Background .The RJM GT Mastermind pedal controllers are MIDI pedalboards with a collection of buttons above which are little text displays. The normal way to use this pedal board is to create your banks using their software and define what information each button should send out...
By Brett Pontecorvo .DAWs were created to make recording music faster, easier, and cheaper than the analog recording methods used in the past. It did this so well that what was once too expensive, required too much space, or felt too intimidating for someone who wasn't...
The System Actions plugin is new with Gig Performer 4 and is multi-purposed. One important feature is to provide local control many Gig Performer global actions such as Tap Tempo, Play/Stop, setting the Master Trim among many others. If you’re familiar with Gig Performer 3 or...
A few Gig Performer users have reported a problem where, after loading a gig file, the fans (laptop fans, not your audience!) turn on, your computer gets hot and your activity monitor or task manager indicates that Gig Performer is using a huge amount of...
The new scaling curve mechanism in Gig Performer 4 replaces the older linear-only scaling that was available in previous versions of Gig Performer. Scaling curves can be associated with widgets and with the Note Velocity values of MIDI In blocks. NB the same mechanism is...
So, does it? . Well, gee, it should but there are many thousands of plugins out there, there’s simply no way for us to even find them all, never mind do any serious testing to make sure they work! We don’t know specifically of any plugin that does...
Many Gig Performer users coming from older applications often try to bypass widgets and instead use the plugin’s built-in MIDI learn facility to map a plugin parameter directly to a physical knob or slider on a keyboard or control surface. There are several small problems with...
In this article: learn more about ChordPro files, how to find them or create your own, and how to use them in Gig Performer. What is ChordPro? .ChordPro is a file format that allows you to represent lyrics and chords using text markup that can then be...
This comprehensive guide is intended to help musicians optimize their Windows PCs to process audio as fast and as reliably as possible. To get the most from your Windows operating system for digital audio processing, many Windows settings and features need to be optimized properly. By...
In this article I'll present you a new feature that was introduced in Gig Performer v3.80, which allows you to find out which plugin crashed Gig Performer. A plugin may crash any audio plugin host and there can be many reasons why, e.g.: The plugin has compatibility...
In this article I’ll show you how to control your guitar or keyboard effects (or any other instrument effects) by using a Web browser on any computer, laptop, smartphone or device, and OSC in Gig Performer. Previous blog articles covered proprietary applications for your mobile phone...
Many music professionals worldwide rely on Gig Performer as their audio plugin host of choice for live performance. In this article, we have compiled a comprehensive list of musicians, audio engineers, producers, and composers known to be using Gig Performer and have added references for...
In this article I'll show you how to use your Android mobile phone or tablet to control your guitar or keyboard effects (or any other instrument effects) by using OSC in Gig Performer. Gig Performer, our audio plugin host for live performance, supports full OSC implementation....
In this article I'll present several websites where you can find and download free VST, VST3 or AU audio plugins, install them and use them in the audio plugin host Gig Performer, on Windows or macOS.  The purpose of this article is to serve as a...
 Important note: this article applies to Gig Performer versions before v4.5. Gig Performer 4.5 can record both inputs and outputs channels. Check our user manual or watch this video to learn more). .When you click on the Record button in Gig Performer, it records your input channels;...
I see these kinds of questions across the Internet, because users want to know if they can use their old laptop for gigging or to see how well Gig Performer does work with fewer resources. These are the main reasons I decided to write this article....
Introduction Many DAWs come with their own collection of proprietary plugins. As an end user, I generally never use proprietary plugins because doing so locks one into a particular eco-system and also makes it difficult to collaborate with other musicians who have a different DAW. Nevertheless, with...
Gig Performer is an audio plugin host for live performance and session musicians, but you don’t have to use Gig Performer just for music! Although Gig Performer’s primary purpose is as a plugin host (AU, VST3, VST host) for live performing musicians, due to its sophisticated...
One of the most often asked questions I hear from guitarists is “why would I use VSTs (plugins) and a computer for my rig?” They typically argue that computers are Expensive Prone to crash Ruined by spilling beer on them Too complicated to use Etc. Interestingly, I noticed that most of...
Gig Performer is designed to be a very flexible audio plugin host to allow you not only to create your sounds but also to perform, in real time, on stage or in a studio. We’re not talking about playing 8 bars with one sound, stopping...
Scaling curves allow you to control the shape of the output of a widget or convert an incoming note velocity to a new velocity. Various predefined curves are available and they can be tweaked as necessary. You can also just draw your own curve as well to achieve the effect you require.
You can load up to 128 MIDI song files in a single plugin instance. Switch from one song to another, mute tracks and/or change their channel numbers. Tempo can be controlled by individual songs or you can use the global tempo and tap tempo to control the BPM interactively.
Create a sound by placing and interconnecting your desired plugins, such as a synth, some effects and perhaps a mixer. Select them all and then save the selection as a named favorite. The favorite will subsequently show up in all plugin insert menus, making it easy for you to recreate that configuration whenever you need it again. This feature is also very powerful for creating your needed sounds on your studio computer and then transferring them to your touring laptop.
