IntuitiveKeys MainStage Templates
Your Favorite Keyboard
Intuitive Keys is a MainStage template, that immediately transforms your Mac into your favorite synth and stage piano all in one. IK is a live / arranging / performing tool, and plays nicely integrates perfectly with your favorite hardware synths. The synth engine encourages you to play the sound using the mod wheel and aftertouch which gives each sound an emotional range, while the piano engine is always available for layering and lets you quickly dial in the mood and ambience you’re looking for with just a couple clicks.
The Synth Engine
IK’s “secret sauce” is the large X-Y pad featured prominently in the interface which allow you to see exactly how you’re affecting (modulating) your sound. We all love the idea of knobs on our synths, but it’s also easy to feel overwhelmed trying to figure out which one does what. IK has done that homework for us as part of our sound design (we call it, “thinking slow”) and selected the most interesting knobs over the most useful range, and tastefully mapped those parameters to the mod-wheel or aftertouch. In our paradigm, the horizontal or X-coordinate responds to your controller’s mod-wheel, and the vertical or Y-coordinate responds to your controller’s aftertouch. These controlls make your sounds subtly and intuitively move, shift, grow, and come alive in two dimensions. With a bit of practice this starts to happen automatically, intuitively (we call it, “thinking fast”). Sounds we play with intentionality help us tell a more compelling story compared with sounds that are either static or predictable. Just these two controls can help us respond to what is happening in the moment. Playing aftertouch live is not a skill we learned from piano lessons, but once you use it a bit, we think you’re going to be hooked.
The Piano Engine
IK is sometimes described as a “piano-centric” template, and we couldn’t be more excited about that. The complexity, tone, color, body, sympathetic resonance, and stretch tuning of a piano all combine in such a special way, we believe piano remains central to the responsibilities of the modern keyboardist. So a menu of pianos are always just a few button pushes away, regardless of any other sounds you have playing. To accomplish this, our pianos are implemented at the concert level in MainStage and routed through a menu of EQs, compressors, reverbs, and delays which you can reconfigure with just a few buttons, and which stay put even if you change the synth patch. The piano’s color is mapped to the mod wheel, allowing you to quickly dial in the exact amount of presence the song needs. Changing from one piano to the next is instantaneous, while your piano engine configuration and other sound layers remain unchanged.
Efficient Architecture
IK’s architecture is highly efficient, which makes it fast and reliable. Instead of each instrument channel loaded down with multiple instances of identical effects, sends are used to minimize instances and improve behavior changing patches. Equally important, just one instance of each instrument exists in our template, and aliases are used for everything else and available to the user. This means that as we duplicate sounds for a song and setlist, or even build out our own custom combinations, resource demands don’t pile up, and the template doesn’t get bogged down. Finally, the battle with gain structure is no more: our faders default position is all the way up, and you will see this on each instrument bus as well as our master channel. This approach asks the user to cut not gain on specific instruments types on the fly, or even quickly dial down effects (reverb, shimmer, delay) returns, if something unanticipated happens. While we prefer to do our technical homework ahead of time, the ability to control our sound at the template level let’s us quickly fine tune our overall sound for a changing venue or band.
IK is the template that lets you keep our head and heart in the music when it’s time to make some sound.
