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FAQ

About Gig Performer

What is Gig Performer®?

Gig Performer® is an audio plugin host application to allow you to use your Windows PC or Mac along with an audio interface for live music performance. Whether you’re part of a band or a solo artist you can use Gig Performer® to manage all the sounds and/or effects processing you need when you’re on stage.

Is Gig Performer® free?

Gig Performer® provides a free 14 day trial. In trial mode, Gig Performer® will be fully functional for 14 days except for occasional deliberate audio drop-outs during which moments the screen will briefly flash red.
To remove these drop-outs, please purchase the full version. Download Gig Performer here.

Note that the trial version is intended solely to help you determine whether Gig Performer is suitable for your needs and because a trial version is available, Deskew Technologies, LLC does not offer refunds for purchases.

On what platforms does Gig Performer® run?

Gig Performer® is designed to run on both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows so the user can work in whichever environment is most familiar and comfortable.

What are Gig Performer's System Requirements?

Gig Performer® System Requirements:

  • macOS 10.9 or later (Intel only)
  • macOS 10.14 to 13.x (Universal version, works on both Intel and Apple Silicon chips)
  • Windows 7 (SP1) or later – 64-bit
Why we created Gig Performer®?

Here is a blog article explaining why and how Gig Performer® came about: Why we created Gig Performer.

Does Deskew Technologies offer sales and any discounts?

As a matter of policy, Deskew Technologies does not participate in any temporary discounted sales during the year. See why here. We do, however, offer a 50% discount to students and full-time teachers at accredited schools and universities. To check eligibility for this special discount, please visit this page for more information.

Plugins

What types of audio plugins does Gig Performer® support?

Gig Performer® supports VST and VST3 plugins (Windows) and VST, VST3 and AU plugins (Mac).

Can I use my tablet or mobile phone to control my audio plugin effects in Gig Performer®?

Of course you can! Gig Performer® has a full OSC implementation, so you can use popular Android or iOS applications such as Lemur, TouchOSC or Oscar to control your effects from your tablet or smartphone. You can even control your effects from a Web browser.

Where can I find new audio plugins to start my collection?

A quick internet search will turn up numerous sites on which you can find and download many free VST and AU (Mac only) synth and effect plugins. See this blog article to get started: Top websites for free audio plugins and how to use them in Gig Performer®.

Does Gig Performer® come with any audio plugins?

Gig Performer 4 comes with a number of specialized plugins to handle basic MIDI and audio operations. Some third party plugin vendors have kindly provided us with versions of some of their commercial plugins which are used in some of our templates to make it easier for new users to work with Gig Performer if they do not have their own plugins yet.

Can I use Gig Performer® to troubleshoot issues with my audio plugins if I use another audio plugin host?

Yes you can! Download a free trial of Gig Performer, recreate your audio plugin setup and follow these easy steps from this blog article to find out which audio plugin causes problems.

Essential Gig Performer Concepts

What is a Variation?

Variations allow you to instantly change the front panel settings of a rackspace. For example, if you have a single rack containing a collection of audio plugin effects such as phaser, flanger, chorus and echo, then different variations would allow you to instantly change multiple parameters so you can switch from just phaser to phaser+flanger+chorus or change the phaser rate, flanger depth and chorus width in one go, rather than having to press multiple pedals and/or adjust multiple dials. Many songs use the same audio plugins connected together in the same way but with slightly different parameters so variations allow you to reuse the same plugins without needing more memory to hold them.

What about songs and setlists?

You can organize rackspaces and variations into songs suitable for use in a session or show. Each song consists of one or more song parts and each song part refers to a specific rackspace/variation combination. Widgets values in rackspaces can be temporarily overridden by song parts. In this way, you can easily reuse your rackspaces for different songs and/or song parts, each one appropriately tweaked as required.

What is the Rig Manager?

The Rig Manager is used to manage a separation of your hardware (keyboards, MIDI controllers, MIDI pedal boards etc) and your rackspace design. This allows you to quickly replace one physical device with another, for example, when you are on tour and your keyboards are backlined. Instead of having to learn how to program or configure keyboards or controllers with which you are not familiar, you can train Gig Performer very quickly to recognize what MIDI events they generate to allow you to use different “rigs” at different shows.

