Logic Studio apps Mainstage patches dont save

C

celestialstudio

Logician
Hi Folks long time Logic user, newbie to Mainstage. I have a solo guitar show where I play trigger drums with my feet and guitar from a VG99. I understand the concert, set, patch heirachy.

I use mainstage as a mixer, FX unit and a home for Kontakt and Battery all of which I play in real time, no loops, backing tracks or sequencing.

All I want to do is to save subltle FX and volume changes between patches. I have read most of the forums on similar problems and tried most of the solutions. When I change a patch the only thing I can get to change is the text box. All my volume edits and FX edits are left the same from patch to patch. I have tried changing the revert to save in prefs, overridding the concert mapping, saving the individual patches and even the concert each time to no avail. I can get nothing to change except the text box which does change from patch to patch and I have been on this for some days now????

Surley there must be a simple way to save changes between patches , otherwise what's the point of having a patch level apart from reading your text box. I am sure I am missing something simple here but I have come across others who have had similar problems.

The other issue I have is that I can control Mainstage from the VG no problem but I cant get Mainstage to send a program change to the VG how would this be done on a patch per patch basis?

I would really appreciate some help from you keyboard boffins
cheers
Chris
 
Mainstage patches wont save

OK this is interesting. As an addon to my last post, I have an old G4 laptop with an earlier version of Mainstage on it so I loaded it up and I can see what is supposed to happen. New patches can be created and volumes on the channel strips can be tweaked and they change as you move between the patches.
On the earlier version (G4) however when you ask it to create a new patch it asks about creating a new channel strip as well and the new strip has a new number etc and can be changed from patch to patch. This doesnt happen on my new Mac book pro with the latest Mainstage. When you create a new patch it just appears with the same instrument structure as the Concert template.
Since I started from scratch and made a custom concert template could I have left something out that effects the creation of new patches?? Every thing else works fine except the patches just cant be differentiated only the text box, any ideas?
thanx
Chris
 
celestialstudio said:
All I want to do is to save subltle FX and volume changes between patches.
Click to expand...
I don't understand your problem, maybe some basics can help:

There is no such thing like "patch save" in Mainstage. Normally you want to set your values by mouse on screen. Then you save the concert and all patches are saved. While playing, you operate some parameters by a controller (not by mouse!). If you switch to another patch, you want the original values for this patch. You can have a different behavior, but normally you want the original values of a patch whenever you call it.

This means:
Set your values by mouse and they will stay. Change your values by a controller and they are set back to the original state whenever you call this patch.

First, check your Mainstage preferences and make sure that the patches go to their saved state after a patch change:

20110705-bkidmpe9ffmhj48fnqcrwpsn8u.jpg


Then do a simple test:
Create two patches with one channelstrip each. Set one volume fully up and in the other patch set it fully down. Switch between the patches and you see that the high/low values are stored. Now change one volume via an external controller. Switch to the other patch and back again and the volume is as it was before. This happens with all parameters and is the default behavior most people want.

Again in short: Mousing sets permanent values and you can save them with the concert. Controlling from outside sets the values only as long as the patch is selected.

Hope this helps.
 
celestialstudio said:
The other issue I have is that I can control Mainstage from the VG no problem but I cant get Mainstage to send a program change to the VG how would this be done on a patch per patch basis?
Click to expand...
This is done by an "External Instrument Channelstrip". But before you add such a strip, tell Mainstage to accept program changes only from your controller. Otherwise the program change you send out may get received by Mainstage and switch your patches. This will definitely happen if you use the IAC bus for whatever reason. Furthermore, get sure that the sent program change is not returned by the hardware or it may also switch patches.

---

First, select the concert in the patch list. In the Inspector, set "Patch Changes" to the port and channel of your controller. After that Mainstage will accept program changes only from this controller and not from something else. This is what you want.

Add an "External Instrument Channelstrip" to your patch and set the MIDI output to the port and channel of the device you want to control. When you click on this channelstrip you see a tab "MIDI Output" in the Inspector. There you set the program change you want to send on patch change.
 
