global adjustments. If you select a patch, however, and add a channel, then whatever you created is only available for that patch. Select the entire concert in the browser, then create a reverb channel, that reverb is now available for every single patch in the entire concert. Essentially, anything you create and set at a higher level overrides whatever you set at a lower level. There is a hierarchy that exists to allow you to have consistency across your sounds, and allow for diversity within patches at the same time. Understanding the concert, set, and patch paradigm is key to harnessing the power of MainStage. Configuring your MainStage concert files takes some time, and setting things up so that your show runs efficiently and in a stable manner is key for having a successful MainStage experience. You’ll also find MainStage in the backline setup of a multitude of tours, driving both keyboard and guitar setups. You’d be hard pressed to find a Broadway musical these days that doesn’t trigger sounds for the keyboard players using MainStage.
GOOD PIANO PATCHES FOR MAINSTAGE 3 MAC
This will allow you to keep things stereo, maintaining that thick wide sound that really brings out pads and pianos.Apple’s MainStage has quickly become the de facto standard for hosting virtual instruments on Mac platforms. If this is an option, in MainStage simply run the piano out of a output 3-4, and everything else through the main outputs. Audio interfaces are cheap enough now that it’s very affordable to get one with two sets of stereo outputs ( here’s one I recommend). Consider getting a multi-output audio interface.Instead of cutting out my high end, I simply tweaked my patch. I went back and discovered I was playing some really high notes that sound identical to feedback in a mix. If you can figure out what the sound engineer needs from you, you can probably fix it on your end.įor instance, when I was in high school I had a sound engineer constantly complain to me that my patches were feeding back. Ask questions about what the sound engineer is trying to fix/tweak.Once your sound engineer has tweaked the piano the way he likes it, just use the copy and paste to put the piano EQ on every patch that has piano. MainStage has some amazing EQ plugins, and it’s easy to get a good sounding piano using just the built in plugins. Have your sound engineer EQ the piano inside of MainStage.Here’s a couple of ways you could work around things: This is definitely a great solution if you’re running mono on your main sound system, but your pads and pianos can lose depth and width if your sound system is running stereo and you’re staying in mono. Would this work or do I need something on the output to improve the quality? I hope this makes sense. Is there a way this can be improved, we discussed using the pan on Mainstage instrument strips to group piano and pan the other sounds in another group so that the sounds can be equalised more effectively. The problem we encounter is when the guys on the sound desk eq my my sounds they for example eq the piano sound from Mainstage but this leaves the strings,synths etc a bit thin sounding. We have analog desk at one church site and a digital desk at the other. I use Mainstage in worship, using macpro, the church keyboard is dated and is a 15 year old alesis which I midi and then out put is via a DI. We received this email from a reader this week: