I've spent a couple of weeks now with Apples Mainstage and the Behringer FCB1010 midi foot controller I bought. Thought I'd post some thoughts / updates on here in case anyone needs it for future reference.
I'm mainly going to use this setup to trigger synths while I play bass. So I won't go into that in too much detail here, as there are other forums for that. I will say its not all that hard to setup and works very well, at least for my purposes which aren't all that complicated. Mainstage is part of Logic Studio, which includes a really large number of synths/software instruments and its easy to find pretty much any kind of sound I wanted.
However, Mainstage can also be used as an instrument effects processor, think of it as a rack unit running on a laptop. I did set up a test bank on the FCB and ran my bass through it -- the FCB was controlling Guitar Rig 3 on my MacBook Pro -- it worked well, I could change effects, cab modeling, amp modeling and any set thereof that I could program in. I would never use this live as I love my rig too much, but I can definitely see playing with it at home a lot. Pretty versatile.
Finally I'll add that this is my first real dive into midi controlling, so for a n00b it was a fairly easy way to get things rolling. The Behringer, on its own, is a little difficult to program; however, there are some great computer apps to help you set it up - on my Mac I use one called iFcb -
http://www.wabbitwanch.com/iFCB.html
Now I just have to get better at triggering the foot stuff while continuing to play bass well, hehe, but its fun. I dunno how Geddy Lee did all that AND sing too.
