MainStage App Reviews

I am a pro guitarist teaching for many years , I bought Mainstage for my Acoustic mainly , Reverb , Chorus , Mixer function etc , But I plugged an Electric into my Interface set up and Electric Guitar rig as prescribed , Amp Pedal Board etc . Not Impressed , Zoom Pedals , and Standalone Multi Processors sound way better . The Reverb is nice though , I like them . and It will work with my Acoustic nicely I think. 3 Stars . Because the Distortions suck .

This application is worth a lot more than $30. Over the years, Apple has purchased quite a few gems like the Halion sampler, the Alchemy synthesizer, and the Redmatica Automated Sampler - all of which are included in MainStage. Just one of these virtual instruments alone used to cost a couple hundred dollars! You could easily spend thousands of dollars on an integrated keyboard workstation like the Kronos or Phantom and get a lot less than you get from this $30 gem. Believe me, I have owned both of those workstation, I know. So what is MainStage, really? Think of it as Logic without the tracks. Or, think of it as the live version of Logic. You can actually save your channel strip settings in Logic and then import them into MainStage. If you use Logic, knowing this will undoubtedly make you grin from ear to ear because you realize that not only can you take the exact same instruments and effects you used in your Logic session and onto the stage, but you also get to transfer all of the settings, the order of effects, and other parameters, saving you a lot of time. If you do not use Logic, that’s OK too. Mainstage does not require you to be a Logic user and you don’t even have to have Logic installed. Mainstage will allow you to create ‘concerts’ that are further divided into ‘sets’ and ‘patches.’ This makes Mainstage very flexible and suitable for almost any live performance situation. You could group all your favorite piano sounds, for example, into a set and then use a different set to group all of your favorite synth leads, for example. In this way, you could build a concert that has all of your favorite patches, quickly accessible. You could also use sets as songs, for example. Grouping all of the patches for a certain song within that one set, and so on. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. The power of Mainstage comes from its flexibility. Spend the time getting to know the software and you will be rewarded with unlimited sonic possibilities. You will appreciate how Mainstage intelligently switches between patches, seamlessly transitioning from sound to sound. Mainstage’s layers will open up all sorts of possibilities as well. And you will absolutely fall in love with the Alchemy synthesizer. And this is just the beginning. With Mainstage, you will get access to the same powerful effects processors, virtual instruments, and channel strips included with Logic Pro X and a few others that are specific to Mainstage. You also get the Redmatica autosampler, which has now been integrated into Mainstage, so you can sample any of your hardware MIDI synths and sound modules painlessly. Additionally, you get the ability to create custom patch lists and beautiful screen control panels whose knobs, sliders, and buttons can be assigned to any controllable parameter of your AUs and VSTs (yes, Mainstage supports VST 2 and 3 instruments and effects) and then mapped to any MIDI message sent by your MIDI controller(s) for total expressive control when perfotming live. But all of the things described above woudl be worthless if Mainstage was unreliable. Luckily, that is not the case as Mainstage is super stable and rock-solid. However, these is always the possibility of a rogue VST bringing down your Mainstage session, just like it happens in any other DAW. Apple should rethink its approach to plugin handling to prevent this from happening in both Logic and MainStage. Until they do, just avoid using plugins from shady developers and you should be OK. All in all, Mainstage is an incredible value at $30. Buy it. Get to know it. You will wonder how you did without it.

Even if this App were junk, having the entire Logic Library available to you makes this App a steal! I use Mainstage with a Fender Telecaster, Apogee Gio and Amplitube 3 as a plug-in, and it’s amazing. The versatility of Mainstage is off-the-charts. To be able to litterally switch your entire sound by pressing a single button to advance to a new preset is epic! Mainstage can do anything; guitar, keys, vocals, drums…and it’s great at MIDI. You’re only limited by your imagination and creativity. It does take some time to learn, but there are countless videos and tutorials to get you started in whatever endeavor you choose. This App can potentially save you thousands of dollars in gear- if you dont like how something sounds, change it or throw it out and try something else! It’s that simple. I’ve had a number of musicians ask me how i can get such incredible tone and clean sound, and they are always floored when I tell them about the rig I use. If your a musician, Mainstage is one of the best tools to add to your set up, period.

