Software guide
MainStage and Gig Performer®: the basics
What a live host is, why you want one instead of a DAW on stage and how MainStage and Gig Performer® organise sounds into patches, sets and rackspaces.
Updated 29 September 2026Live HostsController KeyboardsMIDI Adapters
What a live host is
A live host is a program that helps achieve multiple live performance functionality, whether it's audio routing, controlling virtual instruments or taking the pain out of managing sets, songs and multiple patches. At a basic level you can use it to load your plug-in synths and pianos, decide which of them the keyboard plays right now and jump from one sound to the next between (or during) songs without a gap.
You could do this in Logic, Ableton or Cubase, and plenty of people do, but a DAW is built around a project you edit rather than a set you perform. Switching sounds means changing tracks, everything you are not using still eats CPU, and there is a lot of screen you never need. A host strips that back to what a player wants: big readable patch names, a set list and reliability.
The main two you will hear about are Gig Performer® (by Deskew) and MainStage (by Apple). Cantabile (Windows)/Camelot Pro (Mac, Windows, iPad) are the other names; the ideas below apply to all of them. Deskew keeps an excellent feature-by-feature comparison of Gig Performer®, MainStage, Cantabile and Camelot Pro ↗, which is worth a look once you know what you need.
MainStage
Mac only, from the App Store for about the price of a cable. That price buys the whole Logic Pro instrument library (the pianos, the Alchemy synth, the vintage keys, the drum kits) plus every plug-in you have installed. For a lot of keyboard players it is the reason to own a Mac.
MainStage organises everything into a concert. A concert holds sets, sets hold patches and a patch is one playable sound (or a stack of them). The layout on screen is a workspace you design with knobs, faders and buttons that mirror your controller, so what you see on the laptop matches what is under your hands.
- Patch: one sound, or several channel strips layered and split across the keyboard. A piano under a pad, a bass below middle C, a lead on top.
- Set: a group of patches, usually one set per song. Patch changes inside a set can be instant because the set's channel strips are shared.
- Concert: the whole show. Concert-level channel strips (a reverb, a master EQ, a click) stay live across every patch.
- Layout: the on-screen controls. Assign them once to your keyboard's knobs and faders and every patch can use them.
- Alias: a channel strip that points at one in another patch, so a heavy piano is loaded once and reused instead of loading twenty copies.
Gig Performer®
Mac and Windows, sold as a one-off licence (currently the fifth version). It is mostly about hosting the plug-ins you already own, which is the point if you have Keyscape, Omnisphere, Pianoteq or Kontakt libraries and want them on a Windows laptop as much as a Mac. It does come with instruments, though: its own versions of Overloud TH-U (guitar amps and effects), SynthMaster with 1,000 sounds and LostIn70s, plus example rackspaces built on them and an example setlist, so there is something to play the first time you open it.
There are two editions. Gig Performer® Essentials is $59 and is a very capable host on its own, with the same bundled plug-ins and templates. Pro is $169 per platform ($199 for Mac and Windows together) and adds GP Script, OSC, extensions, recording, Rig Manager, GP Relayer and predictive loading; upgrading from Essentials is credited with what you paid. Deskew lists every difference in its Gig Performer® vs Gig Performer® Essentials comparison ↗.
Its unit is the rackspace: a patch-cable diagram where you wire MIDI in, plug-ins and audio out however you like, then draw a panel of widgets (knobs, buttons, faders) on top and map them to your controller. Each rackspace can have variations, the same wiring with different widget settings, so one rackspace covers the verse and chorus sound with a single button press.
- Rackspace: a self-contained sound design, plug-ins, routing and the panel that controls them.
- Variation: a snapshot of the widgets in a rackspace. Switching variations is instant and silent.
- Setlist and songs: songs are lists of song parts, each pointing at a rackspace variation, so the show runs top to bottom with next/previous.
- Predictive loading: only the current rackspace and the next few are held in memory, which is how a modest laptop runs a huge set.
- Global rackspace: what stays loaded for the whole show, a reverb, a vocal channel, a backing-track player.
- GP Script and OSC: for the people who want the laptop to do things automatically, from remapping a pedal to driving lights.
- Extensions: a public SDK lets hardware makers and users write their own, the Stream Deck extension being the popular one.
- GP Relayer: sends audio and MIDI both ways between Gig Performer® and another plug-in host or DAW, so a DAW can run alongside for backing tracks or recording.
Which one
My recommendation is Gig Performer®. I started with MainStage but soon moved to try Gig Performer® because I wanted a more fluid interface to work with, and since then, every time I think of something I need to achieve, Gig Performer® has already nailed it. It also has a strong user base, with plenty of online discussions and tutorials that help hugely with finding your way around its features and getting advice.
That is what works for me, though, and you need to assess both against your own needs: the computer you play from, the plug-ins you already own, how many sounds a song calls for and how much you want to set up yourself. MainStage costs little to try on a Mac, so play a few of your own songs through each before you commit.
Both run happily alongside a hardware synth rig (a host does not replace a Nord, it fills in the sounds you don't have) and both take program changes from the keyboard, so patch changes can come from a button on the controller rather than the laptop trackpad.
Apple
MainStage
Current- Platforms
- macOS
- Licence
- One-off purchase
- Bundled instruments
- Yes
- Current version
- 4.3
—2007
Deskew Technologies
Gig Performer® 5 Pro
Current- Platforms
- macOS, Windows
- Licence
- One-off purchase
- Bundled instruments
- Yes
- Current version
- 5
—2017Deskew Technologies
Gig Performer® 5 Essentials
Current- Platforms
- macOS, Windows
- Licence
- One-off purchase
- Bundled instruments
- Yes
- Current version
- 5
—2025
Topten Software
Cantabile 4 Performer
Current- Platforms
- Windows
- Licence
- One-off purchase + optional update subscription
- Bundled instruments
- No
- Current version
- 4
—2022
The hardware side
A host is only as good as what you plug into it. The three things that matter:
- A controller with enough knobs and faders to reach the widgets you mapped, and ideally a couple of assignable buttons for next/previous patch. Anything in the Controller Keyboards category qualifies; more assignable controls beats more keys.
- An audio interface. The laptop's headphone socket works in rehearsal; on stage you want balanced outputs and a driver that runs at a small buffer (128 samples or lower) without crackling. Latency you can feel starts around 10 ms round trip.
- A sustain pedal that matches the keyboard's polarity, and an expression pedal if you use organ swells or volume on a lead. See the Foot Pedals category.
CME
WIDI Bud Pro
Current- Type
- Bluetooth MIDI (USB dongle)
- Bluetooth
- 5.0
- Powered from
- Host device
- Pairs without a computer
- No
—2021
CME
WIDI Master
Current- Type
- Bluetooth MIDI (DIN)
- Bluetooth
- 5.0
- Powered from
- MIDI out (bus)
- Pairs without a computer
- Yes
—2020
Tips: Before the first gig
- Build the set in song order, one patch or rackspace per song, and name them the way the set list is written.
- Map the controller once at the top level (layout in MainStage, widgets in Gig Performer®) so every patch responds the same way.
- Turn off Wi-Fi, notifications, Spotlight indexing and automatic updates; set the power plan to never sleep; plug the laptop into mains.
- Play the whole set through at the buffer size you will use live and watch the CPU meter. If anything spikes, freeze or alias it.
- Take a spare: an export of the concert or gig file on a USB stick, and a hardware sound you can fall back to if the laptop dies.