Retrospective — 2023 Year-in-review

Dec 31, 2023 | Gig Performer Blog, GP4, Specials

In this article we will take a look at 2023 and briefly summarize some of useful features, activities and things that stood out during the year.

New massive Gig Performer features

As some of you may know, in August, 2023, after many months of active development, we introduced several major new features as well as numerous other enhancements into Gig Performer v4.7 and v4.8. The significant upgrade was free to existing customers who had previously purchased Gig Performer at full price and available as a cross-grade to customers who had purchased a previous version at discount. Here are some of the great major new features that stand out.

Streaming Audio File Player

Firstly, our new Streaming Audio File Player plugin supports multiple audio formats, including MP3, WAV, OGG, and FLAC and enables users to seamlessly integrate thousands of songs into their gig files without using significant RAM resources. Watch this video to learn more about this feature.

Timeline and Actions

Additionally, the video above also explained how to create markers and add timeline actions to automate various aspects of your performance. You can easily automate widget movement, set captions, send out program changes or other MIDI events to plugins, external hardware or DMX lighting systems, and automatically switch rackspaces or song parts. Moreover, OSC messages can also be included in actions. On the other hand, advanced users can leverage Gig Performer’s proprietary GPScript programming language to trigger custom actions as well as functionality developed by 3rd parties using Gig Performer’s SDK.

Auto Sampler

This feature allows you to create a set of samples from individual or interconnected plugins that, if used together, might demand too much CPU to be practical for live performance. In addition, external synths can also be sampled with added plugin effects, eliminating the need to bring those heavy synths to a show. Check out this video to learn more:

Additionally, you may also want to check out this older Auto Sampler video.

Radio Groups

Radio groups allow you to define mutually exclusive parameters such as the Fast-Off-Slow choices for the well-known Leslie rotary sound. Users can assign a radio group number to a collection of buttons and then click any button to turn it on while automatically turning off other buttons in the same radio group. Up to 99 radio button groups can be deployed. Check out this YouTube Short to learn more.

Custom Font Support

Gig Performer’s custom font support allows users to incorporate their favorite fonts to enhance readability and visual appeal, design front panels that resonate with their unique style, imitate the design of their favorite hardware tools, or create a look that quickly grabs their attention. Every glance at their workspace provides inspiration and a personal touch to the live performance experience.

See this video where professional bass and Chapman stick player Alistair Begg walks you through this new feature and demonstrates his wizardry in eye-candy panel designs.

Locked Widgets

Gig Performer’s locked widgets feature prevents widgets from being altered inadvertently by mouse clicks while allowing control via the user’s MIDI device, bringing peace of mind to the musician’s preparations, rehearsals and performances. To see this feature in action, watch this YouTube Short.

MIDI Finger Tap

This feature, originally implemented through GPScript, is now built into the MIDI File Player plugin and allows you to playback MIDI files with multiple tracks sequentially by simply tapping keys, typically with two fingers (or even a foot pedal) to trigger the next note or chord. Gig Performer user Bob Millar demonstrates this feature in action in the video below.

Each time the user taps, the Player will step by a quarter or eighth note (or any duration chosen), and the MIDI events in that range will be sent to connected plugins. This keeps the user’s performance in sync with the rest of the band while enjoying freedom from click tracks. Also make sure to watch this YouTube Short, that explains this feature.

Multiple Tap Tempo Algorithms

Tap Tempo that adapts to everybody’s taste! With new multiple Tap Tempo algorithms, users can quickly and easily achieve the perfect tempo taking into account one’s personal sense of time. These algorithms work to align the system tempo or to shift effects, ensuring precision each time the tempo is adjusted. Watch this YouTube Short to learn more.

Other improvements

Needless to say, there are too many other enhancements to mention here, but there is more awesome stuff we want to share with you. In short, take a look at new v4.7 features and new v4.8 features in our user manual.

Backstage with Gig Performer interviews

During 2023, through our popular live show, we have interviewed nearly twenty music makers to provide you with their best ideas, tips and tricks and make your live performance and Gig Performer journey the most pleasant experience.

