While expanding my “pedagogical toolbox”, I quickly created a new self-study platform for GigPerformer centered around drawbar organs. I’m utilizing two free plugins found pre-installed within GP: the Lostin70s HaNonB70 and Overloud TH-U (VST version!). If you have deactivated (or even deleted) those plugins, I highly recommend activating them before loading this .gig-file.
The course has 14 parts, each inside a separate rackspace. You start it by going into the Panel view and selecting the first rackspace. Similarly to what I explained in another post, new controls are gradually added to the panels, so a total beginner doesn’t hopefully become too overwhelmed at the beginning. You start with just one set of drawbar controls and end up with a full set of basic tonewheel organ controls coupled with a guitar amp panel for some more “beastly” sounds.
A word about screen resolution: this gig file was created on a 13" laptop with display resolution 2560x1600. If you have a much bigger screen with very different resolution, things may look a bit scattered compared to the two screenshots below. I apologize for the inconvenience.
I hope you enjoy the course and maybe even learn something from it! Feedback is warmly welcome!
A friend of mine completed the course and pointed out a couple of bugs and oversights in my file, so I improved the .gig-file and uploaded a new version, now visible in the opening message.
New version includes better English, slightly better layout and now the plugins are located in the Global Rackspace, controlled via the widgets in the local rackspaces. This should shorten the loading time a little bit (only one plugin instance instead of 14).
Very nice to hear, de-mystifying the drawbars will open up many possibilities.
Looking forward to publishing a similar file about synth programming, only a bit more testing and tweaking to do.
I wonder if I missed something — is there a video course (YouTube) using these gig files to explain drawbars or is this something one just does with Gig Performer itself?
Everything happens inside GP and some basics are explained inside textboxes. But very little text, the user is encouraged to try things out and learn by experimentation.
Adding video content or wider documentation would of course allow more in-depth explanations, but I wanted to keep things as practical and easy to grasp as possible since this is mostly about helping a total beginner get started (hopefully even excited) on the subject. YouTube tutorials are sometimes great for learning, but they are certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. I’d describe this method as more interactive or “gamified” approach (even though things like a grading system, testing and quizzes are missing, stuff that makes apps like Syntorial and Duolingo addictive). But this tutorial is so brief that getting the user “hooked” is propably not even necessary, even a busier person or someone with attention difficulties can get through within minutes.
Then there are of course many essential things that couldn’t be included here, like actual organ playing technique, stylistic stuff etc. Those would need a separate YouTube-course or private lessons from yours truly. But learning what the sliders, knobs and buttons do is a good starting point. There’s a book recommendation at the end of the course (“Hammond Organ Complete” by Dave Limina), some good etydes there notated and demonstrated on a CD plus of course a lot more thorough explanations about the inner workings of a Hammond organ.
Right - the only downside is that the user has to have Gig Performer — if there was a YouTube version, even if it was someone running the GP gig interactively, it would be available to a much wider audience.
I agree that a video would be useful just as a means to notify people how the crash course (and the future one! ) looks like, so people know what to expect. But just a very short video that explans the philosophy behind it
There is a possibility (if I have time, the deadline is next Thursday) I might do a short video in Finnish since I’ve been thinking about applying back to school for a master’s degree in music pedagogy. I need to introduce the subject of my thesis (“Developing Keyboard and Synthesizer Pedagogy in Vocational Education”) with a written description and a short video, so using one of my GP tools might come in handy when giving a demo-lesson on either synths or organs (or even both).
If my Finnish demo works out nicely, I might consider doing a couple of brief “advertisements” for these GP tutorials in English.
About doing more video content: it has been suggested to me throughout the years by some private students, but at the moment I’m not very interested in becoming a content creator/YouTuber. Loads of work with zero payment in the beginning, and getting to a point where some money might start coming in may take months or years of consistent publishing. I’d rather spend that time on practising and playing (and doing other fun stuff outside music). Giving private lessons and working in a couple of music schools fits my schedule better, and even as a bachelor of music I’m happy with the salary.
Yes, understand. My thought, however, was to have just a small video to go along with your projects and explain/summarize the core of them. Suomi with English subtitles may also work.
