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17MainStage User Guide
MainStage basics
What is MainStage?
MainStage is a music application designed for use in live performance. MainStage turns
your computer into a powerful multi-instrument and effects processor that you can use
on stage when you perform. Whether you sing or play a keyboard, guitar, or another
instrument, you can use MainStage when you perform live.
• Using a USB or MIDI keyboard controller, you can play a wide variety of software
instruments, including pianos and other keyboards, synthesizers, strings, horns,
percussion, and more.
• Using an iPad, you can also play software instruments, and control other aspects of
MainStage, using the Logic Remote app.
• If you play electric guitar, you can play through virtual amps and use effects such as
overdrive, reverb, and compression.
• Vocalists, drummers, and other musicians can sing and play with multi-effects setups
using a microphone.
• If you’re using a Mac with a Touch Bar, you can use the Keyboard on the Touch Bar to
play software instruments.
In MainStage, you organize and access your sounds in concerts. A concert can store all
the sounds you’ll use in an entire performance or a series of performances. In a MainStage
concert, individual sounds are stored as patches, and each patch can contain one or more
channel strips, each with its own instruments and effects. You can add channel strips,
choose channel strip settings, add instruments and effects, and edit their parameters
to customize your sounds. You can even mix channel strips of different types in a
single patch.
You organize patches for a concert in the PatchList, which includes grouping them into
sets, which are folders where you can store patches you want to keep together.