Alex Faust

Gig Performer in Action
1

Switching to Gig Performer from hardware with a time crunch

My Name is Alex Faust, I’m from Germany and playing keyboards in cover bands since about 20 years.
After some bad MIDI experiences 20 years ago I decided to play only with hardware keys…no MIDI, all sounds programmed in my keyboards…so no worries during live shows. That’s quiet some time ago, but it was still in my mind.

I was working 3 years in the USA, and I took my gear with me and quickly found a band in Georgia. We had a good time and played a lot of gigs together. I was using a KORG KRONOS and a NORD Electro 5D.

When my contract was ending, I moved back to Germany. All my stuff went in a sea container and took 3,5 months to arrive in Germany. Then I had a problem: they asked me to come back to the US to play two gigs four weeks after I left. All my stuff somewhere on a container vessel. So I thought about a solution. My friend told me about using an iPad and play some MIDI-sounds from there. Then I started researching the internet.
Ableton, Mainstage…seemed to be the software I would need. But in different forums I found a lot of different opinions. Somehow I found Gigperformer and also found out about many people switching from hardware keys to VST-platforms. It took a week to look for further information - because I still had the old MIDI issues in mind. Is Gigperformer maybe a solution for me to go with in future? Will it run stable? How long do I need to get into it?

I found a lot of tutorials on YouTube. Then I had to take a decision. I bought Gigperformer, a MacBook (never had one before) and Native Instruments Komplete 13. Let’s try it and see how it goes.

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It was so easy to set everything up. I started to understand the rackspaces, variations and song-structures.
Then I began to re-program my sounds I needed for my band. I had about two weeks to finalize everything beside work. And I was able to do it.

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GLOBAL.rackspace (726.3 KB)

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The other thing I was used to is using an iPad with UnrealBook to navigate through my sheets during a show. Every sheet has a MIDI program change number programmed. With a MIDI blue tooth adaptor on my KRONOS I was able to change the sound by just switching to the next sheet. I needed this in Gigperformer as well. And also this was easy: I connected the iPad to the MacBook via USB, and it worked. I just had to reassign the bank numbers according to the setlist song positions.

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Easy travel back to the US: MacBook, Sustain Pedal, Motu audio interface and some cables - here we go. I borrowed a stage piano and a stand from a friend - and we played two gigs together. All went well.

I sold my KRONOS 3 weeks ago. Sure I miss it, but I will stay with my new setup up. I really enjoy it!

Thanks for reading my little story,
y’all be safe.

Alex

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Thank you very much for sharing this :beers:

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What a great story, @alex1974, and another testimonial as to how great Gig Performer is for the average, every day, working musician. :musical_keyboard: :musical_keyboard: :musical_score: :musical_note: :notes: :musical_note: :notes:

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Who missed this episode, please check it out. Some great stuff is there (especially the Global rackspace).

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@alex1974 , would you share your rackspace, specifically the global rackspace and the mappings of the parameters to the widgets (the “Sound” and “Midi” sections)?

Thanks

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Sure, here we go

GLOBAL.rackspace (726.3 KB)

Global_Rackspace
Global_Rackspace1639×448 169 KB

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Thank you, but how to use - it is not a valid gig file (on Mac and Windows)?

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Have a look in the File menu. It contains a menu item to import a rackspace (local or global ).

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:+1: It works.

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Great Job on the Global Rack space - your design answered a lot of questions in back of my mind of how to create some useful interfaces and visual feedback for live gigs. I adapted your design and added a section to advance pages and songs up and down from my iPad app (For Score), which like you, I use to order each setlist for a show and pass PC commands.

I like the simplicity of what you showed on the YouTube video of having some pre-configured templates that can handle 1 to 4 voices for a gig performer “combi”. I worked on creating something similar and it’s making it much easier to create the rackspaces/songs I’m bringing over from my Kronos.

Cheers

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Hey y’all,

after the Gigperformer YouTube-Session Brett asked me how I remember where the sounds are in my splits. Normally I remember the locations, but I thought it would be good to have a graphical overview in my rackspaces. So I came up with this for a 88 keyboard. They keyboard is editable.

If you like it, you can download the rackspace here:

Simply the best.rackspace (1.6 MB)

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I downloaded the rackspace, but it doesn’t seem to load. Thoughts?

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Here is a thought :slight_smile: Drag and drop support

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I don’t have a laptop at hand.

How are the keyboard and instrument bars widgetsb created in the simply the best RackSpace showing the splits… With juce and an extension or otherwise?

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Hi Michel,

it’s manually made with shapes and static text labels. The only dynamic ones are the red ones which are connected to the MIDI-In block using the MinNote and MaxNote properties. And then I copied it to all my rack spaces.

I wish there would be an custom image widget for the future.

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Thanks… That must be a lot of widgets. Especially for the keyboard layout.

Would you mind if I 'steal ’ some of your good ideas for use in my extension?

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Just had a look at it… it did load, but took a while.
You spent a whole lot of work into building this! chapeau :+1:
Just a general thought: Maybe it would be better, not to mix AU and VST versions of plugins (that’s something i read a few times in the forums).
Anyway: For better cross compatibility between computer systems, i would rather use only the VST versions (if they are available).

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works perfectly for me, with load or drag and drop.

instantaneous loading for me :smile:.

congratulations to Alex on his courage and patience!
I now understand why some people want to be able to integrate image files into GP.

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I just had a look at it and noticed, that he uses Roland XV-5080. I think, Roland offers only AU for Mac?

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Sure, feel free to use it, that’s why I provided the rackspace for download :metal::sunglasses:

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