Screen controls overview

Screen controls are objects in a MainStage concert that correspond to the physical controls on your music hardware. Screen controls can also display patch numbers, parameter values, and other information and update the displayed information in real time. You can add screen controls to the workspace of your concert, where you can move and resize them, group them together, and edit their appearance in different ways.

There are three types of screen controls you can use in a MainStage layout:

In the Screen Controls palette, located below the workspace in Layout mode, each type has its own tab; in addition, there is a tab for all controls. You can add screen controls to the workspace by dragging them from the palette to the workspace.

Additionally, if you create and add a grouped control to the Screen Controls palette, a tab for My Grouped Controls appears in the palette. You can add your custom grouped controls to the palette, so they will be available in every concert.

Figure. The Screen Controls Palette showing all screen control types.

After you have arranged the screen controls for your concert, you make connections between your MIDI hardware and the concert by assigning physical controls on your hardware to the screen controls in the workspace. You only need to make hardware assignments for a concert once, as long as you are using the same music hardware.

After you make controller assignments, you can map screen controls to channel strip parameters in your patches or to actions. You map parameters in Edit mode. For information about mapping parameters, see Map screen controls to channel strip and plug-in parameters and Map screen controls to actions.