New VST host: Gig Performer

[Gig Performer]

There's no one right answer to this one, it totally depends on your approach to your shows. For example, I personally typically use one rackspace per song (but very occasionally two rackspaces if I need two completely different sets of sounds for a single song). Others, particularly some guitarists who are using GP and are used to systems like the Kemper or Fractal Axxe, use five rackspaces per song, each with a completely different plugins for various parts of the song.

 

Right now, you need to use an instance of your AMP or Reverb in every song - it doesn't really hurt anything because inactive rackspaces don't use CPU cycles.

 

However, if you really want to, there are ways, involving some third party products (some paid, some free) to share audio streams and you can use those mechanisms along with multiple instances of Gig Performer where a secondary instance might have just a single rackspace with your AMP and Reverb and then communicate with your main GP instance. At some point we will put together some tutorials on our website for how to do this.

[Gig Performer]

Actually, it was hoped that OSC would be a replacement for MIDI because it could better represent the continuous change of a note itself over time than the MIDI model.

 

while I knew OSC could transfer midi data, I never imagined it being used to play notes in real time

 

 

Hmm, email me via our support@gigperformer.com - I'm wondering if you're near me, I'm also about 30 minutes north of SUNY!

now I'm about 30 minutes north

 

Well, my partner and I only connected into this forum to try and respond to some of the comments and questions raised by members. It's actually a fine line for us unfortunately. There was another forum where similar questions were being asked by initially skeptical members but when one member actually tried it and reported back that it did work well, somebody else claimed that we had given the member a free copy of the program to get good reviews, convinced others we must be an unethical company and got the entire thread deleted. Sigh!

and you didn't use that as an excuse to tout your program

 

Yeah, sorry. There are a few other decent Max books if you search on Amazon. There are also thousands of online tutorials, Max is taught at quite a few universities in the US and Europe. I think that particular book is also available significantly cheaper for the iPad via Apple's App Store.

ouch that book is a little pricey - but I guess that's par for the course with textbooks

 

[zephonic]

Right now, you need to use an instance of your AMP or Reverb in every song - it doesn't really hurt anything because inactive rackspaces don't use CPU cycles.

 

How about memory?

 

Say -hypothetically- I have a bunch of multis in Omnisphere that I want/need to recall and play sequentially, would they all preload into memory or would they only load when activated?

[Gig Performer]

Define 'all preload'. Remember, shared libraries are, well, shared so the physical code for a plugin (which is implemented as a shared library) only gets loaded once, no matter how many times you use it. You can demonstrate this by watching how long it takes to instantiate the FIRST plugin and then how long it takes to instantiate another one of the same kind (it will be pretty much instantaneous).

 

Samples are a different matter and depends on the plugin. I don't really use Omnisphere but Kontakt, for example, is able to load samples directly from disk and only preloads a small portion of them until they're actually needed. Samplers that load all their samples into memory will use more of the address space. However, how much physical RAM they use depends on a variety of factors, not least of which is the memory manager. If it turns out to be a real concern, then one could leverage multiple Gig Performer instances and have a single Omnisphere loaded in one instance and send it program changes to load different samples, taking the minor hit of loading different samples.

 

However why don't you just try it and see what happens.

[midiotlv]

I just saw that version 1.2 has been released. It includes MIDI filtering and velocity layering (among other improvements). Thanks again to the developers for answering questions and providing the coupon. I purchased the software and will start building my gig rackspaces very soon. Looking forward to the next set of enhancements!

 

-D

 

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Gig Performer or the development staff in any way, I'm just happy to see my CPU far below MainStage levels.

[johnchop]

I'm just happy to see my CPU far below MainStage levels.

 

+1 to that.

 

In my non-scientific tests, CPU is about where Ableton Live 9.7 weighs in on my relatively ancient 2.3GHz i5 MB Pro.

 

Good to have options

 

[TWB121234]

Let me add another confirmation on the reduced CPU usage. I need to thin the samples on many Keyscape instruments, particularly the piano, to run them well in Mainstage on my 11" MacBook Air i7 with 8 gigs of ram. I run them fine with Gig Performer as is and with very moderate CPU usage.

 

Mainstage remains a great value considering everything you get, but I don't typically use many of the Logic instruments so I may buy Gig Performer as well.

