Connections View: The Gig Performer screen in which you can connect plugins to one another.
Gig: A Gig Performer file containing all the data you have created—rackspaces, variations, and all widgets and widget groups.
Instance: Multiple copies of Gig Performer can be launched and run simultaneously on a single computer. Each of these independent copies, running in its own window, is called an “instance” of Gig Performer. This is useful for applications like giving different band members the ability to change the rackspace affecting their particular instrument without changing the rackspaces affecting different instruments. Click here for more information.
Midian acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface—a standard protocol for the interchange of musical information between computers, controllers, and hardware-based electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers and samplers.
MIDI controller: A physical device such as a keyboard or pedalboard typically connected to your computer via USB.
Oscan acronym for Open Sound Control—a communications protocol that is optimized for modern networking technology. Click here for more information.
Panel: In Gig Performer, a virtual screen space (visually similar to hardware rack-mounted sound modules and signal processors) containing all the widgets needed to control the plugins in a rackspace. A rackspace can contain multiple panels, each containing one or more widgets.
Performer View: The Gig Performer screen containing the panels and widgets used to control your sounds during performance.
Plugin: A package of functionality that can be employed by any compatible host software. There is a tremendous variety of plugins available in the audio/music marketplace, but many popular plugins are software emulations of physical instruments or hardware devices. Originally developed for use within DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) applications, some plugins (called “virtual instruments”)generate audio, for example, emulations of musical instruments and synthesizers, while effects plugins alter incoming audio signals, such as from a microphone, electric guitar, or virtual instrument, offering processes like equalization, filtering, compression, limiting, reverb, delay, flanging, chorusing, phasing, and the like.
Rackspace: A collection of interconnected plugins, along with one or more panels containing widgets to control plugin parameters in real time. A rackspace can actually be pretty much anything you like: It could represent a single sound or all the elements you need for an entire song—or even just one part of a song. You can switch from one rackspace to another instantaneously—and with no interruption of sound—either from your laptop, with up/down pedals, or via MIDI program change messages.
Setlist: A collection of songs arranged in a desired order. Setlists are assembled from the library of available songs; you might have one setlist for a set you perform regularly and other setlists for individual performances requiring different songs or a different order. A song in a setlist is made active simply by clicking on it.
Song: A collection of song parts arranged in a desired order. Songs can execute actions when they are made active, such as sending out a MIDI program change message, overriding the current tempo with the song tempo, or opening a ChordPro file showing chords and lyrics. A library of songs can be built up, making them available to be used in setlists.
Song Part: An individual section of a song, such as a verse, chorus, bridge, or interlude. Selecting a song part makes its associated rackspace variation active, and can perform other actions like overriding the current tempo or sending out a custom string of MIDI messages. As the lowest level building block of setlists, song parts can be easily accessed by MIDI program change commands from an external controller, the large song part tiles in the Setlist/Song view, or by song part tiles in the Gig Performer Lemur template (or another custom OSC template).
Variation: These are essentially rackspace presets, all containing the same plugins and interconnections, but with different widget settings. For example, you can create a rackspace to add phasing to a piano sound, and then add several variations, each with different degrees of phase intensity. Since variations actually store widget settings, every parameter you want stored in a variation must be assigned to a widget on a rack panel. As with rackspaces, you can switch from one variation to another instantaneously—and with no interruption of sound—either from your laptop, with up/down pedals, or via MIDI program change messages.
Widget: A virtual object (such as a knob, slider, button, or meter) used to control and/or display plugin settings. Widgets can be operated either with your laptop’s mouse or trackpad, or remotely from a MIDI controller. With the use of OSC, widgets can also be operated from iOS / Android tablets or smartphones.
Widget group: A collection of widgets that operate ganged together, where changing one widget in the group changes all of the others in the group, as well. This is a powerful method for controlling multiple plugin parameters simultaneously. For example, you could create several slider widgets that control the volume of various plugins and then raise or lower the volume of all of them by moving any one of them. In addition, individual widget scaling allows simple implementation of effects such as cross-fading. For more information, see the widget group reference section.