Here is the complete list of interviewed artists along with links to the episodes:

Matteo Cifelli – A world-recognized sound engineer who has worked with greats such as Bryan Adams, Tom Jones, and Robert Plant → LINK
Peter Claes – Internationally renowned live sound engineer with a bunch of tips → LINK
Cameron Winters – Awesome episode for guitarists! Tips and tricks for a guitarist who has covered every single Tool song ever released → LINK
Jens Skwirblies – An absolute master of the keyboard with many tips → LINK
Sam Andersson – Amazing episode dedicated to reggae musicians → LINK
Mike Lopez – How to build a Worship Rig in Gig Performer → LINK
Mike Rosenstark – How to incorporate random internet radio stations into your music making → LINK
Alex Faust – How Gig Performer can help organizing a gig when all of your hardware gear is stuck in transit!!! → LINK
Robin Tournemenne – A member of the Research and Development team at Modartt, the creators of the awesome Pianoteq physically modeled acoustic piano → LINK
Samuel Williams – A reggae, gospel and R&B keyboard player based in St. Thomas → LINK
Harvey Jones – How to use Gig Performer alongside some of his favorite synthesizer plugins → LINK
Dave Boulden – Learn how to seamlessly move between songs during setlist-free performances without a moment of silence! → LINK
Karl Treier – See an extensive collection of synthesizers plugged in and completely accessible via MIDI via 96 channels of audio connected into Gig Performer. → LINK
Michael Zuber – The creator of Mobile Sheets – sheet music and setlist management tool → LINK
Jeffrey Nannes – How to utilize multiple rackspaces across different song parts → LINK
Ronald Wassink – One of the leaders of the drum and bugle corps group Jung Jubal → LINK
Dave Schulz – Inspiring episode with a true live performer (30 gigs in a month!) → LINK

YouTube videos and Shorts

As you may expect, lots of good stuff can be found on our Gig Performer YouTube channel. If you are not already subscribed, make sure to subscribe so to not miss any of new features, feature reveals or tutorials.

Here is a partial list of twenty videos we released on our YouTube channel:

How to use AVB with Gig Performer → LINK
Review of the FREE e-book The Ultimate Guide To Optimizing Your Windows PC for the Stage → LINK
How to create a vocal effects chain in Gig Performer → LINK
How to troubleshooting back-line gear and rented keyboards → LINK
How to use Scriptlets (live stream) → LINK
How to use Extensions (live stream) → LINK
How to use an Auto Sampler in Gig Performer, pt. 1 → LINK
How to use an Auto Sampler in Gig Performer, pt. 2 → LINK
How to create beautiful panel designs using third-party fonts → LINK
How to use Streaming Audio File Player, Timeline and Actions → LINK
How to enable custom fonts in the script editors → LINK
How to record Gig Performer’s Sounds to your DAW of choice using BlackHole → LINK
How to use Radio Buttons in Gig Performer (Short) → LINK
How to reverse MIDI sustain polarity (Short) → LINK
How to quickly assign multiple widgets to a plugin (Short) → LINK
How to use the MIDI Finger Tap (MIDI Step Through) (Short) → LINK
How to lock widgets in Gig Performer (Short) → LINK
How to show the Setlist view without the song part bar (Short) → LINK
How to add Poly Aftertouch feature to any keyboard! (Short) → LINK
How to add Sostenuto feature to any VST plugin! (Short) → LINK

Make sure to check out all the other videos and Shorts created to showcase some of the Gig Performer features or wise tips from the Backstage guests.

Moreover, we are also happy to see more and more Gig Performer videos on YouTube channels from high-profile artists, producers and audio engineers. (Note that these videos are not affiliated with Deskew Technologies. We simply find them

An example is this video from DECAP:

Gig Performer in Action stories

.We have several hundred stories from various artists playing various instruments and in various genres. These stories vouch for Gig Performer’s maturity, versatility, robustness and stability.

We’ll present you with a list of top thirty threads to check out.

