MainStage 4+

Live rig for musicians

Apple

    • 3.8 • 266 Ratings
    • $29.99

Screenshots

Description

MainStage lets you take your Mac to the stage with a full-screen interface optimized for live performance, flexible hardware control, and a massive collection of plug-ins and sounds that are fully compatible with Logic Pro.

The Ultimate Live Rig
• Perform live with 100 instrument, effect, and MIDI plug-ins or work with Audio Units plug-ins
• Add your sounds from Logic Pro and GarageBand to bring your studio sound to the stage
• Support for the Touch Bar on MacBook Pro provides convenient controls for layout, editing, and performance
• Combine instruments and live audio, such as keyboards and vocals, in a single Patch
• Switch between Patches without stopping sound output or cutting off held notes
• Design rich keyboard Patches using splits and layers, the Arpeggiator, and other MIDI plug-ins
• Perform with stereo or multitrack backing tracks using Playback
• 64-bit architecture uses all the RAM in your system for larger sampled instruments

Hardware Control
• Connect your favorite hardware and use it to play and control your plug-ins
• Use USB and MIDI-equipped controllers like keyboards, foot pedals, and drum pads
• Instantly set up a large variety of hardware using automatic device recognition
• Quickly assign hardware knobs, buttons, and faders to onscreen controls
• Manage sophisticated rigs using the Assignments & Mapping overview

Designed for the Stage
• See only what you need during your performance using a customizable, full-screen live interface
• Screen controls adapt for each Patch using Smart Controls
• Smart Controls offer dynamic performance controls that change with each Patch
• Easily view your Mac screen from a distance using a high-contrast, full-screen performance view

Instrument Plug-ins
• Play or create a wide variety of rich sampled instruments with Sampler and Quick Sampler
• Turn your favorite hardware synthesizers into sampled instruments using the Auto Sampler plug-in
• Quickly find sounds or create unique new ones with Alchemy, the ultimate sample manipulation synthesizer
• Play classic ’70s- and ’80s-style synthesizer sounds using Retro Synth
• Play faithful models of vintage keyboards with Vintage B3, Vintage Electric Piano, and Vintage Clav
• Perform inspired sounds using a collection of synths that provide analog, wavetable, FM, additive, granular, spectral, and modeling synthesis
• Play deeply sampled, professionally mixed, and fully customizable drum kits provided by Drum Kit Designer
• Perform electronic beats with the Ultrabeat drum machine

MIDI Plug-ins
• Transform simple ideas into elaborate performances using nine MIDI plug-ins
• Instantly turn a simple chord into a rich performance with the Arpeggiator
• Play a single note to trigger predefined chords with Chord Trigger
• Perform a part and conform notes to a specific scale using Transposer

Creative and Production Effects
• Play your sounds through a variety of realistic acoustic spaces or creative synthesized reverbs
• Use a range of multi-tap, vintage tape, and stereo delays
• Add movement to your tracks with a variety of modulation effects
• Get the perfect mix with a collection of vintage and modern EQs, dynamics, and other mixing tools

Guitar and Bass Gear
• Build your own guitar or bass rig with Amp Designer using vintage and modern amps, cabinets, and mics
• Design a custom Pedalboard from a collection of delay, distortion, and modulation stompboxes
• Access a full-screen Tuner to quickly get in tune

Sound Library
• Over 5,900 instrument and effect patches
• 1,200 meticulously sampled instruments
• 14,750 Apple Loops in a wide range of genres

Storage Requirements
• 6GB available disk space for minimum install / 72GB hard disk for full Sound Library installation

What’s New

Version 3.6.6

This update includes stability improvements and bug fixes

Ratings and Reviews

3.8 out of 5
266 Ratings

266 Ratings

E. Bar. ,

Few bugs and need for new features

Mainstage is a great alternative for other programs, specifically Ableton. I use it for church to playback pre-recorded intrsuments meanwhile we play, and it works perfectly, now I am sending the click sound from mainstage to our drummer and we are syncing together very well. But there is a bug that I have been able to work around for now but it was very annoying, the fourth track in the 8 backing track template does not let me map any button to the play/stop and I have no idea why, but it works in other channels, so that is what I have done for now. I would also like for the Mainstage team to please allow for Mainstage to support changes in tempo and for mainstage to be able to read it and change its tempo according to the file information that was bounced with said recording. I record these instruments through Logic so there isn't any compatibility error, its just that the playback plugin or just Mainstage itself does not support automated tempo information, please it would be great if you guys could attend to these situations, Thank you in advance.

Iriemahn ,

Not sure what happened..

I have a MacbookPro mid 2012 with mainstage that runs amazing. Now I have a 2020 Macbook Air M1, so now when I open Mainstage it lags for about 3 min before there is no lag.
The worse part for me is when I play the trombone from Kontakt and some othe sounds the whole volume compresses to where the sound loses so much body I cant even use the Macbook Air live anymore. This issue has been driving me crazy! I do not have any compressor set anywhere for this to happen. Its almost as if this Macbook Air has a built in compressor impossible to toggle off. Can anyone help?

Madtux ,

Midi and video playback

I have used Mainstage onstage in 6 different cover bands for my entire keyboard rig and for playing backing tracks with click to drummer. 100’s of gigs and not one single crash. Simple setup of 2 live USB keyboards and anywhere from 2-8 wav file backing tracks playing. I now want to add sequenced lighting and video screen playback in sync with backing tracks and any simple plug in similar to the audio playback would suffice but nothing. Apple has chosen to stay in the “Toy” world and sell a cheap app with limited use. This is a great program but lacks pro features that other software has. It has it’s uses but I will be finding something else as the recent update just ignores user requests just so they can port over already developed items from Logic Pro into Mainstage and call it an update. If you want a Toy to play with get MainStage, if you want a pro level piece of software to run your live show look elsewhere.

App Privacy

The developer, Apple, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supports

  • Family Sharing

    Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.

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