Gig Performer is the best companion for all your musical efforts and more

15 Jul Gig Performer is the best companion for all your musical efforts and more

Posted at 08:13h in Gig Performer Blog, GP4 by

Gig Performer is a sophisticated audio plugin host for live performance and session musicians, created by serious touring musicians for musicians. Over the years, Gig Performer has matured and is quickly being recognized as an industry standard for live performers. In our dedicated forum Gig Performer in Action, you can see 100+ threads with many Gig Performer users sharing photos and setups with Gig Performer.

Although primarily aimed at performing musicians, stability, efficiency and feature-richness of Gig Performer allowed it to be recognized and used in many other fields. In this article, I’ll summarize interesting use cases that I found in our Community and the Internet.

Live Broadcasting

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Gig Performer user Tim Hartnell discovered how Gig Performer makes a really great Swiss army knife and a problem solver for his day job in live broadcast sound.

Live sound Broadcast with Tim Hartnell using Gig Performer

Gig Performer’s widgets allow Tim to have fast access to noise reduction, de-essing, EQs, dynamics etc. He also uses Gig Performer for master limiting and metering of outputs, streaming codec auditioning, tone generation, and much more.

It’s rock solid on my Clevo laptop, with lots of CPU headroom and low enough round trip latency to not need to ever worry about it. — Tim Hartnell

Read this post to learn more about his setup.

Front of House engineers

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Whether you are supporting band on tours or engineering sound in theaters or other venues, Gig Performer is a perfect tool for FoH.

Robert Frazza is recording 32 channels in Gig Performer

In our recent blog, read how well-known FoH engineer Robert Frazza used Gig Performer in the Bearsville Theater and how a setup built around Gig Performer helped him to significantly reduce the footprint of his touring rig while at the same time achieving maximum flexibility. He records every show and since he switched to Gig Performer – hasn’t lost any shows.

The fact that we can tour the world with the same monitor mix, record every show and put this in an 8 space rack that costs $50 as an extra bag on a plane makes it a no brainer. — Robert Frazza

Live streaming and collaborations

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The Covid-19 epidemic caused people to find other ways to express their artistic needs, such as through live streaming, creating collaboration videos or simply jamming online.

Full Band Collaboration, Opeth Cover with Gig Performer

Gig Performer’s powerful routing capabilities and easy integration with other software allows you to effortlessly create your setups and make music (see an example in this thread).

In another thread read what setup Paul Gandhi uses for live streaming on StreetJelly using Gig Performer:

Paul Gandhi uses Gig Performer for Live streaming using StreetJelly

Much better than a Full DAW for Versatility, Ease of Use, Lack of Overhead (what you add is what you get…) And Capability to do Anything you can imagine. — Paul Gandhi

Youtubers

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The dramatic growth in YouTube popularity along with the opportunity to earn money from sharing interesting content on YouTube led to the coining of the term “Youtuber”. You will find that some artists are “half-time” or “full-time Youtubers”, earning money directly or indirectly from YouTube (i.e. along with Merch stores, Patreon pages and affiliate links among others). Some Youtubers have their own signature plugins. An example is Stevie T’s signature plugin from ML Sound Lab (for which we also have a template in our Gig and Rackspace files forum).

Gig Performer’s instantaneous and glitch-free sound transition can help you to create quality and alluring content on your channel. You can either create a VST-only setup or a hybrid setup build around Gig Performer. Gig Performer 4.5 allows you to record your outputs and easily help you to create cover songs or produce your original content. Multiple Youtube videos, where sound is managed using Gig Performer are presented in the Gig Performer in Action category of our community forum (examples are: Jeff Wheeler and Zentaur). Another recent example is a setup of Nick Fitzgerald where Gig Performer is a part of his setup for his amazing Incubus covers:

Nick Fitzgerald uses Gig Performer to create amazing Incubus covers

What I love about Gig Performer: I tried many different things where the MIDI switching has quite a lot of latency on other stuff so you get a slight delay before your sound comes in, which is driving me nuts. With Gig Performer it is instant, which is great! — Nick Fitzgerald

Voiceover artists

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If you are recording a voice for commercials, promotive materials, movie previews or video games, Gig Performer can help you to get the best results with your voice. You can add effects and switch them on or off instantly and glitch free. For example, in this video voice-over artist and bestselling author Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff explains how great is the combination of Gig Performer with the PSP InfiniStrip plugin for voice-overs:

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff explains how to use Gig Performer with PSP InfiniStrip for voice-overs

This is running native on an M1 Mac Mini, zero latency, and it sounds pretty, pretty good. — Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff

Hobbyists and amateurs

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I was chatting with a Gig Performer user Funky40 on a couple of occasions and he told me: “Der Profi und Amateur on stage Markt ist wesentlich kleiner als wie der Hobbyisten Markt“, in the context that there is a large group of people that needs a reliable VST host for making music as a hobby.

