A really fun way to play a really fun song.

Recently, a youtube subscriber asked me to take a look at this song.  I was well familiar with “Alive,” which was the breakout single for Young and Free, Hillsong’s newest generation of songwriters and musicians. As I began to work out all the synth parts, I was sure it would take many tricky patch changes to pull off even a majority of the parts.  I was wrong.

As I started to assign the different sounds in Mainstage, I realized that I could do more and more with a single patch.  By the time I was done, I had even included sounds I thought I’d have to leave out!  I did it by assigning each sound to a small range of keys, resulting in five different zones.  I additionally used a drum pad to trigger a sample that would have been too difficult to execute otherwise – definitely new territory for me.

Playing the song with this patch provides just the right level of challenge – it takes some practice, but it’s definitely do-able.  Once I got the hang of it, I kept playing it over and over, because I was having a blast. I think you will like it, too.

Alive Mainstage patch download

Three things:

1) Along with Mainstage installed on your Mac computer, you’ll need at least a 76-key keyboard.  If you have a 61- or 49-key controller, you may want to rearrange the key ranges to make it work for you.

2) You’ll need a drum pad or button somewhere on your setup to trigger the intro sample.  It won’t ruin the song to go without it, though.

3) The download will include concert files for versions 2 and 3 of Mainstage.  The concert file includes the main patch plus a separate patch for the bass sound in the song.