This app is powerful with lots of useful features. I felt I got my money’s worth. Unfortunatly, it is not a quick learn. You may need to read the manual. Especially when mapping functions to soft controls and to hard controls. I didn’t find that process to be very intuitive. I think there should be better on screen instruction as least on fisrt run of the software. First impression: I’m happy with the purchase. The documentation is decent, so I should be able to learn how to use it without hassle; it will just take time. Be aware that this program takes up a considerable amount of hard disk space especially with all of the (optional) addittional content (loops, instrument voices, effects, etc.) BUGS/Trouble Exeperienced: Running on an October 2013 MacBook Pro Retina i5 8GB RAM: I had some issues with the graphics of mute and solo buttons not responding on the mixer (channel strips). They functionaly worked, but the on/off graphics didn’t update. The looper effect crashed the program once and the metronome didn’t seem to work correctly with the looper.

I bought this when I bought Logic Pro X just because the other keyboardist in my band was using it, I really didn’t expect to use it much but it immediately became to workstation for our live performances. I previously used Ableton Live for performances and Logic Pro 9 for recording. The flexibility and powerful features got my to try it out, but it’s vastly superior stability over Ableton Live 9 is what made this my go-to app for live music performance. I immediately fell in love with the MIDI FX in Logic Pro and was very happy to see the same feature in Mainstage. The ability to customize my screen was surprisingly powerful, and being able to have tracks at the concert, set, and patch levels is fantastic. I love that I don’t have to touch my laptop at all, I can just switch songs with the appropriate buttons on my MIDI controller. Also, by connecting up to the other keyboardist’s MIDI via the networking features in Audio MIDI Setup, I am able to see what keys key is pressing on his keyboard in real-time… which is VERY important considering we do a lot of improvisational pieces. Previously I had to create an implant for my Launchpad to display this information. I am a little disappointed that I haven’t been able to get my Launchpad to light up directly and control Mainstage, but I happen to be developing software to build custom javascript implants for the launchpad, so I’ve been able to do what I want to do using that software. I’m so inspired by Mainstage that I may make a branch of my software specifically geared toward Mainstage/Launchpad integration. This is really amazing work.

The recent refresh is a welcome improvement in presentation. Too bad the software rejects my chosen audio interface, an Apogee Jam96k. Audio input is possible only when there is a drop-down menu active! Once the menu closes, audio drops out. The device works with everything else I’ve tried it iOS and Mac, including Mainstage 2.

I use MainStage for a great deal of my gigging, and stupid me, had “auto updates” turned on. Now, instead of getting the work-horse app that I was used to in 3.0.3, I get a buggy experience that constantly chokes on even loading the simplest of concerts. The chanel strip frezes up when I try to switch patches, etc. Really, just a horrible experience rendering MainStage 3 completely useless to me on a heaving gig weekend. Guess I’ll have to go back to MainStage 2 for a bit until they get these bugs worked out.

Please make loopback more simple. Add multi-track capabilities without having to have multiple instances open. Make it as stupid simple as a loop pedal. To use a live performance app, I shouldn’t have to be restarting the app/stopping playback to simply get the thing to play. For now I’m switching to ableton.

OK, first I’m not a professional musician - by any stretch. I have also never used any version prior to the current 3.0.4, so I can’t compare. But, I can say this app is way beyond my expectations. It is amazing how many features are included, without upselling. The sound library is huge, more than I could want. As far as crashing or bugs, I haven’t experienced any so your mileage may vary. Here is how I got to this product. I tried using Ableton Live 9 Lite (yes not the full version) and found I couldn’t do live loops. In looking at options, MainStage was $30 vs. $700 upgrade price to go from Ableton Live Lite, to the full version. I mean at 20X lower price, it is an incredible value. Plus, this is easier for me to figure out than Ableton Live was. Now I know there are ton of pros who use and swear by Live 9, and I’m sure it is a complete professional tool. But, for what I wanted (relatively straightforward, large sound library, customizeable, ability to do live loops), I don’t think you can beat the value of MainStage 3.