[richforman]

I saw the Security Project back in October at a weekend-long event called Progfest at a bar in Chicago (that I attended with my girlfriend, who's WAY more into prog rock than I am!). I thought they were great but their set was really boring after a few songs when it dawned on me that Peter Gabriel has basically no uptempo songs, they are all (or all the ones they covered anyway) basically dreary slow-to-mid-tempo dirges with sad or dark atmospherics and minimalist chord changes/melodies. Good music but a little much for me all at once. They had a talented girl lead singer which I thought made for a cool interesting effect, but again not enough to sustain my interest for a whole long set. Has nothing to do with this thread and for that I apologize!

[AnotherScott]

They had a talented girl lead singer

Happy Rhodes, who has some really nice stuff of her own.

 

Check out this album.

[Ulf]

I am indeed playing the plugins in real time by sending MIDI notes via OSC messages. However I should point out that both Gig Performer and Max are running on the same computer. OSC itself uses UDP packets to send data over the network and it is the nature of UDP that packets can be lost. This is fine for such things as continuous data but I have seen single packets get lost when using OSC wirelessly so I wouldn't use OSC for MIDI over a wireless connection.

 

Hmmm, I really must read up on OSC...

[EscapeRocks]

This has been a successful trial period for me. I am going to buy GP.

 

The addition of the MIDI filters has pushed me over the edge.

 

Here's an example. Using one keyboard to control a piano and a pad sound, where I use my FC7 Expression to bring in and out the pads.

I use the filter to block everything for the piano so the pedal only works the pads.

 

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/escaperocks1/gpfilter_zpswl45hnf1.png

 

Works perfectly.

 

I do not work for nor am I compensated by GP.

I just think it's a really cool alternative for us.

[Reezekeys]

Hmmm, I really must read up on OSC...

Me too! I always thought of it in a basic way, as a "remote control" type deal, but it's really much more than that. I think it helps to have computer networking knowledge (I know enough to fill a thimble!).

 

I started using OSC a while back (with Bidule), but it was in the relatively simple context of using my iPhone to control a few parameters of an eq plugin I used. The excellent Hexler app Touch OSC is available for iPhone and Android. There's an editor program for PCs that let you design your own GUI for the phones or tablets. My masterpiece was a single-page effort with a few buttons and sliders. It let me use my phone to start & stop a sequence, walk around the room and adjust the eq. Obviously this was for smaller gigs where my two K8s were providing sound for me, the band and the house. After a while it seemed like overkill for the kinds of gigs I was doing so I stopped, but it was fun to see the looks on the faces of the other guys as I "played" my rig from across the room! Currently, most of my gigs are on the road with a FOH crew so it's irrelevant. Now I use OSC to control the in-ears mix on my MOTU interface. This is a different scenario sending OSC to another app on the same computer. It took me a while to get this working (with some help from KC's own Guru!). As David from GP explained earlier in this thread, Max takes care of a lot of the "grunt" work, but other apps that do OSC (like Bidule) may not. Making a DIY OSC project do what you need is generally not as trivial as patching a virtual midi cable and configuring a control change or other command. In my case, it was the only way I was gonna be able to adjust my in-ears mix from my Roland controller so I persevered until I got it going.

[Synthaholic]

They had a talented girl lead singer

Happy Rhodes, who has some really nice stuff of her own.

 

Check out this album.

 

I love Happy Rhodes. She does a very good Kate Bush, especially " . . . And Dream of Sheep".

 

[video:youtube]

[RoadHousePiano]

I too am finding the CPU usage to be very promising. With Mainstage I couldnt use the Hammersmith with a comfortable buffer setting and PSP L'Otary worked but pushed my Macbook to the limit. I am finding that I can use both, at a lower buffer setting (64), and i'm not going past 50%

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I also love how I can have separate workspaces for different instruments. With mainstage I had to fit all my piano, EP, and B3 controls on one screen which left me with no space for synth controls. With Gigperformer I have a separate Rackspace for each instrument. A huge plus in my book.

[zephonic]

I installed the trial today and started recreating combis I have on the Krome. For now I'm using only Omnisphere and Kontakt. On first impression it seems a lot more intuitive than Mainstage, but I'm running into some difficulty with the A-70.

 

Tomorrow I'll test GP with the Fantom or Krome to see if that works better.