Read more about the Rig Manager here.

What is a Rackspace?

A Rackspace is a container for a collection of audio plugins (in the back) wired together any way you like along with a collection of panels (in the front) to control those audio plugin parameters in real time using widgets (knobs, sliders, buttons and so forth). A single rackspace could represent all the elements you need for a song or just parts of a song. You can switch from one rackspace to another instantaneously with no interruption in sound, allowing seamless transitions from one part of a song to another, even in the middle of a bar.

What is a Panel?

A Panel is a container for “Macros” or “Smart Control” in other products, but a Panel in Gig Performer® is far more flexible. It essentially enables you to bundle a collection of smart controls in individual panels of a rack space.

Can I use the same gig file on both a Mac and a Windows PC?

Sure – our “gig” files can be opened on either platform and as long as compatible audio plugins exist on both platforms, you will be able to use, edit, save and transfer gigs between the two platforms.

This mechanism also works even if not all audio plugins are present on one of the systems. Gig Performer has a built in “Chameleon” plugin that will “pretend” to be the missing audio plugin, obviously not producing any sound, but will turn into a real audio plugin on a system where the audio plugin does exist. This allows you to edit gig files even when some audio plugins are missing, although of course you cannot edit the missing audio plugins.

Other Frequently Asked Questions

Is the latency better than common DAWs like Reaper and Ableton? Is there a way to measure that?

With apologies, this question, although asked often, is somewhat meaningless.

The latency of any system is a function of the latency of the audio interface plus the latency implied by the sample buffer size divided by the sample rate specified in the application (see table below). So if you set the sample rate of ANY application to 44,100Hz (say) and the buffer size to 128 (say), that application will add 2.90 ms latency.

It doesn’t matter whether one is running a toy computer or the fastest supercomputer in the world!

Perhaps a better question to ask is, “Can I get up on stage, perform in real-time and do a 3 hour show, switching from one set of sounds to another on the fly, turning on/off or adjusting effects instantly and not get stressed out?”

THAT (among MANY other things) is what Gig Performer brings to the table.

Gig Performer does have a tool to let you measure the actual (as opposed to the reported) latency of your audio interface.

We know people are very interested in such things but we worry that focusing on such things just gets in the way of actually playing. Wearing my musician’s hat, my own position is, if I can play and not notice any delay or softness, that’s all that matters.

Can I use my tablet or mobile phone to control my audio plugin effects in Gig Performer®?

Of course you can! Gig Performer® has a full OSC implementation, so you can use popular Android or iOS applications such as Lemur, TouchOSC or Oscar to control your effects from your tablet or smartphone. You can even control your effects from a Web browser.

What well-known musicians use Gig Performer®?

There are many well-known musicians that use Gig Performer. Check out our Gig Performer in Action page, community forum thread, or blog article to see some of the musicians that use Gig Performer.

What is the minimum Windows requirement insofar as the processor speed is concerned?

No definitive answer to that one. Any modern machine running Windows 7 or newer should be fine but certain plugins may have more stringent requirements. If you use a lot of sample-based plugins, it helps to have more RAM but 8Gb would be a reasonable minimum. View this blog article to see how Gig Performer® runs on a very old laptop.

Can I use Gig Performer® to troubleshoot issues with my audio plugins if I use the other audio plugin host?

Yes you can! Download a free trial of Gig Performer, recreate your audio plugin setup and follow these easy steps from this blog article to find out which audio plugin causes problems.

Licensing and Activations

Is Gig Performer® free?

Gig Performer® provides a free 14 day trial. In trial mode, Gig Performer® will be fully functional for 14 days except for occasional deliberate audio drop-outs during which moments the screen will briefly flash red.
To remove these drop-outs, please purchase the full version. Download Gig Performer here.

Note that the trial version is intended solely to help you determine whether Gig Performer is suitable for your needs and because a trial version is available, Deskew Technologies, LLC does not offer refunds for purchases.

Are there discounts for Teachers and Students?

Yes, as strong believers in education, Gig Performer is available with a 50% discount to students and full-time teachers at accredited schools and universities.

Interested customers will need to provide evidence of their affiliation with the school or university. We regret that this discount is not available to private music teachers.

