Mainstage and Synth for playing live

Hi,

 

I'm a pc owner and have never owned a mac. I play guitar in a band and use a line 6 amp and am very happy with it.

 

I've also started playing synth on some songs and have a Korg X5D. The Korg is ok but the sounds are quite poor. I started playing around with a midi soundcard, my laptop and some VST hosts. This got me thinking about using a laptop for playing live. I've been looking at the new macbook pro with 4GB RAM.

 

I'd like to use my synth through my midi soundcard with a foot controller (like the Behringer FCB1010 Midi Foot Controller) and a laptop. I want to be able to switch between sounds like organ, piano and big orchestral sounds live. I've tried VST's from pianoteq and it is great, does logic have built in sounds that match?

 

I found logic and mainstage and am wondering if this is the software i'm looking for? Has anyone used Mainstage live like this, is it possible or am i barking up the wrong tree.

 

Thanks or any help and advice.

I cannot answer all the questions as I use MainStage more as an AU host than a machine to play sequenced lines. Logic doesn't use VSTs, but Audio Units (AU) and that is something you have to take into account when getting new plug-ins but most plugins out there do AU as well. Logic itself comes with a B3 implementation and the EXS sampler that includes samples from orchestras and pianos. Many people use them, but also many others use other plugins for piano and such. But when you buy Logic you will get them anyway, so.... Try them out. You don't like them? Get something else, like PianoTeq.