I wanna use GP on a gig next week before the trial runs out.

 

[RoadHousePiano]

My impressions so far...updated...

Let me preface this by saying that I don't use backing tracks, loops, lyrics on screen, etc. I realize that Mainstage has a lot going for it and I'm not bailing on it.

I have been using Mainstage, with an Electro 2 as a controller, in a live band setting with VSTS and effects. No other bells and whistles. Obviously the price difference, especially adding in what Mainstage comes with, is huge. But if you're like me, and I know a lot of you are, you're probably using a lot of non Apple plug ins.

Using a late 2011 Macbook Pro with 16 gig ram and a SSD, I am finding the difference in CPU strain to be huge. With Mainstage if I wanted to use VB3 along with PSP L'Otary i had to set PSP to "low cpu" and my buffer had to be 128. To use Hammersmith (sonic coutuoure's acoustic piano) my buffer had to be 256 if I wanted to completely avoid spikes.

I am using both with Gigperformer and my buffer setting is 64 and I havent cracked 50%. To me thats well worth paying for GP, especially if you already have a bunch of other plug ins to use with it. Additionally, I have found that mapping parameters is easier and mapping to my electro 2 has also been easier. Any "negatives" that I have encountered are really just nuisances. For instance, with Mainstage I had a bus for reverb a bus for Amp sim and stomp effects and a bus for delay. These worked with whatever patches I assign them to. With GP you need to have a separate instance of reverb, AMP, and whatever other effects you want to use for each patch. So the setting up period (mapping controls) has been a bit more tedious. In my opinion, this is a minor inconvenience considering the plug ins Im now able to use at a much lower buffer!

Another HUGE plus is that you have a separate screen for each "Rackspace" or patch. So my screen for B3 is just the controls for B3 and whatever effects I have assigned to it. I have a completely new screen for my Rhodes, Wurly, Clavs, and yet a different one for A pIanos. I have a separate screen for Monark and other synths I might use so I can map as many controls as I want. With Mainstage you have one screen so you have to cram as much onto that screen as you can.

I've only used GP at one rehearsal but it was rock solid. If you have Mainstage and are curious about an alternative it's definitely worth checking out.

[AnotherScott]

Great info, RHP.

 

But if you're like me, and I know a lot of you are, you're probably using a lot of non Apple plug ins.

 

If it fair to say that, from your perspective, a Mac user who is perfectly content using only Apple's own sound content is likely to be perfectly well served by Mainstage, but once someone wants to add non Apple plug ins, that's when GP really shows substantial benefits?

[RoadHousePiano]

If it fair to say that, from your perspective, a Mac user who is perfectly content using only Apple's own sound content is likely to be perfectly well served by Mainstage, but once someone wants to add non Apple plug ins, that's when GP really shows substantial benefits?

 

That's a really good question. It's tough for me to say because I got to a point where I was using almost all 3rd party VSTs.Space Designer, great apple reverb, is very CPU intensive. The apple B3 is really good but also pretty CPU intensive and Alchemy, a great Synth that comes with mainstage, is almost unusable do it's its CPU needs. I will say that most plug ins that I use (VB3, Pianoteq, NI pianos, etc) ran well with Mainstage. The only ones that I found real issues with were L'Otary and Hammersmith. I think it prob is pretty safe to say that if you stick with Mainstages plug ins and limit Space Designer usage, you'll be in pretty good shape. I think the GP benefits really come though when you're introducing very CPU intensive plugins.

[Bachus]

Long time mainstage user here, and i have been trying out gigperformer for a week now...

 

I think it should be everyone that is on windows default choice as a live VST host...

 

In general you want to have two sepperate hosts, like ableton or Cubase for the backings... and Gig performer (or mainstage) for the keyboards parts... when you want to replace a hardware workstation like Kronos..

[Gig Performer]

I'll throw another possibility at you if you want to experiment. Gig Performer allows you to create multiple "gigs" at the same time and they are completely independent of each other, each one separately controllable. We had a couple of scenarios in mind for this feature such as allowing vocals to use an independently controllable (and typically much smaller) set of rackspaces for vocal EQ and effects or to be able to keep a looper going while you change rackspaces many times or even to allow a small band to use a single computer.

