What’s with the mediocre reviews?

MainStage is my guitar workhorse. I use it every day, and have done so since version 1 appeared. There’s no equivalent product from anyone else. MainStage has all the power of the best DAWs (no surprise — it’s a Logic spinoff), but optimized for live performance. The ability to design custom setups to suit your instrument, gear, style, and musical needs is unprecedented and unique. Many of the complaints here seem to be standard Apple beefs. (“My fly-by-night interface manufacturer is slow to respond to Mac upgrades,” or “It won’t run with my 1987 Mac Plus.”) Assuming you have a Mac from the last four years or so and have upgraded your OS in the last year or two, there should be no unsurmountable problems. There is literally no competition for this brillaint and open-ended musical tool. Plus you get access to almost all the great plug-ins from Logic at an almost comically low price. (And contrary to what another review states, my MS sets are packed with NI Kontakt instances, and I’ve never encountered issues. Some people may need to read up on optimizing setting in MS and Kontakt, though.)

Don’t believe the haters — MainStage is IT for customizable OS X performance software.

SF_audio_geek about MainStage