The discount is available for new purchases only. It does not apply to upgrades and cannot be used in conjunction with any other discounts.

 

Eligibility requirements
  • Students currently enrolled full-time at a school, college or university
  • Teachers employed full-time or part-time (teaching at least 20 hours/week) by a school, college or university in any field of study
  • Independent professional music teachers
Proof of eligibility

1. Students and teachers with an affiliation to an accredited school, college or university

  • A dated student or faculty ID card that shows your name
  • or an email request that comes from your school’s email domain

2. Independent professional music teachers

  • Link to your website showing that teaching music is your primary activity rather than a minor adjunct to being a recording and/or performing artist
    (By primary we mean that approximately 6 hours/weekday are spent teaching students)
  • Email request must come from the same domain

Please do not submit paystubs or anything that contains private or confidential information.

Click here to submit your request using our online support system.

How does licensing work?

A single Gig Performer® 4 license allows you to activate up to three computers for your desired platform (Windows or macOS). So buying a macOS license lets you run Gig Performer® on three Mac computers simultaneously and buying a Windows license lets you run Gig Performer® on three Windows computers simultaneously.

We also offer a bundle consisting of both macOS and Windows license, which provides you with 6 activations (up to three macOS and up to three Windows activations).

If you need to run Gig Performer® on a fourth computer, you can deactivate your license on one of your other computers and then activate it on the fourth computer.

Plugin Alliance Customers

Why did Deskew Technologies leave the Plugin Alliance?
We have decided to pursue other avenues to manage sales and marketing of Gig Performer® .
Can I just download the new version from Deskew?
The Deskew version of Gig Performer® uses a completely different licensing system and without a purchased license key from Deskew, it will only run in trial mode for a limited period. If you do not intend to cross-grade to the Deskew version to access the new features included in GP 4.7, you should not download the new Deskew version as the installer will replace your existing PA version since the application names are the same.

If you downloaded the new Deskew version by mistake, you can uninstall it and download the PA legacy version from this website to return to 4.5.8

I use the Plugin Alliance Locked edition of Gig Performer®. Can I cross-grade to the full version of Gig Performer® from Deskew Technologies?

There are no cross-grade plans available for users of Plugin Alliance Locked edition. Customers using this edition will have to purchase new licenses directly from Deskew Technologies. Please visit the Gig Performer Store page for pricing information and ordering.

I use the Plugin Alliance Unlocked edition of Gig Performer® version 3. Can I cross-grade to the full version of Gig Performer® from Deskew Technologies?

Deskew Technologies announced Gig Performer 4 on March 1st 2021 and released it on June 1st, 2021. Customers who purchased Gig Performer 3 from Deskew Technologies on or after March 1st 2021 were entitled to upgrade to Gig Performer 4 without any upgrade fees. Consequently, the same rules apply to PA customers who purchased GP3 on or after March 1st, 2021, i.e, they will simply pay the difference between what they paid for GP3 and the retail non-discounted price at which Deskew Technologies sells GP4. See the previous FAQ for details on this process.

PA customers who purchased GP3 before March 1st 2021 are not eligible for this offer and will find it less expensive to simply purchase a new GP4 license.

What does this change mean for Plugin Alliance users?

Plugin Alliance users can continue to use the current version of Gig Performer® PA Edition that they have purchased or to which they subscribe. However, there will be no new updates available for those products.

Can I still download the PA versions of Gig Performer®?

Plugin Alliance has kindly provided us with a list of links through which you can download legacy PA versions of Gig Performer® . Click here to access that list.

I use the Plugin Alliance Unlocked edition of Gig Performer version 4. Can I cross-grade to the full version of Gig Performer from Deskew Technologies?

Cross-grades are available. Click here to see the pricing. The cross-grade price will depend on the price the customer actually paid for this edition after all discounts and vouchers have been applied.

What are the differences between the official Deskew edition and Plugin Alliance Unlocked edition of Gig Performer?

The last available release of the PA Unlocked edition of Gig Performer was version 4.58. In mid-August 2023, Deskew Technologies released Gig Performer 4.7 which has many new features. However, as previously mentioned, releases of Gig Performer will after 4.58 will be available only from Deskew Technologies and the Plugin Alliance editions will not be updated.

Visit our Knowledge Base for more questions and information.