Before Main Stage, I was just using Garage Band. This app is definitely worth what I paid for it! I use it both for songwriting and on stage. My keyboard MIDI controller hooks right up to it, and it comes with all of the sounds I could ever need. I see other people talking about it being buggy, but I haven’t seen any of that yet. If you’re a performer and want an easy to use app with a huge bank of sounds and options for creating new music, this is the one!

As a guitar player, I use MainStage with the Apogee Gio and I love it! At first I was a little confused by the Mainstage interface for guitar but when I installed the Gio template, it became extremely easy to use. The program offers thousands of natural sounding tonal options for Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Bass and Keys. For me, it’s like having a massive rig at my fingertips. Mainstage is perfect for smaller or quiter environments, like a church. By running directly into the PA I’m able to achieve tones that normally require an amp to be cranked at volumes that don’t send the older folks running toward the door. If you are a guitar player looking for versatility and portability, MainStage coupled with the Gio is a winner!

If you’re new to MS, it’s a very powerful app that’s really worth much more than the asking price. Designed for performing, rehearsing … playing rather than recording. I’ve used MS 2 for a couple of years and bought 3 assuming that at least I wouldn’t LOSE functionality, that I wouldn’t lose patches but would improve the interface. The interface does seem better, BUT the whole patch library has changed AND SHRUNK. Not just different patches, but far fewer. Whereas MS2 felt like a companion of the high end Logic Pro, MS3 feels like a campanion of the entry level Garage Band. I’ve tried several times to convert from 2 to 3 and return to 2 every time.

While there is a learning curve to getting everything to work right, I have never had an issue with Mainstage playing live. I wish it was more of a standard for anyone doing anything live with anything electronic at all. It can work magic if you use it right.

Everything I have used seems to work fine except the expression. It can be on 0 and I still get sound out of the channel. This is not good becaise I use expression on my bass guitar all the time. Please fix it. Quick.

This app looks really cool and I hear great things about it. I purchased it and can’t use it because as soon as I load it my CPU goes through the roof and I get continual Audio overload errors. I wan’t to like it but I unfortunately can’t even get into it let alone use it to see if I like it. Please fix the CPU usage issues!

I am trying to get this application to work properly. The sounds from Logic are absolutely fabulous! However, I am having very odd problems with the software. When you set up the program to load into performance mode it sometimes comes up with a blank screen and is frozen until you “esc”. It also does not properly save the last performance for reload. The support group is discussing these problems but there does not seem to be any response from the MainStage, Logic or Apple people. It’s a great bargain at $29.99, but I’m afraid to take it live on stage.

I updated to this version and now the outputs are getting mixed up…if I output anything on 1-2 the meter on output 4 shows the same thing as 1-2 even though nothing is really being put put. It just shows it is. I called Apple Support and they said it was normal but I dont think they fully understood what the problem was. I hope they fix this soon. I need a working Mainstage for a show coming up in a few weeks.

With the newest update… Mainstage faiing completely. Especially using Native Instruments through it, while using sustain pedal the application will grind to a halt. I consistently get a “CPU Overload” error. Even when using BUILT IN instruments!? I have a late 2013 Macbook pro, 2.6GHz i7 and 16 GB of Ram)… I is definitely not my machine. If this could be remedied quickly that would be great.

I’ve been using mainstage since its inception and this seems to be a return to the instablility of MainStage 1. Apple is clearly not putting their best into this app. Mainstage is capable of many things, it’s just not reliable.

Mainstage was an okay application to begin with, but all I’ve been having lately is problems. My CPU is always maxing out, and I can’t play for more than a few minutes without the output being corrupted. I need this app to work, or I will be switching to abelton, which I would prefer not to do. Regardless, until this gets fixed, I will be recommending that all other keyboardists I know steer clear. Please update soon!