Can Mainstage 2 drive Apple Keynote, or other video/slides?

[Shawn S]

Greetings fellow Logicians...

 

I'm a Logic 8 newbie, and am looking to upgrade to 9, mainly for Mainstage 2. I'm a one-man band. Years ago I used to have a full-blown MIDI show with a simple footswitch driving sequencers, keys, drum machines, and complicated lighting all via a very cool setlist feature in a program called MasterTrax Pro (rest it's soul...they went out of business years ago, as did the support for newer OS's). I'm looking to resurrect this idea again in concert, and I'd like to add video/slides, if possible...

 

I'm looking to use a footswitch (Apogee GiO or Roland FC-300) to control Mainstage 2 in concert to call up/launch: Playback audio, guitar patches, do live looping, drive keyboard MIDI instruments & fx, and lighting cues via MIDI. I'm really psyched about this. (Looks like this will all work via MIDI control changes with Mainstage, and one of the above pedal boards connected to my MacBook Pro via USB, right?).

 

Here's my dilemma and main question: Is there any way that Mainstage 2 can drive Keynote (slides/video/text) via MIDI control/patch changes, or via some other protocol? (i.e. Hit a footswitch button, and it jumps to a specific slide/sequence, based on a MIDI control change, or other protocol?) Or, is there any way to drive other multi-media programs (Quicktime, Powerpoint, Mediashout, etc.) via Mainstage? My goal is to hit one footswitch which will launch both the audio (Mainstage) and video/slide-show (Keynote or other program) via MIDI-mapping in Mainstage, ideally both playing on the same computer, or 2 Macs synced, if necessary.

 

Seems simple enough, since there are programmable hand-held remotes that control Keynote (forward/back one slide, pause, blackout, etc.), I'm just not sure what protocol they're using (I'm not a programmer). Makes sense there would be a way to map MIDI control data thru the Mac OS to control Keynote (forward/back one slide, or ideally, skip to a specific slide/sequence, like with a MIDI program change), I just can't find anything on the support sites for Keynote, Mainstage, Logic, or the GiO or FC-300, or anything else with Google. Anyone try this before? Any ideas? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you! (and thanks for this site...such an incredible resource, community, and help. Thanks!)

 

Shawn

[Shawn S]

A friend from the Apple Mainstage forum pointed me to Alien Apparatus Show Control application and footswitch. (www.alienapparatus.com). I think this may be a solution for controlling Keynote, but now I'm wondering if it will work with MS2. Below is my dialogue with Alien Apparatus tech support. I think my biggest questions now is if Show Controller will work w/Mainstage 2 (I really want to use MS2 for the guitar rig and live looping, I think).

 

My questions now are:

 

1) Can MS2 receive MIDI program changes (like from Show Controller and/or the Show Controller footswitch?) Is this how the GiO, FC-300 and other footswitches communicate/control MS2, or is it another protocol? (Please forgive my ignorance; I don't have MS2, and can't find this documentation online)

 

2) Alien apparatus mentions to run both programs on the same computer, "You just set up the receiving program to watch for MIDI on the IAC bus." Are you able to set this "IAC bus" to receive MIDI in MS2? If so, is it in the MS2 documentation on how to do this?

 

3) Does anyone know if Show Controller will work with Mainstage 2 with or without the footswitch?

 

4) If MS2 will work with Show Controller, does it work by using the "IAC bus", or some other means? Can both programs run on the same computer?

 

5) I read on one of these threads that, "There's a new command editor in Mainstage 2 that lets me remap any available command to any keyboard shortcut I want to create." Is it possible control other programs via keystroke commands, or Hotkeys, (i.e. control Keynote) from Mainstage, or is this command editor only for setting up and controlling keystrokes WITHIN MS?

 

6) Will MS2 respond to keystroke or Hotkey commands from Show Controller, or another program?

 

Could someone test any of these questions for me if you have the programs? I don't have Mainstage 2, and can't download Show Controller until I get back from the road in a couple of days. Thanks for any help or knowledge you can pass along.

 

Here's the tech support dialogue with alien apparatus:

 

1) Can you use Show Controller to control Keynote specifically? Have you done it? Can you program Show Control to trigger the "keystrokes" in Keynote? Are "keystrokes" the same as "hotkeys", or is the a Mac OSX command? Can you email me some documentation/links about this? If not Keynote, is there any other program you can recommend that will play photo slide shows, video, lyrics w/beautiful transitions, that will respond to keystrokes and/or MIDI program changes from Show Controller that I can call up specific scenes from your foot controller with?

