Brand New to Mainstage...

... and I have no clue what i am doing. I normally just plug my mic and guitar into an amp and perform that way. If I want to do a gig online and play on say Facebook live, I just plug my amp output into an adapter that goes into the Mac Mini USB. I was thinking it would be cool to not use the amp and plug into the Mac Mini but I am thinking I would probably need a usb mixer right? I would plug mics and guitar into the mixer and then the mixer into the Mac and then from there, Mainstage could be used to apply different effects and volume levels and such onto vocal and guitar separately. Is that something that CAN be done?

I have tried googling around and I see a lot of setups using keyboards and Logic and a lot of talk of patches and whatnot... I have no clue how any of that works. I do a simple one vocal and acoustic guitar setup. I have tried to plug in a mic to my MacMini and opened Mainstage but it seems to have a lot of latency. I say something and then the sound comes through a millisecond later. Obviously not ideal when I am trying to perform and sing and listen to what it sounds like.

I am for sure CLUELESS about how to get started with this app. It seems like it would be pretty cool though. Any links to good starting tutorials or if anyone can give some info on how I could accomplish what i am trying to do above would be great. Thanks!

I think that to be able to mix (adjust levels separately in MainStage) between two audio inputs (guitar and vocal), you need an audio interface that features at least two separate inputs.

There are many one available on the market.

You should expect to pay a few hundreds bucks for a decent reliable one.

In order to work properly on your computer, most of them require installing of drivers, which are little piece of softwares (provided with the interface),

On Youtube there are many available video tutorials, such as this

The commercial tutorial websites usually provide better quality ones.

Although not being free, they are more useful over time.

Most of them provide a free sampler video, so you could get an idea about the quality and usefulness of their tuition offer.

Those published on Groove3 are crafted professionnally and are definitely recommendable.

This one (from Groove3) for instance is talking about basic concepts and how to create a patche in a concert.

BTW, upon starting MainStage, there are (concert) templates you can choose from.

Using the one called Guitar would be a good start.

Adding to it an audio patche for your mic should be the next step...