Predictive loading just saved my a– !

29 Mar Predictive loading just saved my a– !

Posted at 16:44h in Gig Performer Blog by
The Predictive Loading feature just saved my a– !!! Seriously!
 
I’m getting ready to go on a tour in Japan with the Security Project. My main laptop is a 5 year old Macbook Pro with a 17″ screen. It has 16Gb RAM and SSDs instead of hard drives for both speed and reliability.
 
I’ve been preparing for this tour for the last couple of months and audio is completely Gig Performer dependent. No other synths or workstations. My current gig requires about 9.5 Gb and so loads perfectly fine with every single song instantly accessible. As well as Gig Performer, I’m also running MaxMSP and an app that supports my Eigenharp.
 
Now, I also carry a backup laptop, another 17″ Macbook Pro that’s a bit older but still very good. This morning I loaded the new gig and tried rehearsing. Got audio glitches all over the place. Yuk. Just clicking on another window while playing some notes caused a momentary glitch.
 
After I got over panicking and worrying what would happen if I got to Japan and my only working laptop failed on me, I started to investigate. Turns out that my backup laptop has only 8Gb RAM in it and the kernel task in OS X was taking up 40-50% of the CPU busy swapping stuff between RAM and the drives. Once I realized what was happening, I turned on Predictive Loading and restarted Gig Performer.
 
Problem solved. Gig Performer now requires about 1.8Gb and so there’s no more swapping.
 
There’s a very slight disadvantage to predictive loading in that you need to have your rackspaces in order if you want to be able to switch from one song to the next instantly. That’s because Gig Performer starts loading just the next few rackspaces in the background while you’re playing. If you jump to a song that has not yet been loaded, you’ll have to wait a few seconds (or longer if a lot of samples have to be loaded) because you start playing again. But when you’re playing to a setlist, that’s not going to be a problem.
 
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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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