A corrupt MainStage concert has got to be one of the worst things in the world, especially if you’ve been working on it for a long time. While all may seem lost, it’s actually possible to rebuild a MainStage concert in some cases. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to turn a corrupt MainStage concert into a patch file that can be easily imported into a new concert file.

Create & Import the Patch File

Did you know a MainStage concert is actually a folder in disguise? Even though .concert is used as an extension, right clicking on a concert file reveals that it’s possible to Show Package Contents.

Take a look inside the Nodes folder. It contains all the patches and sets in your concert. Conveniently enough, this file hierarchy is very similar to that of a .patch file, which can be imported and exported in MainStage.

Here’s how you can create a patch file containing all your patches and sets from the remnants of a corrupted MainStage concert. I recommend reading through the whole tutorial once before starting the process.

  1. Navigate to the corrupt MainStage concert, right click, and select Show Package Contents.
  2. Open the Nodes folder. You should see folders corresponding to sets in your concert, a few .plistZ files, and your master channel strips (e.g. 001 Reverb.cst, etc.)
  3. Create a new folder, and copy the contents of the Nodes folder into the new folder.
  4. Delete mappings.plistZ and uidata.plistZ from the root directory of the new folder. Do not delete any files inside the set and patch folders.
  5. Rename base.plistZ in the new folder to nodes.plistZ.
  6. The rest of the tutorial requires a basic knowledge of Terminal to show and hide hidden files. If you are not comfortable using Terminal, download and use invisibliX instead.
  7. Open up Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app), and use the following command to show hidden files: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
  8. Use the following command to restart finder: killall Finder
  9. Download this file (LSOverride), and move it into the new folder. MS2 users should download this one instead.
  10. Rename the file to .LSOverride. Ignore the Finder warning about hidden files.
  11. Open up Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app), and use the following command to hide hidden files: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
  12. Use the following command to restart finder: killall Finder
  13. The folder should now contain .LSOverride (hidden), nodes.plistZ, and the set folders.
  14. Append .patch at the end of the new folder, so it looks something like YourConcert.patch. Ignore the Finder warning about showing the folder as a single file.
  15. Create a new concert file, save it, and close the file.
  16. Right click on the corrupt concert file and Show Package Contents.
  17. Right click on the new concert file and Show Package Contents.
  18. Move the Sampler Instruments and Samples folders from the corrupt concert to the new one.
  19. Open the new concert file, and import YourConcert.patch by clicking ⌘I.
  20. Wait for the file to finish importing, then save it. The import process can take a long time depending on how complex the concert is. I recommend not touching your computer during the import process.
  21. Remember to backup consistently to avoid having to do this again in the future.

Disclaimer:_ This method may not work for all types of corruption._

This method has been confirmed working in the latest versions of MainStage 2 and MainStage 3 (up to 3.1.x). For information on rebuilding MainStage 3.2 concerts, click _ here._