Logic Pro has some incredible instruments, effects, and (if you’re good with the Environment) absurdly powerful MIDI configurations. It’d be great to take those onstage and switch between them as easily as you switch patches on your hardware synth. Enter OnStage:
It’s a simple utility: hit a program change, and call up one of 20 projects, thus instantly switching you to the song, instruments, and configuration you need. US$24.95, well worth it.
OnStage also addresses the one area Rax, the nifty live performance utility, can’t — Rax works with plug-ins, OnStage works with Logic sets. (Yes, some instruments in Logic used to be standalone plug-ins, back when it was made by Emagic, but I’ve talked to Apple about this and they’re now bundled permanently inside the application. There’s no way to get at them — they’re actually compiled into the app.)
So, you’ve got OnStage for Logic, and Rax for everything else, as long as you have a Mac. (Rax does many other things, too, like manage lyrics and visuals; you might even have a setup that used both simultaneously.) The folks at Fluqe have been inspired by their fellow Australian developers at plasq, in case you didn’t guess from Fluqe’s odd spelling. plasq and Fluqe are therefore linking to one another.
OnStage is already getting some celebrity endorsements from the likes of Snow Patrol and Chemical Brothers; Rax, too, has some celebrity users. I’m just happy when we can find solutions that work for live performance. I just don’t expect I’ll be spelling the name of this site kreat dygytal musiq any time soon. (Okay, only “musiq” there gets the full plasq spelling.)
Logic lovers, let us know what you think.