Adding Ambient Pad Files to MainStage Using the Playback Plugin
This tutorial assumes you have advanced knowledge of how MainStage works and can follow instructions well. Make sure to make a backup of your original concerts in case something goes wrong, so you can start over.
We are using
Worship Essentials 1.3 in
MainStage 3.3, with
Motion Pads 4 for this tutorial.
STEP 1
Open your MainStage 3 concert
STEP 2
Go to the
Layout tab, and add a button from the
Panel Controls section
STEP 3
Assign your button to a button/pad on your MIDI keyboard or controller. Make sure your keyboard keys are assigned to a different device or MIDI channel. In this example, we are using an M-Audio Code 61. After you Assign, your controller button should toggle the MainStage button in the
Edit window.
STEP 4
In the Edit window, go to
Concert Level, by clicking on the name of your concert file in the
Patch List. In the
Channel Strips section on the right, press the
Plus (
+) button to create a new Channel Strip. Set the
Type to
Instrument, with no
MIDI Input, and
Output will be set to an empty
Bus channel (we picked 17).
STEP 5
Name your new
Instrument Channel Strip "
C" and the
Bus "
Pad". On the C Strip, add the
Playback plugin at the Input section.
STEP 6
Now, we will assign the Button we created to the Playback plugin. Click on our Button, and in the
Screen Control Inspector at the bottom of the
Edit window, go to the
Unmapped tab. Then assign the following:
C (the channel strip we made)
> Playback > Transport > Play/Stop (Switchable)
STEP 7
Now, we will add our Ambient Pad to the Playback plugin.
We have an extensive collection of Ambient Pads that sound incredible. WAV or MP3 are fine. Open your Finder window, navigate to your pads, find the one for "C", and then drag it on top of the Playback plugin. After a few seconds the file will be copied to your MainStage concert, and you can open the Playback plugin to verify the file was imported successfully. Now when you press the button on your MIDI controller, you should see volume levels in the C channel strip.
STEP 8
That's it! You created an Ambient Pad in C! To create buttons for additional keys, just follow this tutorial again and create more buttons and channel strips. All the channel strips will go to the same Pad Bus.