Simple MainStage Template: Using Any MainStage Patch in the Template

The Simple MainStage Template comes with a couple of dialed in patches designed to make it easy for anyone to cover the worship keys role in their band, but you’re not limited to using only those included sounds - you can use any MainStage patch! Be sure to check out all the other video tutorials over on the Simple MainStage Template Resource Page.

Check out the video or the steps below it to learn more about how to use any MainStage patch in the Simple MainStage Template:

If you’d like to enhance the sounds available to the Simple MainStage Template, browsing our large library of Song Specific Patches from Sunday Sounds is a great place to start, as you’ll find patches specifically created for a huge variety of popular worship songs.

You can also load any of MainStage’s factory presets into the Simple MainStage Template, patches you create yourself, or other patches that you purchase from Sunday Sounds or find elsewhere online.

You can check out the MainStage sound libraries we have available on our website here.

How to use a MainStage Factory Preset (or any other third party patch):

Select the sound you’d like to use inside The Simple MainStage Template.

• If you downloaded the patch online, locate the patch file in finder and drag and drop the .patch file into your Simple MainStage Template patch list until you see a blue bar under your mouse, then let go to add it in.
• If you’d like to browse MainStage’s factory presets, we recommend you use the channel strip presets as most of the factory patch presets are not very optimized for live performance and can really bog down your computer. To browse MainStage’s channel strip presets, add a new patch to your concert by clicking the “+” icon at the top right corner of the patch list in edit mode, then on the top right corner of the screen in the channel strip area, hit that “+ button and choose the option to add a new software instrument channel strip. Now, down at the bottom of the screen in the inspector you’ll see the “Channel Strip Library” tab. From here, you can browse MainStage’s factory presets. When you select a Channel strip preset it will be loaded into the selected channel strip. If you like the way it sounds you can move forward, or you can select a different preset in the inspector until you find the right one. 

Keep in mind, if you click somewhere else in MainStage you won’t see the channel strip library in the Inspector anymore. To get back to it, click on the channel strip again, then make sure you’re in the “Channel Strip Library” tab of the inspector.

Now that you've got a preset selected, you can map the sound to the first sound section of the template:

1. 

First, let’s add a text label. To do this, click the text area at the top of the sound section, then click the empty space in the inspector at the bottom of the screen and type in the label you’d like. To change the color, font, or font size select all the text and click the “Font” button in the top left corner of the inspector. The font used for all text in The Simple MainStage Template is Avenir Next Bold, so you can match that if you’d like.
2. Now, let’s map the level indicator below the text. Click the level indicator on screen, then in the inspector make sure you’re in the tab labeled “Unmapped” and click the name of your channel strip. Now, when you play you’ll see the level indicator respond onscreen.
3. Now let’s add a mapping for volume to the fader in the sound section. The quickest way to do this is to click the onscreen fader and see it highlight in blue, then in the inspector make sure you’re in the tab labeled “Unmapped” and click the “Map Parameter” button and see it turn red. Now, click on the channel strip volume fader to map the workspace fader to that control.
4. Now, click the “Map Parameter” button again to make sure you don’t accidentally map to something else.
5. It’s a good idea to set the “Saved Value”, Range Max, and Range Minimum levels to determine how loud or quiet the fader will be able to make the sound. We recommend using a value of zero for the Range Max option. You can type in a saved value if you'd like, just know that if you later dial in different onscreen settings and hit command + S to save those settings, they will replace the original saved value.

Once you have your text label, level indicator, and volume fader mapped you can add any additional mappings that you'd like to the buttons and top knob. Each onscreen modifier has a text label below it that you can use to label what the modifier does.

If you’re an intermediate or advanced MainStage user then the mapping process should be fairly familiar to you and the process is no different here within The Simple MainStage Template. You can map the buttons, faders, and knobs to any channel strip parameters that you’d like, then use the text labels below them so you’ll easily remember what’s what.

If you’re a new MainStage user, a great place to learn all about mappings is within MainStage itself. Click “Help” in the toolbar and then choose “MainStage Help” from the menu, then click “Show Topics” and scroll down until you see the option “Work In Edit Mode”. Click on it to expand the topics, then click on the option “Map Screen Controls”. You can learn all about the options for mappings here, starting with the “Overview”.

You can map buttons, knobs or faders to different plugins. To give a simple example, you can add a reverb control to this patch:

1. 

First, you'll need a reverb plugin to map to, so you can click on an empty slot in the audio effects area, hover over “Reverb”, then choose “Silververb”.
2. Leave the plugin open, but move it to the side so you can see the section you'd like to map to.
3. You might want to map it to the top left knob in section 1 so click on it to highlight in blue, then in the inspector make sure you're in the tab named “Unmapped” and click the “Map Parameter” button and see it highlighted in red. 

Now, click the “Wet” slider within the silver verb plugin, then click the “Map Parameter” button again so you don’t accidentally map to anything else. Now when you move the fader onscreen the wet value within the plugin is affected.
4. You can set the saved, max, and minimum values for this mapping in the inspector as well to limit the range of the effect to what sounds good to you.
5. Lastly, click the text area below the knob to label it. After clicking the text box, click the empty space in the inspector and start typing.

Mapping sounds in MainStage is a big sandbox with lots of possibilities. Reading through the documentation in the Help Guide is a great place to get started. Another great option as you start to explore making more complex mappings is to make duplicates of some of the The Simple MainStage Template patches and click on the onscreen modifiers to see what mappings we made when designing the template.

Now that you’ve mapped this single sound you could add in a second sound to the second sound section if you’d like, by adding another channel strip and repeating the mapping process for that channel strip.

Whenever you’re done you can double click the patch to name and then you can save the patch to the browser by hitting ⌘E on your keyboard, choosing the MainStage folder from your Favorites bar, and saving to the “User Created Patches” folder within the “Simple MainStage Template.

One last note about importing patches or sounds from third party sound designers. Some patches you can find online will include custom samples that will need to be installed on your computer to a specific folder in order to be used inside MainStage. The best thing to do is consult with the producer of the patches you’re trying to use and check their help documentation for details on installing their sounds for use in any MainStage concert.

Be sure to check out all the video tutorials over on the Simple MainStage Template Resource Page!