Therefore, even if you don’t perform on stage, but want to build a compact and efficient home studio – Gig Performer is also a perfect solution for that use case. See this thread as an example:

Stoffel home studio with Gig Performer

I tested Gig Performer and found that the software is extremely reliable and very easy to program. As an electronics engineer, I got into programming synthesizers at a very early age and developed a passion for creating and reproducing sounds. This is especially easy to do with Gig Performer. — Stoffel

The author of this blog article is also a hobby guitar player, so guitar, audio interface, laptop, and a MIDI controller is all that you need to play your favorite songs (see here an example Youtube video).

Whether you are a teacher or a student, you can use Gig Performer to help you on your journey (visit this thread to see a complete template for online guitar lessons). NB: The founders at Deskew Technologies strongly support education and offer a 50% discount to students and teachers at accredited schools, colleges and universities or independent full-time professional music teachers (click here to learn more).

Music Teachers and Students

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Gig Performer’s low latency and ability to create customized panels allow it to be the perfect choice for  music teaching. In this YouTube video you can see how a music teacher uses live Zoom sessions to teach piano (download this gig file here):

We also want to present you with two projects by Mikko Patama, that are free to download: Using Gig Performer to teach subtractive synthesis and Crash course to Drawbar Organs inside Gig Performer.

In this pioneering and innovative approach, Mikko introduces information gradually and can also select when to show and when to hide the information, represented through widgets inside Gig Performer, to focus on what is important. Rackspaces are are organized as lessons and students can easily and immediately try out the concepts presented.

Everything happens inside Gig Performer and some basics are explained inside textboxes. A student is encouraged to try things out and learn by experimentation. — Mikko Patama

For guitarists and bassists, we also have a template for online lessons that is free to download. Check out this link to learn more.

Finally, the founders at Deskew Technologies strongly support education and so offer a 50% discount for students and teachers at accredited schools, colleges and universities. Visit this link to learn more.

Bonus: One Gig Performer to rule them all!

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Given its reliability and efficiency, Gig Performer is a foundation for many great and interesting projects!

For example, did you know that Gig Performer is powering PianoArc:

Gig Performer and PianoArc, Circle keyboard

… and The Netherblade?

The Netherblade, an innovative keyboard by inventor Eric Netherland.

In this interview, inventor Eric Netherland explained how he used Gig Performer not only to power The Netherblade, but also as a tool to help him in the development.

Another example, did you know that you can transform your motorcycle into a MIDI controller? Gig Performer user Mike devised a never-before-seen use case for his motorcycle in this thread; generating MIDI data to create music from riding! The controls, throttle, brakes, clutch, and other parts of his bike will generate MIDI data to create a soundtrack of his travels.

Use your motorcycle as a MIDI controller using Gig Performer

Another interesting use case is for drum and bugle corps. Many don’t realize the level of sophistication that goes into drum and bugle corps performances, and in this article you can learn about Jubal, a drum and bugle corps operating out of Dordrecht in the Netherlands.

Jubal is a drum and bugle corps operating out of Dordrecht in the Netherlands using Gig Performer

The setup we have is unique; I have not seen it elsewhere! Often, you’ll see a single performer playing a keyboard and using a laptop for sounds, but we have the kids playing on Wernick Xylosynth MIDI mallet controllers. Jong Jubal’s four Xylosynths connect via M-Audio and Steinberg MIDI interfaces to play sounds running in Gig Performer on a Windows laptop. — Ronald Wassink

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Visit this community thread to find out more interesting use cases such as Twitch streaming, Live Looping, Ambient Generative Music.

Now the next thing I love about Gig performer is going to blow your mind! (source)
What Gig Performer can do is literally the same exact thing the console does, it lets you track at very low latency into your DAW! Just how I did with the synth lets you do it with the mic, too. This is an absolute game changer for my personal workflow! — DECAP, a Billboard Top 10, multi platinum-certified producer

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Share this article it to support Gig Performer and spread the word! 🙂

Own The Stage® with Gig Performer®

Nemanja Pudar

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Related topics:
– Why use a computer with Gig Performer rather than hardware
– Why we created Gig Performer

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Scaling Curves

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.

 

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MIDI File Player Plugin

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.

 

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Favorites and Presets

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.

 

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Probabilistic Sound Designer

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.

 

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More Widgets

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.

 

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MIDI Message Helper

Select MIDI devices by name. Choose the MIDI message type and adjust the appropriate parameters for the specific type

 

  

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Layout management

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.

 

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Undo Support

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

 

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Plugin Channel Count

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.

 

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Input muting and output fading

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.

 

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Faster Plugin Finder

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)  to restrict the list of available plugins to those matching your query. The Quick Plugin Finder also knows about manufacturers, presets and favorites.

 

  

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Touch Friendly Input

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.

 

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New Tuner Display

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.

 

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