Automatically play through a series of patches?

I'm hoping this isn't a terribly stupid question. I have not found the manual to be too helpful in this regard, but it seems like what I'm trying to do should be possible.

 

I have a concert set up in MS2, with a patch for each song in my band's set list. Each patch consists of multiple instances of the Playback plug-in, playing the drums for our songs. We're also running some vocal effects off of it. Everything works great, everything sounds great. The only problem is that, at the moment, we have to go to the laptop and manually start each song--this obviously isn't ideal when we gig (we don't have a keyboard player--just two guitarists and a bassist). So, is there a way to set it to start the first song and just keep going from patch to patch to patch, all the way to the end of the setlist? We don't need to interact with it, we just need it to start and run through everything to the end of the setlist. Any advice would be much appreciated!

I do not think it is possible to set this up to run automatically in the way you are describing. But I think it would be quite useful to connect a MIDI foot controller to the laptop, and simply control the change of patches with a foot switch.

Would I be able to start the patches from the footswitch as well as advance them? MIDI, alas, is largely alien to me. There's no way to make the show proceed automatically?

 

Would it be possible to write an Applescript to do this? Would that work in Mainstage?

 

I think our setlist will really lose momentum if someone has to keep walking over to the laptop in between songs.

Maybe not a grat tip, anyway... you might bounce a certain number of playback tracks onto a single, longer, track.

Anyhow i think it will be an important point of future releases of MS to give different options about how to play subsequent playbacks.

Yes, with a MIDI foot switch, such as the Apogee GiO or Behringer FCB1010 (search the forum for message threads on other options), you will be able to control Mainstage to advance from patch to patch, start/stop the playback plug-ins, enable/disable effects, etc. I think that is all that you would need and more.

 

You do not need to know much about MIDI to set it up, you can just the Learn function in Mainstage to assign the foot switches to on-screen buttons.

 

Using AppleScript is another possibility, but unless you have experience controlling applications from AppleScript, I think that will be more error-prone and require a steeper learning curve. A MIDI foot switch will keep you in control without getting in the way.

You'll need to set up a controller of some sort to do this, or use the computer keyboard. Sounds like the minimum you need is something to switch patches for you.

 

I just came from NAMM - the Gio looks nice, but if you don't need the audio interface part there are other choices that would work as well.

 

The trick is to group your playbacks (I would guess you've figured this out already) and have them set to start playback on patch change (and indeed you may have this set up already as well.)

Thanks for all of the help. The Gio is definitely more than we need. I'm thinking of maybe the Tech 21 MIDI-Mouse pedal. Can anyone think of why that wouldn't work?