DECAP – Billboard Top 10, multi platinum-certified producer, and sound designer → LINK
Michael Whalen – A two times Emmy award-winning composer, music supervisor, recording artist and producer → LINK
Matteo Cifelli – Multi-platinum mixing engineer/producer and FoH engineer for world-class leading artists, such as Tom Jones, Will Young, Robert Plant, Il Divo and Bryan Adams → LINK
Cameron Winters – A very extensive article describing how many features Gig Performer can offer to a modern guitarist → LINK
Jesper Jensen – How to use Gig Performer to create a robust guitar modeler and effects unit → LINK
Thorsten Hillmann – Many great videos and sound tutorials in German → LINK
Christian Louw Pedersen – Beautiful Rhodes sounds → LINK
Mike Rosenstark – Unique Gig Performer use with Internet radio stations → LINK
Frode Berg – How bass and upright bass maestro performed with the Bendik Hofseth band → LINK
John E. Keys – Original videos and audio of mostly unrehearsed, improvised, musical performances → LINK
Matthew W Polack – Tips to use Gig Performer setup for a hot outdoor show → LINK
Stephan Machon – A music teacher and keyboardist for the band JusToto → LINK
Jones Tomas – Running 17 instances of Kontakt in Gig Performer plus a few stand alone instruments on a 2012 15″ Mac! → LINK
Dave Boulden – Shares his gradual transition from hardware to VSTs. A keyboard player based in the UK and plays with the band Marylebone Jelly → LINK
Darren Davis – Shares how he recreated 31 sounds originally created on his Korg keyboard inside Gig Performer → LINK ; he also shared how GP saved his gig when his hardware audio failed → LINK
Joe Luca – Interesting article describing ‘HAL’ – an Asus/Intel based PC mounted in a server chassis seated in a flight case! → LINK
Harvey Jones – Take a look at the “Stream of Consciousness” featuring Jerry Marotta, Arjun Bruggeman, and Sarah Perrotta → LINK
Alan Minnear – Can you perform with a PS3 Guitar Hero controller and Gig Performer? Sure! → LINK
Samson Andersson – Interesting experience of flying to the St Lucian Jazz Festival with The Ark Band without bringing a keyboard rig and how to fit your sound in a backpack! → LINK
Don Jackowski – This post details Live and Let Die sound → LINK
Paul Eisermann – A story about Muffin Tops and funk rock → LINK
Jan Fitschen – Showcased how he added Gig Performer to his live mixing rig for a stage production of Dämonen on SRF2 (Swiss television) → LINK
Rory Townsend – Explains how Gig Performer can revolutionize your vocals/mic setup! → LINK
Phil Muller – Considers Gig Performer to be the best music software product of its kind and is ‘like a narcotic’ → LINK
Jerry Sierzenga – How to control a plenty of hardware synths with Gig Performer → LINK
Mikko Patama – How to combine hardware synthesizes with virtual CV racks running inside of Gig Performer → LINK
Michael Manchisi – How to create an exceptionally flexible MIDI guitar set-up by blending the GP10 audio interface with carefully selected VSTs and a myriad of Gig Performer superpowers! → LINK
Magnus Sidborn – How to create a lightweight, easy to set up, and versatile keyboard set-up that can be completely unpacked and set up within 5 minutes → LINK
Rich Thomsen – A unique use case where plants gig with Gig Performer! → LINK
Tim Heizer – Explains a solid set-up for worship gigs → LINK

You are most welcome to share your own Gig Performer in Action story with us!

Certainly, also make sure to check the other threads and see what setups Gig Performer users use for different use cases along with photos and videos.

FREE Gig and Rackspace files

Being part of various forums and Facebook groups we know how much our customers appreciate the Gig Performer community whose members are friendly, knowledgeable, quick to respond and help each other – a one of a kind community on the Internet.

Apart from gems that you can find all across the community, we’ll present here twenty new gig and rackspace files – free downloadable templates crafted by our diligent community members.