Four Templates
| 8INATOR | LIVE | LEGACY | PRO / PRO X |
|---|---|---|---|
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| $20 | $40 | $60 | $80 |
| A surprisingly fun and useful pad machine (oct-in-a-tor) | Our starting “flagship” template focused on live performance – the full quality of Legacy, simplified for Live use | We began here, with the idea of getting the most out of stock MainStage – absolute insanity what can be done with just stock | Based on Legacy, but leveraging our favorite VSTs as well – highly efficient but with lots of “what is that sound” questions |
| Needs pads? Used to just piano? Look no further! | A top-tier starter template that will get you playing quickly | A top-tier starter template with professional sound | Deep professional products for the VST veterans |
| Perfect anytime you need lots of glorious pads accessible with a GUI | No tempo-dependent sounds – so a click track and in ear monitors are not necessary | Ideal performing with a click track & IEMs as it includes tempo-dependent sounds and effects | Ideal performing with a click track & IEMs as it includes tempo-dependent sounds and effects |
| Features 8 pads and a stage piano configuration featuring two pianos and a hardware audio input | Features a full range of our best sounds plus a stage piano with two pianos and hardware audio input | Our absolute best with stock MS, plus a stage piano with two pianos and hardware audio input | Stage Piano Pro is preconfigured to access six 3rd party pianos at the touch of a button |
| 8 instrument instances 24 combinations 2 pianos + hardware | 69 instrument instances 49 combinations 2 pianos + hardware | 102 instrument instances 97 combinations 2 pianos + hardware | 102 instrument instances 97 combinations 6 pianos |
| Analog Pads [5 instruments] Digital Pads [3 instruments] | Keyboards [14 instruments] Analog Pads [17 instruments] Digital Pads [10 instruments] Synths [16 instruments] Orchestral [12 instruments] | Keyboards [14 instruments] Analog Pads [17 instruments] Digital Pads [10 instruments] Synths [16 instruments] Orchestral [12 instruments] Movement [33 instruments] | Keyboards [14 instruments] Analog Pads [17 instruments] Digital Pads [10 instruments] Synths [16 instruments] Orchestral [12 instruments] Movement [33 instruments] |
| Pads: 24 Combinations | Transients / Tones / Layers: 13 combinations ideal for first keys and layering with the piano Pads / Strings: 36 combinations of analog, digital, and orchestral pads | Transients / Tones / Layers: 13 combinations ideal for first keys and layering with the piano Pads / Strings: 36 combinations of analog, digital, and orchestral pads that can stand alone Movement Combinations: 22 combinations of movement patches. Drummer MUST be playing to a click! EDM Combos: 26 combinations focused on performing modern Electronic Dance Music sounds, live. | Transients / Tones / Layers: 13 combinations ideal for first keys and layering with the piano Pads / Strings: 36 combinations of analog, digital, and orchestral pads that can stand alone Movement Combinations: 22 combinations of movement patches. Drummer MUST be playing to a click! EDM Combos: 26 combinations focused on performing modern Electronic Dance Music sounds, live. |
| Any 8INATOR patch can be duplicated, edited with the GUI, and saved as a new preset – couldn’t be easier! | All instrument patches aliased for quick and easy duplication of sounds and creation of new layers, without any additional template overhead | All instrument patches aliased for quick and easy duplication of sounds and creation of new layers, without any additional template overhead | All instrument patches aliased for quick and easy duplication of sounds and creation of new layers, without any additional template overhead |
| 100% Stock MainStage nK2 support | 100% Stock MainStage nK2 and tOSC support | 100% Stock MainStage nK2 and tOSC support | MainStage (nK2 & tOSC) Requires Valhalla Vintage Verb, Shimmer, Delay, and Supermassive. PRO requires NI Giant, Alicia’s, Grandeur, and Maverick / PROX requires Noire |
| Supported by MS v3.5 or later | Supported by MS v3.5 or later | Supported by MS v3.5 or later | Supported by MS v3.5 or later, requires Kontakt 7 |
| Not Expandable | Supports IK Expansion Packs! | Supports IK Expansion Packs! | Supports IK Expansion Packs! |
| Highly efficient – can push CPUs | Highly efficient – reasonable on CPU/RAM | Highly efficient – reasonable on CPU/RAM | Highly efficient – although can take a few minutes to load |
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| An extremely fun and powerful pad machine in a novel design | Full range and quality that covers all the bases | You can do a modern professional gig with this… it’s amazing | This is not your first rodeo and you’ve invested in 3d party VSTs, so let’s do this thing! |
| Free lifetime updates | Free lifetime updates | Free lifetime updates | Free lifetime updates |
| Discover 8INATOR | Discover LIVE | Discover LEGACY | Discover PRO / PROX |