MainStage 4+
Live rig for musicians
Apple
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- $39.99
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 3.6.1
This update contains stability improvements and bug fixes
Ratings and Reviews
What you pay is what you get
Here's what I'd rate vs what I pay:
1 star = >$100
2 star = $70-100
3 star = $50-70
4 star = $30-50
5 star = Free
Reason: Value for money. It's a really great software for what we're paying for. Considering what it can do. Unfortunately the cost is reliability. This is crashed on my during live concerts and that's a really bad thing. So, Apple, perhaps you knew this and that's why you only charge $30 for this. Anyway, 4 Star is all you get from me.
One step forward, three steps back
This program would be great if it was any tiny bit reliable. The newest edition is BUGGY AS ALL HELL and I’ve lost many hours of work because of it. After getting the spinning beachball of death while working on a set for an important show, I decided to rebuild it from a similar template only to have it crash the second I touch anything. The only support you’ll find are from other frustrated users trying to make things happen because Apple is useless. It would have been nice to use the synths I programmed in Logic, but since this is effectively useless to me now, I’m going to Ableton and building something similar. Get your crap together, Apple.
Great - if you have a good machine
This is an awesome, simple and streamlined app for live MIDI performance. Endless controls, and works with almost all the industry’s available VST plugins as a DAW. The one major drawback I have is the stability. Compared to software like Ableton Live, this app is somewhat buggy, I’ve used it constantly now for a bout 3 months of live shows, and it’s hiccupped WAY too many times - which is to say, if it hiccupps at ALL in live performance, it’s too many times. Thank goodness I’ve never had it crash outright in a show. I’m running a 2009 MBP with a 500GB SSD and 8GB of ram, Intel Core 2 Duo, and it runs fine. My colleague has a 2013 MBP, 16GB ram, 1TB SSD, quad core i7, and it STILL hiccups. To me, that’s not a hardware issue, but a coding stability and system resource allocation problem.
For $30 though, this is a steal of an app. So versatile, and takes up no CPU power on it’s own. If you are a synth player, this is for you. I’m using it as a drummer with 3rd party plugins, and it works great.
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 Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Usage Data
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Apple Canada, Inc.
- Size
- 1 GB
- Category
- Music
- Compatibility
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- Mac
- Requires macOS 11.5 or later.
- Languages
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English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2007-2022 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
- Price
- $39.99
Supports
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Family Sharing
Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.