Overview of channel strips in MainStage

Channel strips are the building blocks of your patches. They contain the instruments and effects for the sounds you use in performance. MainStage channel strips use the channel strip interface common to many DAW and mixing applications. These are the main features of MainStage channel strips:

Figure. Features and controls of MainStage channel strips.

Badge: These icons indicate the type of channel strip for easy identification. The various badges MainStage uses to identify channel strips are:
- Metronome: The metronome channel strip.
- Tuner: The audio channel strip on which the tuner is focused.
- Alias: An audio or software instrument channel strip that is an alias to another channel strip. The audio channel strip alias badge is blue; the software instrument channel strip alias is green. See Create an alias of a channel strip in MainStage for more information on aliases.
- Parent of Alias: Indicates that the channel strip is the parent channel strip of one or more alias channel strips.
- Concert: Indicates that this channel strip is a concert-level signal flow channel strip available to multiple patches.
MIDI Output menus: These pop-up menus let you choose the MIDI output port and channel on which to send MIDI data to your external instrument.
Expression control: Lets you quickly adjust the expression value of the channel strip.
Settings menu: Lets you load and save the entire routing configuration of a single channel strip, including all loaded plug-ins and settings.
EQ Thumbnail: Lets you add an EQ effect to sculpt the sound of the channel strip signal before applying other effects.
MIDI plug-in slots: Lets you insert MIDI plug-ins into instrument channel strips.
Input slot: Sets the channel strip’s input source. Depending on the channel strip type, it can be a physical input, a bus, or a software instrument plug-in—in this case it is also known as an Instrument slot.
Effect slots: Lets you insert plug-ins into audio, instrument, aux, and output channel strips.
Send slots: Lets you route a channel strip’s signal to an aux channel strip. Sends are commonly used to apply the same effect or effects to several signals.
Send level knob: Controls the amount of signal sent to an aux channel strip. This knob appears when a Send slot is activated.
Output slot: Sets the channel strip’s output path. It can be a physical output or a bus.
Icon: Every channel strip comes with a default icon, but you can choose a unique icon to distinguish each channel strip. See Change channel strip icons in MainStage for more information.
Pan/Balance knob: On a mono channel strip, the Pan/Balance knob controls the position of the signal in the stereo image. On a stereo channel strip, it controls the relative level of the left and right signals at their outputs.
Volume fader: Sets a channel strip’s playback volume.
Peak level display: Updates during playback to show the highest peak level reached.
Level meter: Shows a channel strip’s playback level.
Mute button: Mutes and unmutes the channel strip.
Solo button: Solos and unsolos the channel strip.
Latency display: Shows how much time it takes to process the channel strip.
Memory Usage display: Shows how much RAM is used by each channel strip.
Channel Name: Displays the name that you assign the channel strip.
Channel Notes: If selected, a blank text field appears at the bottom of each channel strip. Double-click in this text field to write notes. Space is limited, so keep your notes short. If you need more room for notes, use the Notes tab in the Channel Strip Inspector. See notes.

In MainStage, you can use audio, software instrument, and auxiliary (aux) channel strips in your patches and sets, and also at the concert level. You can also use external instrument patches to play external hardware devices. You can adjust the volume level using the Volume fader, adjust the pan position using the Pan knob, and mute or solo the channel strip using the Mute and Solo buttons.

A MainStage concert can have a maximum of 1,023 software instrument channel strips, 267 audio channel strips, 256 external instrument channel strips, and 256 auxiliary (aux) channel strips.

You can add effects using the Insert slots, send the signal to an auxiliary channel (aux) using the Sends slots, and choose a different output from the Output slot. For audio channel strips, you can change the format between mono and stereo using the Format button. For software instrument channel strips, you can change the instrument using the Instrument slot. You can also choose, copy, and save channel strip settings, choose a different channel strip type, or reset the channel strip from the Settings menu.

Aux channel strips can be used to route a signal to multiple destinations, and as additional destination channels for multi-output instruments. Typically, you create aux channel strips as you need them. There are three ways to do this:

An aux channel strip is created automatically when a send assignment is made from a channel strip, except when the chosen bus is already in use.
When a multi-output instrument such as the Sampler is inserted into an instrument channel strip, several aux channel strip assignments are made “behind the scenes.” You then must create the required number of aux channel strips by clicking the Add button (+) at the bottom of the instrument channel strip. Each time you click it, a new aux channel strip is created (and automatically assigned to particular instrument outputs).
You can also create aux channel strips by choosing Actions > Create Aux channel strip from the Mixer menu bar.

To learn how to add a channel strip, see Add a channel strip in MainStage. To learn how to change a channel strip setting, see Change a channel strip setting in MainStage. For information about the included instrument and effects plug-ins, see the MainStage Instruments and MainStage Effects manuals.

Download the guides:

MainStage User Guide: PDF

MainStage Instruments: PDF

MainStage Effects: PDF

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