There are so many amazing synths on the market that it’s easy to get lost in the subtleties of each one. In my humble opinion I believe you can know almost everything you need to know about classic synths by studying these 5 retro synths: 

I received this email from a reader this week:

Hi Eric,

I'm trying to determine what kind of monitors I should use with my MacBook Pro and MainStage. Do I need powered monitors? I have an apogee quartet and a UAD Apollo twin to choose from for interfaces. 

Thanks! 

Patrick

Using plugins and massive sample libraries live have huge advantages sonically, with one achilles heel: it’s easy to crash your computer without setting it up well. Here are some best practices for using MainStage live:

MainStage is an incredibly deep program- it’s easy to learn the basics, but there’s a whole other layer underneath. Here are 5 things MainStage can do that you probably haven’t done before with it: 

We received this email from a reader this week: 

Hi Eric,

I'm very new to Mainstage and I have been hunting for a way to auto swell. I can see that you can use a compressor in Logic, but I can't see how to do it in MS.

I have a swell pedal on it's way, but would prefer to automate for one song.

Thanks in anticipation,

Kevin

Pads are useful for filling the sonic space live, but can be a little tricky to tame. Here are 5 ways to tame your pads: 

You just bought a brand new keyboard, but you can’t figure out how to connect all of those knobs and faders to MainStage’s on screen controls. Here’s the no-hassle way to do it: 

Although it’s an older keyboard at this point, Novation’s Remote Series midi controllers has a bunch of attractive features for MainStage. Here’s how it stacks up: