I received this question from one of my readers this week:

Hi Eric,

I use a very similar live setup to yours using 3 controllers - one of them being a Nord Electro 3. I use that NE3 for its Native Organ Sounds, but would love to have Mainstage reach out and change the patches for me using the midi program change function in Mainstage - have you had any luck having mainstage send midi messages to change the patches on your Nord?

-Paul

Hi Paul,

Love your setup, and yes, there’s a very simple way to send program change messages using Mainstage. Here’s how:

1. Open MainStage, and select a template or your project.

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 1.50.46 PM.png

2. Under the Channel Strips window on the RH side of the screen, and click the “+” button to add a new channel strip.

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 1.52.08 PM.png

3. Select External Instrument as the channel strip type, then set which output you want to send your program change message through.

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 1.52.53 PM.png

4. Under the “External Instrument Inspector Window” at the bottom of the page, select midi output, or the >> if your screen isn’t huge. Then set the program change number you want to use.

Screen Shot 2016-05-30 at 1.54.15 PM.png

Just repeat this for each step, and you’ll be good to go. Good luck!