Plugin Persist 2.0 – A powerful scriptlet with extra features → LINK
CCM genre example – Mike Lopez’ Global rackspace example for CCM → LINK
Behringer Flow 8 – Eye candy rackspace for Behringer Flow 8 USB mixer → LINK
Drawbar Organs course – Another addition to Mikko Patama’s pedagogical toolbox → LINK
Visual Splits – Graphical representation of keyboard splits by Alex Faust → LINK
Splits visual organization – Another graphical take on organizing keyboard splits → LINK
Eight classic synthesizer sounds – An interactive self-study tutorial to program 8 classic synthesizer sounds → LINK
Looper – Discover how to use the bundled TH-U Looper → LINK
Audio Assault Medley – Eye candy panels for AudioAssault’s Double Take, Echo Verb and Echo Vibe → LINK
The Stealer – A new rackspace for S-Gear v3.1 → LINK
Hammond B-3X – A nice rackspace for Hammond B-3X by IK Multimedia → LINK
Mic’d guitars – Three mic’d guitars and multi-layered keyboards → LINK
Lowest or Highest Note – Play lowest or highest note only, but remember held notes! → LINK
Streaming Audio File Player Controls – A nice template for the Streaming Audio File Player with some custom fonts → LINK
Manual All Notes Off – Solves the stuck notes issue when a plugin won’t react to the normal All notes off MIDI message → LINK
Hammond B-3X – A top notch take on this IK Multimedia plugin where some of the new Gig Performer features are used → LINK
Tone King Imperial Mk2 – A state of the art design for this Neural DSP plugin → LINK
Unlimited guitar modeler – Incredible gig file used in this article → LINK
VB3-II rackspace – A simple rackspace for the VB3-II plugin → LINK
Ear Graph – Just for fun: a small test over the complete frequency spectrum → LINK

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At the time of writing, this repository had more than 120 downloadable templates.
Of course, every member is very welcome to contribute to the community with their own work.

Blog articles

Fervent readers, we have a treat for you, as well!

We’ll present you with top ten blog articles detailing many configurations and integration with other applications (the screenshot above is from the Mobile Sheets article listed below).

Gig Performer Maintenance: Save, Export and Backup → LIN K
How to set up live streaming using OBS, Gig Performer and JACK Router → LINK
How to set up Mobile Sheets on a PC with Gig Performer → LINK
How to temporarily block a widget → LI NK
How to invoke GPScript functions from Timeline Actions → LINK
How to deal with back-lined or rented keyboards → LINK
How to apply operations to multiple widgets → LIN K
How to install and use the Stream Deck extension in Gig Performer → LINK
Wait, what plugin did I use for that sound → LINK
How to manually refresh all widgets mapped to a plugin’s parameters → LINK

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Additionally, we’ll also mention these useful articles in the community forum:

Gig Performer Extensions in 2023

Importantly, Gig Performer functionality can be expanded even more with other third-party extensions.

Below, here is the list of extensions developed in 2023.

Morningstar extension – Works with MC8, MC6, or MC6 Pro MIDI controller pedals. → LINK
Novation SL MkIII extension → LINK
Basic Song Chooser – A free version of the premium Advanced Song Chooser extension → LINK
Advanced Song Chooser – A premium extension that allows you to easily filter through the songs on your setlist, bookmark upcoming songs, and many more → LINK
Image Viewer Extension – Integrates seamlessly with new radio buttons and Streaming Audio File Player → LINK
Stream Deck extension – learn more in this blog article or this live stream.

In addition, make sure to check out all Gig Performer extensions in this index.

What’s next?

With many pieces of puzzle matched perfectly in 2023, we are heading into 2024 with even more passion for developing Gig Performer and providing you with the thrilling new content!

Certainly, many exciting new features are already in the beta stage and are meticulously tested by many Gig Performer power users and music makers.

In addition, numerous Backstage guests are already scheduled!

Needless to say, we constantly feel the pulse of our community and gather ideas for more tutorials and videos.
Thank you for being the part of our community — we are grateful for all your support!

If you have any questions or you want to share your feedback, please visit our Community.

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

Own The Stage® with Gig Performer®

Nemanja Pudar

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