 

However, if you get SoundFlower or JACK (both free) or Loopback (a paid alternative), you can create a virtual audio interface. Once you've done that, in the Audio/MIDI Settings application, create an aggregate device consisting of your real audio interface and a virtual audio interface. Configure Gig Performer to use that aggregate audio device. Now you will a couple of extra input and output audio channels that actually let you pass audio between the two Gig Performer instances much like you can already do for MIDI using the IAC ports.

 

Now, you can treat your second GP instance as an "effects box" to which you can send audio from your plugins in your first GP instance to add effects which can then be sent out through your physical audio interface. Your "effects box" can have just one rackspace containing your desired effects or perhaps just a few rackspaces. Now you don't need to configure all your effects in every single rackspace of your main instance.

 

For even more fun, consider that you can use MIDI Out blocks in your main GP instance to send program change messages to your second GP instance (using an IAC virtual MIDI port) so your effects can change automatically as needed.

 

 

Any "negatives" that I have encountered are really just nuisances. For instance, with Mainstage I had a bus for reverb a bus for Amp sim and stomp effects and a bus for delay. These worked with whatever patches I assign them to. With GP you need to have a separate instance of reverb, AMP, and whatever other effects you want to use for each patch. So the setting up period (mapping controls) has been a bit more tedious. In my opinion, this is a minor inconvenience considering the plug ins Im now able to use at a much lower buffer!

[zephonic]

The problem was definitely with the A-70. With the Krome things work as they should.

 

I spend some more time with GP today, and got some advice from the devs over at their own forum .

 

The more I'm using it, the more I like it. Very intuitive, very flexible. I only looked at the manual once.

 

Look forward to gigging with it next week.

 

 

Now, what to do with that A-70...

 

[RoadHousePiano]

I'll throw another possibility at you if you want to experiment. Gig Performer allows you to create multiple "gigs" at the same time and they are completely independent of each other, each one separately controllable. We had a couple of scenarios in mind for this feature such as allowing vocals to use an independently controllable (and typically much smaller) set of rackspaces for vocal EQ and effects or to be able to keep a looper going while you change rackspaces many times or even to allow a small band to use a single computer.

 

However, if you get SoundFlower or JACK (both free) or Loopback (a paid alternative), you can create a virtual audio interface. Once you've done that, in the Audio/MIDI Settings application, create an aggregate device consisting of your real audio interface and a virtual audio interface. Configure Gig Performer to use that aggregate audio device. Now you will a couple of extra input and output audio channels that actually let you pass audio between the two Gig Performer instances much like you can already do for MIDI using the IAC ports.

 

Now, you can treat your second GP instance as an "effects box" to which you can send audio from your plugins in your first GP instance to add effects which can then be sent out through your physical audio interface. Your "effects box" can have just one rackspace containing your desired effects or perhaps just a few rackspaces. Now you don't need to configure all your effects in every single rackspace of your main instance.

 

For even more fun, consider that you can use MIDI Out blocks in your main GP instance to send program change messages to your second GP instance (using an IAC virtual MIDI port) so your effects can change automatically as needed.

 

 

Any "negatives" that I have encountered are really just nuisances. For instance, with Mainstage I had a bus for reverb a bus for Amp sim and stomp effects and a bus for delay. These worked with whatever patches I assign them to. With GP you need to have a separate instance of reverb, AMP, and whatever other effects you want to use for each patch. So the setting up period (mapping controls) has been a bit more tedious. In my opinion, this is a minor inconvenience considering the plug ins Im now able to use at a much lower buffer!

 

Thanks for this. I'm pretty stoked about the gig that I'm putting the finishing touches on. But I'll definitely explore this option in the future.

[Lee T]

Been trying out GP for a couple of days now and the results are very promising. VIs such as Pianoteq are showing a significant reduction in CPU usage and the rack setup and routeing is very intuitive.

One question - what is the best way to report bugs. I've found a couple of funnies when setting splits. I can't select E3 as a split point, it always defaults to F3. One suggestion would be to pick up the split point from a key press.

These small niggles aside, congratulations on a great program.

 

 

[Gig Performer]

Wow --- what a great discovery --- nobody noticed that so far (including us).

I was able to reproduce it so we'll fix it for the next release, due out in a few days.

In general, please report problems and bugs through our contact page (gigperformer.com/support).

