Migrating slowly from other audio plugin hosts to Gig Performer

03 Jan Migrating slowly from other audio plugin hosts to Gig Performer

Posted at 22:18h in Gig Performer Blog by

Yeah, we know, you’ve spent months or even years creating your set list for your live performances, tweaking your plugins, changing them, getting your sound just right. Now you’ve got hundreds of patches and the notion of having to start all over again seems really painful. But here’s a pragmatic approach that you might want to take that lets you move incrementally as needed, rather than having to switch everything in one go.

It assumes that your existing audio plugin host changes patches in response to MIDI program change messages, something that’s probably true for every usable audio plugin host out there. The general idea is to run other audio plugin host and Gig Performer at the same time but only one of them will ever be producing audio for a particular patch.

So suppose your existing audio plugin host has 50 patches and each one responds to a different program change message, starting at 0 and going to 49 (say).

Now you want to use a really cool plugin (or set of plugins in a patch) but for one reason or another it doesn’t work well in your existing audio plugin host (compare them!) and you’d like to use Gig Performer instead.

  1. Starting with a new gig, creating as many empty rackspaces in Gig Performer as you have patches in your other audio plugin host
  2. Each rackspace will have one default variation and each variation will be assigned a new program change number
  3. Go to the rackspace whose program change number matches the patcher you want to replace
  4. Insert and configure your audio plugins as desired
    • By the way, you might have to export the plugin patch in your other audio plugin host and then import it into the same plugin (VST, VST3 or AU) running inside Gig Performer
  5. In your other audio plugin host, using whatever is the appropriate mechanism, disable the patcher that you now use through Gig Performer
  6. You’re done

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Now, when you send a MIDI program change, your existing audio plugin host and Gig Performer will both switch to the desired set-up but only one audio plugin host will actually produce output.

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Related topics:
 – What Brainspawn Forte Users Should Know About Gig Performer
 – How to change sounds and control plugins from your MIDI controller
 – How does Gig Performer compare to other leading audio plugin hosts

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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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