Parameters you select in an open plugin are captured into the Probabilistic Sound Designer dialog window. When you click Randomize, you're only adjusting those selected parameters. Each entry in the PSD dialog has a curve but unlike widgets where the curve controls scaling, in the PSD the curves are used to define the probability of particular values being selected. Make sure the filter cutoff never gets too slow so as to block all sound. Perhaps adjust the max range of the VCA attack parameter so that the sound doesn't have too much delay. Constrain the octave ranges of the oscillators, perhaps ensuring that 1/3rd of the time we select 8' and 2/3rds of the time we select 4'. The possibilities are endless.
Numerous new widgets are included in Gig Performer - a new sustain pedal, plastic knobs, drum pads and more colored sliders. Shapes can be colored with different borders and fill colors and morphed from rectangular to circular. Your creativity is now the limit to creating fabulous front panels in Gig Performer.
Select MIDI devices by name. Choose the MIDI message type and adjust the appropriate parameters for the specific type
Gig Performer supports arbitrary resizing. Layout your widgets the way you want - resize the main window and the widgets will grow or shrink as necessary to maintain the same interrelationships. No matter what size screen you have, your front panels will still be neat and usable.
If you move your widgets around and/or resize them, or even delete them by mistake, the Undo facility will correct your mistake. Minor moves to a widget by mistake will no longer spoil your design
Some plugins support a large number of outputs and they depend on the traditional channel strip to control how many ports should be available.  When you only need a stereo pair, it is convenient not to have a large horizontal block. In Gig Performer, the number of available ports is controlled by the channel count override, which can be applied to individual plugins and will be remembered when the gigfile is reloaded or if the plugin is saved as a favorite.
Rather than a single audio length tail, Gig Performer 4 gives you the ability to control input muting and output fading separately. Input muting controls how much time it takes for audio input to be silenced when you leave the rackspace. Output fading controls how much time will be taken for audio to fade out when you leave the rackspace.
Instead of searching through menus of perhaps hundreds of plugins (you know who you are!), the Quick Plugin Finder makes it easy to find the plugin you need by simply typing partial strings. For example, as shown here, to find the Modartt Pianoteq 7 plugins, it's enough to type pia mod 7 (in any order, by the way)Â to restrict the list of available plugins to those matching your query. The Quick Plugin Finder also knows about manufacturers, presets and favorites.
Any entry field can be changed by either dragging your mouse (or finger) up or down, or by using the large popup touchpad where you can just tap on the squares to enter a value. The large popup keypad also does validation so you can't enter an invalid value. You can also just tap the BPM field to pop up a larger view where you can quickly change tempo, tranpose, trigger Tap Tempo and enable Ableton Link, the last allowing you to synchronize Gig Performer with any other application that also supports Ableton Link.
The tuner view makes it easy for guitarists to quickly check and adjust their tuning. You can toggle into the tuner view from any other view and toggle right back as soon as you're done. All output will be silenced automatically while you're in tuning mode. You can adjust the concert reference pitch from its default of 440 Hz to suit your own needs. The tuner view fills the entire screen so you can easily see it from a distance.
GP Script adds new language improvements such as multiple initialization sections, initialization with declarations and enhanced callbacks. The WidgetValueChanged callback now supports multiple widgets. Sysex messages are now built-in with numerous supporting functions. String array handling is much faster. Integer bit manipulation is now built-in. A new global GigScript allows incoming MIDI messages to be modified and redirected on the fly. It also allows you to define keyboard macros for your computer keyboard to control Gig Performer itself. For complete information, please review the GP Script Language Manual available through the Help menu.
Scriptlets make creating custom MIDI processors easy. You don't have to be a programmer to use them - you can just download scriptlets from our ever-growing collection on our website and drop them right into your rackspaces to use them. Use scriptlets for simple operations such as turning your single notes into chords, modifying, duplicating or converting one kind of message into another, automatic chord latching (AutoSustain), threshold detection, sysex manipulation... imagination is the limit.
Numerous other enhancements and optimizations serve to make Gig Performer 4 a superb platform for performing artists.
You can organize your rackspaces into songs and your songs into setlists and then just select the setlist you need for a show. Then simply cycle down through the parts, or use your control surface or a MIDI Guitar pedal controller to select individual parts directly.
Predictive Loading™ is an advanced feature that reduces your RAM and CPU resources by only loading rackspaces (or songs) as needed.
The Global Rackspace can receive audio from whatever rackspace is currently active. Instead of inserting effects in every rackspace, simply insert them once in the Global Rackspace and all your local rackspaces will have access to them. The Global Rackspace can also send audio to the currently active rackspace. So you can insert a looper that receives audio directly from your guitar (say) and then send the looped audio to different effects in different rackspaces. If a particular instrument such as a piano or organ is needed everywhere (or almost everywhere), put it in the Global Rackspace.
Gig Performer 4 provides a virtual view allowing you to spread out your blocks and connections to make them easier to see and manage, even if you have a very small screen. You can zoom in or out and you can use the Auto-Fit option to position your blocks to fit in the available space.
Click here to see the complete list of release notes for Gig Performer 4.5