 

The suggestion to pick up split point by pressing a key is already on our "we'll get to that as soon as we can" list!

[zephonic]

Actually, yes, I was gonna mention that as well, about the key range being off by a semi-tone. You can work around it, but good to know it will be fixed.

 

I felt brave and decided to do Church today without a backup plan. It went well for the most part, although there was a moment early in the service where I lost Trillian, and had to restart the application. Thankfully it was during announcements. Other than that, it worked fine, but switching between Rackspaces with the arrow keys is not always seamless, sometimes you have to press twice to switch.

 

Other than that, I now know external volume control is necessary. I though I could get by with assigning the mod wheel to output gain, but when you switch between patches your levels move accordingly, of course. So I had turned the level of Rackspace 1 down because we were backing up the pastor, I switched to Rackspace 2 which was at its original level and way too loud. Oops...

 

I wonder if there's a way to implement some kind of final volume block, not at rackspace level, but one level up, to kind of keep consistency when switching between rackspaces?

 

Also, not sure if this is possible, but could you get GP to override system settings like display sleep and system alert sounds?

 

 

On to the good stuff, I did all my usual church stuff, at times pretty intensive playing (praise breaks!), and apart from the aforementioned, GP churned along imperturbably at a 64 sample buffer, no further anomalies. Also, I started service with about 70% battery, and two hours later I was at 40%. Yes, I was running off the battery, not plugged in. Brave, I tell ya.

 

I'm feeling pretty good about this. GP is super intuitive, yet flexible. I'm gonna spend the rest of today and tomorrow programming so I can have GP running at Disney on Tuesday. I can't wait!

 

[Gig Performer]

The split problem is fixed --- will be in next update.

 

A master volume mechanism is being implemented for exactly this purpose. The reason we didn't implement this already is because we figured people could easily do this from their audio interface, either directly or by using a MIDI command (which is how I do mine). So it's coming :-)

 

I'd like to understand what happened with Trillian. What do you mean when you say you "lost Trillian"?

 

 

[zephonic]

I have an Audient iD14 for live use, but I like the simplicity of just going out the headphone jack. One less thing to carry.

 

With Trillian, it was odd. Somethin like that had happened before in the programming phase. I checked the entire chain: everything was fine, but no sound. Trillian received MIDI, and it was sending audio out, but nothing at the Gain Control.

It was odd, as it is a split, with Trillian on the left, and Kontakt on the right. Kontakt kept on sounding, but Trillian went out.

 

 

[Gig Performer]

If you're just going out the headphone jack then you should be able to use the Mac's volume control!

 

As for Trillian, I don't know what to tell you. GP has been used with a lot of plugins at this point and if there was an inherent GP issue, I would have expected it to show up in lots of plugins. Is it possible that you sent it some MIDI data that made it misbehave?

If it happens again, please let us know through our support site.

[zephonic]

If you're just going out the headphone jack then you should be able to use the Mac's volume control!

 

Sure, but I'd rather not. Also, I wouldn't know how to remotely control the system volume.

 

But you said it's coming anyway, right?

 

A master volume mechanism is being implemented for exactly this purpose. The reason we didn't implement this already is because we figured people could easily do this from their audio interface, either directly or by using a MIDI command (which is how I do mine). So it's coming :-)

 

 

Regarding your other question:

 

As for Trillian, I don't know what to tell you. GP has been used with a lot of plugins at this point and if there was an inherent GP issue, I would have expected it to show up in lots of plugins. Is it possible that you sent it some MIDI data that made it misbehave?

 

Yes, possible. Like I said in a previous post, that A-70 is old and while the keyboard/pedal/pitchbend/modulation work fine, the other controls seem erratic. For the remainder of the gig, I engaged panel lock, and it didn't happen again.

[AnotherScott]

If you're just going out the headphone jack then you should be able to use the Mac's volume control!

 

Sure, but I'd rather not. Also, I wouldn't know how to remotely control the system volume.

 

Something like this could also be useful... turns your headphone out into a balanced XLR out with an easily accessible volume control

 

https://www.dsan.com/Audio/Audio.asp

 

but it's mono. There's a stereo version, though it has separate volume controls for left and right (which can be very useful if you're panning stuff hard left and right, i.e. effectively generating two mono sends instead of one stereo, but may be less helpful if you're using stereo sounds).