Thank you for your reply Peter, this is what I have found. I created my own template at concert level. I have a vox channel with rev and delay, a channnel with Battery for my foot drums and a channel with Kontakt for sampled bass controlled by my midi guitar and some FX return channels.
I have real time control over my chosen parameters from my guitar via the VG 99, no problem so far.
In edit mode I used the + icon in the patch list to add new patches which came up as "audio 1" in the old G4 version of Mainstage and as "untitled patch" in the new version of Mainstage.
I then went on and created many patches naming each one after the song and included a text box with music for each one as well. Now all I want to do is have small volume changes on the channel strips and fx changes like a smaller reverb or shorter delay for each patch. I made the adjustments for each patch and tried saving them with "save as patch" at the bottom of the patch set dialog box (latest version, as its not on the old G4 version) and also as save, and even just leaving them and saving the whole concert etc. The only thing that changes if I change patches is the text box.
If I move a fader (or an FX parameter) either with mouse or external controller to +2 and then move to the next patch and move it to +3 toggling between the two different patches results in the fader staying at +3 whether I have saved it or not.
Curiously if I do the same procedure with the old G4 or my new Mac pro with the latest Mainstage and use a "pre existing" stock template and generate some patches from it, then the patches behave as I would expect, that is the patches DO remember the changes and you CAN set up multiple variations of parameters in each patch and switch between them. This leads me to think I may have left out some critical component when I created my original concert.
I have tried changing the prefs re the reset to saved etc but have not got a different result yet.
Thank you for your interest perhaps you can show me where I have gone astray
cheers
Chris
 
First, check your Mainstage preferences and make sure that the patches go to their saved state after a patch change:

Then do a simple test:
Create two patches with one channelstrip each. Set one volume fully up and in the other patch set it fully down. Switch between the patches and you see that the high/low values are stored. Now change one volume via an external controller. Switch to the other patch and back again and the volume is as it was before. This happens with all parameters and is the default behavior most people want.

Again in short: Mousing sets permanent values and you can save them with the concert. Controlling from outside sets the values only as long as the patch is selected.

Yes I have done these things and the faders remain static when the patches are changed there is no change except in the test box if I have put music in there. I also tried using the mouse to make changes and then moving through the patches but there was no change and then I mapped an external controller to make the changes but still the result is the fader stays on the last value that it received and does not differentiate between patches so I stumped at present.
 
celestialstudio said:
... then I mapped an external controller to make the changes but still the result is the fader stays on the last value that it received and does not differentiate between patches ...
Click to expand...
And you doublechecked that your Mainstage preferences say "On Patch Change: Reset to saved value"? And you tried with a fresh concert? If both is the case I have no explanation for the behavior you describe, unfortunately.
 
Okay I get it now so I will put this up so no one else makes the same mistake. The error was mine. I had created a master template and copied off 100 patches using the patch create on the top of the patch list (left hand side in edit mode)and expected each patch to act as a snapshot recall as I made FX and volume changes to each patch. It seems that the only things that change are the ones you create on the right hand side in the channel strip section. For example I created a vox , guitar and drum channel in the concert template but to have the fx like reverb and delay change between patches, you have to create and call up a new channel for each fx to be added to each individual patch every time. This seems a bit counter intuitive to me but I am sure there must be a reason for doing it this way.
Cheers
Chris
 
Yep, it's the Mainstage hierarchy.

For individual FX in each Patch, place the FX channels within the Patch. Then you can have different settings.

For changes let's say within a song that consists of several Patches, create a Set for this song. Then the FX parameters are valid for the whole Set.

You may do domething like this:
---------------------------------------------------
Concert (with a reverb)
Song 1 ...

Song 2 (a Set with a reverb)
Intro (Patch 21)
Verse (Patch 22)
Chorus (Patch 23 with a delay)
Outro (Patch 24 with a delay)
​
Song 3 ...
​
---------------------------------------------------
In the example above the Patches 23 and 24 have individual delays. The Patches 21-24 are within a Set and have all the same reverb. The reverb doesn't change on Patch change and this is what this hierarchy is for. You can change the Set reverb at any time and it will affect all Patches within the Set and will not change on Patch change within the Set. One step up, on Concert level, you have a reverb and you can bus-send to it from any Set for example. This may be useful if you play at different venues where you need more or less general reverb: Adjust the reverb in all Sets for example and finally set the overall reverb on Concert level.

This hierarchical system is quite good once you got used to work with it. Always think about the three levels. Many people have problems because they don't use Sets. They think Sets are just for organization but actually they help you to control your FX settings.

You can of course have aux channels on Set level where they only work for the Patches in the Set. And for special cases you can use an alias channelstrip. This comes handy when something should be common in several Sets or Patches but not on concert level.

And you can cut/copy and paste channelstrips to get the control-hierarchy you want. This is an important stage. Building a large Concert with many Patches but without Sets is definitely a bad idea. It's a little abstract thinking because we do not see the signal flow in Mainstage. Just rely on the simple Concert -> Set -> Patch hierarchy and everything will be under your control.
 
Hi Folks long time Logic user, newbie to Mainstage. I have a solo guitar show where I play trigger drums with my feet and guitar from a VG99. I understand the concert, set, patch heirachy.
Click to expand...
:thmbup:
 
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