 

Yes, you can control Keynote with the Hotkeys feature. Just to make sure of this, I just called up Show Controller and Keynote and did it. Yep, it certainly can be done. In fact, you can download the demo of Solo Performer Show Controller from our web site and you can give it a go yourself. Hotkeys are really just keypresses that you can send to other programs. In this case I sent right arrow keypresses to advance the Keynote slides. In the Hotkey editor of Solo Performer Show Controller, there is a field where you type in the keys to send. In this case, I want to send a right-arrow key. This is a "special" key that does not show up when you type in the field, so what you do is type "" into the field. These "special" key commands are documented in both the manual and the online help. If you ever get stuck, just fire an email to me and ask.

 

2) Can you run Show Controller on the same computer as Keynote? The Keynote Help in Keynote '08 talks about "Using Other Applications During a Presentation": To use Exposé, Dashboard, or other applications (such as Remote Desktop) while you’re playing a slideshow, you need to set a Keynote preference. Choose Keynote > Preferences, click Slideshow, and select “Allow Exposé, Dashboard, and others to use screen.” Selecting this option may cause your slideshow to run more slowly and animations to display poorly." Have you done this?

 

You sure can run Show Controller and Keynote on the same computer. I just did it. One thing that I should point out, though, is that Keynote tries to take over your entire screen. If you have a second screen or projector (as you have indicated that you do), then you should be fine. Otherwise, you will only see Keynote unless muck about with Keynote's preferences as you've pointed out. If you're displaying on a second monitor (or projector), then you don't need to worry about any of this.

 

3) Can you run Show Controller to drive Mainstage 2 and/or Logic, to take advantage of all the live audio capabilities (i.e. Pedal Board, real-time fx, soft synths, etc.) Have you done it?

 

I've never done it personally. Generally I just run all of my audio form Solo Performer Show Controller. But you very likely can accomplish what you want. Solo Performer Show Controller can send MIDI commands that most audio programs will respond to. You can send MIDI commands to the IAC bus. This is how you send MIDI to programs that are running on your computer; its an "internal" MIDI chain. You just set up the receiving program to watch for MIDI on the IAC bus.

 

4) Can Mainstage 2 be used as a slave to Show Controller? Can you run them both on the same mac? Have you done it?

 

I've never done this, but I see no reason why it can't be done. Solo Performer Show Controller can send either MIDI or hotkeys out that Mainstage should respond to.

 

5) Can you run Show Controller and Mainstage 2 on the same machine, or do you need 2 macs?

 

You should be able to do this with one Mac.

[eelco]

Is there any way that Mainstage 2 can drive Keynote (slides/video/text) via MIDI control/patch changes, or via some other protocol? (i.e. Hit a footswitch button, and it jumps to a specific slide/sequence, based on a MIDI control change, or other protocol?) Or, is there any way to drive other multi-media programs (Quicktime, Powerpoint, Mediashout, etc.) via Mainstage?

I have no experience with this, so perhaps someone else can elaborate, but shouldn't this be possible by triggering Apple Script actions from Mainstage?

[Shawn S]

I have no experience with this, so perhaps someone else can elaborate, but shouldn't this be possible by triggering Apple Script actions from Mainstage?

 

Thanks, eelco. I have no clue. I don't have the Mainstage 2 yet; Is there anything in MS2 documentation that says anything about Apple Script actions?

 

Shawn

[eelco]

Yes, but the documentation on the topic is extremely sparse:

 

The Actions folder, which appears in the Parameter Mapping browser along with available parameters, contains actions for a variety of MainStage functions. The Actions folder also contains an AppleScript subfolder with useful scripts.

 

That's it. The "useful scripts" that came installed with my copy of Mainstage 2 are all for controlling iTunes. I suppose there should be some way of adding your own Applescripts, for controlling other applications, including Keynote, but I have not found how to do that in the manual.

 

===

 

Update: I have had a look around, and apparently these AppleScripts can be found in the location:

/Library/Application Support/Logic/MainStage Scripts/

 

You can add your own scripts there, and they will show up in the Mainstage browser. I have not been successful so far in getting even the iTunes scripts to work though. I can assign the iTunes-PlayPause action to a button, but when pressing the button, iTunes does not yet play or pause. I must be doing something wrong still.

 

===

 

Another update: I have tested the iTunes AppleScripts from MainStage on my other computer, and they work as advertised. It should certainly be possible to write AppleScripts that go to next/previous slides in Keynote, and trigger them from MIDI controllers in Mainstage!

[Shawn S]

eelco: SUCH great news. Thank you. I really appreciate the help.

 

Please let me know if you, or anyone else knows how to create/activate an Applescript for another app's keystrokes w/Mainstage. I've never done anything with Applescripts, but plan to try to do some research on this next week when I get back home from the road.

Thanks again...gives me some hope! Shawn

[eelco]

Glad to be of help. Unfortunately, I have never used Applescript either.