Using Guitar Rig 5 in MainStage

Question

Hello all!
I'm just getting started with MainStage, and so far quite liking the possibilities.
However, I've hit one thing which seems to be an issue for me, assuming I've understood it correctly. Each patch seems to have it's own channel strips, with it's own AU instruments etc... which to me seems a bad idea. Surely in this state, I will end up having hundreds of AUs running for the same software, which would slow things down?
On top of that, I'm running keyboard, guitar and vocal through Mainstage. All for me, as I switch what I'm doing depending on the song we're performing (and sometimes mid-song). However, this means I may sometimes want to change a guitar patch while keeping my keyboard the same, or vice versa.
So, to my question; is there a way to change AU presets without changing MainStage patch? I mainly need to do this with Guitar Rig 5 from NI, but I'd also quite like to do it with Massive and Reaktor too.
Not quite sure I've worded that very well, so an example:
I have a MainStage layout set up, which has my vocal going through clean with maybe some EQ etc. I've also got a guitar running through Guitar Rig 5, and my keyboard into Massive. During a song, I start off on keys playing Fat Bass 1 on my keys in Massive for the intro, switch to a distortion for the verse with my guitar, then Fat Bass 2 for the chorus in Massive. Maybe later I'll want a clean guitar in a bridge or something too, with some string hits thrown in from Massive again.
The way MainStage is set out currently, I'd need a patch for each combination, which would leave me with at least 3 "patches" for one song and three instances each of Massive and GR running. I'd much prefer to just send in a control message to change the presets in Massive and Guitar Rig.
Running on a 2014 15" MacBook Pro, 2.2GHz i7/16GB RAM/256GB SSD.
Thanks

Answer 1

I haven't been able to find a way to get it to work with Guitar Rig yet, but for Massive (and presumably Reaktor) I have found a solution. First, create an instance in MainStage, load it with Massive and load the presets you would like to use into Massive's preset bank. Turn it on so that it will respond to patch changes.
Navigate to the 'Assignments & Mappings' tab of the edit page. Find the device you want to use to send the MIDI CC messages. If it isn't in the list, click on 'New Assignment', which usually creates an Unmapped assignment in the 'All Devices' list. Click the area where it says No Assignment to bring up the Hardware Input popup menu. Choose your device, assign channel to 1-16, and change Type to absolute. From the number menu, choose the CC number you want to send the patch change. Set MIDI thru to Automatic. Name the input to something like CC to PG01.
Click on it to highlight the mapping info. In the far left side of the Control Inspector, you'll see a list of items such as Same as Input, Block, etc. You will also see the name of the instance containing Massive. Select it to bring up a list of control parameters, such as Volume, Mute, etc. From the list, choose MIDI Controller. The third item down in that menu is Program Change. Select it.
You'll see the Parameter values for Program Change. For saved value, select the Program Change number you want to send. Number scheme is 0-127. Now, here's the tricky part that nearly drove me mad before figuring it out. For NI instruments, one of the Range Max or Min numbers must be set to zero and the other to a non zero number. If you want to select PG 0, set saved value as 0, range max as 1 and range min at 0. For any other patch number, set saved value and range max to the same number and set range min to 0.
Also, make sure that the device thats sending your CC control message is configured as a toggle switch, not a momentary, or else it will send the range min program change number when you lift your foot or finger from the button. If you want to send multiple patch changes, add more mappings and assign different CC numbers to select the patch number you desire.
An additional benefit is that you can load up a single instance of Massive with as many presets as it can hold and use aliases of that instance for other songs. In this case you would create a new MainStage patch and populate it with an alias of your Massive instance. Set up a separate hardware input (I use logic remote) and rather than setting the number to a CC controller, set it to Any. By entering the same NI mapping parameters as above, it will send the correct PG info to Massive when you select the MainStage patch containing the alias. If you need to select multiple Massive patches from the new MainStage patch, simply assign the CC controllers to select new patch assignments. All that info is freely assignable and saved on a per MainStage patch basis, so your first instance could select the patch (say 0) and use three CC controllers to set patches 1-3. On the next MainStage patch containing the Massive alias, you could set the PG to select patch 4 and those same controllers can be set to select patches 5-7.