after viewing a lot of Youtube tutorials, reading some threads here in the last days I started my 14 days trial yesterday evening. I’m looking for an alternative to Mainstage on my MacBook, which helped me to enter the virtual world of instruments, collect the right instruments and effects. However I started struggliung with the performance of MS, some limitations and stability on my two keyboard hybrid live setup.
So I wanted to give GP a try, which looks promising. Here’s my first impression after day one
after installation I tried to add my Arturia B3 V2 AU → first crash This was reproducable - so I added the VST version of the B3 and everything went fine. This was some kind of surprising, as GP advertises with stability as one of the top features?! Other Arturia Plugins work fine as AU…
Is there a general rule of thumb to rather US VST(3) over AU or does it “just depend” on the Plugin?
creating racks works like a charm, but why in the world is there no ‘undo’? This seems to be one of the most wanted features here, and especially for a GP beginner essential not to waste time, when moving widget instead of assigning parameters / MIDI…
After enabling multiple instances I added a second instance to check if I could design something like a global rack for some generic tools and helpers (e.g. I’m using a mixer channel in MS to route my Forte SE Audio through the soundcard and add it to the MS output…).
Is there a way to open this 2nd instance in parallel to my main gig automatically when starting GP?
I also found a discussion about this, but no real solution / more a workaround: I have a Arturia KeyLab MkII 61 which has a nice interaction with the plugins (LCD screen, LEDs). However I was not able to enable this in GP. I am able to route the two KeyLab MIDI Ports (MIDI+DAW) to the Plugin (e.g. MINI V) The Plugin reacts to the preset navigation etc., OK. However there’s no way back to provide the display output, as there is no MIDI output of the Instrument Plugin widget which I can route back to the MIDI input (output) of the KeyLab to show the parameters, preset names etc.?
In MS or Logic Pro this is more or less working out of the box.
How can I get MIDI messages from an AU/VST plugin to a pyhsical MIDI output?
End of day one.
Looks promising so far. I know that I have to think about different solutions to design my perosnal setup, as Mainstage follows a different approach. So I need to learn a lot more. But GP seems to bring me exactly the features I’m missing in MS
1- If a plugin crashes, it doesn’t mean that GP is unstable, but that there is probably a bug in the AU version of the Arturia B3
2- I follow this community forum for a while now and if you pay attention to this, you will notice that the devs often improve GP following users request. So given the massive request, it is probably only a question of time to have an “undo function” and a way to prevent widget moves when selecting. It is only your first day with GP, at day 14, many other features will give you arguments to be a little bit patient.
3- Yes this is the right way to do it, did it work for you with GP? You can open the further instance using a command depending on your OS using the option -in=NAME_OF_THE_INSTANCE. I never did it but it is probably possible to do it with a GPScript.
4- I think I participated to this topic and if I remember well the user gave up (more or less). It is clear tha Arturia doesn’t make things easy to integrate their stuffs, but if you relaunch this topic. We could try to further help.
When you get a crash with a plugin then this is only the plugin failure on not GP.
GP demands that a plugin is implemented in a correct way because the plugin is used in realtime,
A DAW sometimes can live with a buggy plugin.
As I have B3 V2 too, can you please send the gig file, so I could check if I get a crash too?
When you reproduce this crash you’ll get a dialog on your MAC about the crash. Click to see the report then copy / paste it into an email and send it to crash@deskew.com and we’ll be able to tell if its GP or a plugin that crashed. If it was the plugin we’ll post the relevant information here which you can send to the plugin manufacturer.
Wow, so many responses, comments and thoughts - thank you very much!
Day 2
First of all: I was not able to reproduce my Arturia B3 V2 AU problem I described in the initial post yesterday evening. I have the same versions of the B3 V2 as @pianopaul listed up. Maybe it was a first start problem or something like this. But it has diasappeared and I’m fine with that for the moment. If I ever will see a crash in the future I will follow @djogon 's advise to send the crash reports by e-mail.
Otherwise it was a short test day. But I made some progress how to design my rig when swithcing over.
New entry / question:
Currently I’m using the rotary knobs on my Arturia KeyLab MkII in incremental mode (“Relative”), i.e. the Keylab sends up/down by dedicated CC messages. Mainstage supports this by the corresp. type in layout mode. So I can adjust my desired controllers without catching the programmed cvalue, or getting big steps when opening a filter etc.
Relative mode is currently not available in GP. What’s a common workaround for this? Or are you all using your knows in absolute mode?
I am using S88 MKII as my controller and with the sync option on the Widget properties any change in a widget is reflected back to my S88.
So no need for relative mode.
I know that in the forums some time ago a script was developed to support relative mode, but I am not sure if it is still available.
Found it, but I am not sure if you are searching for the opposite.
What messages are shown in the global MIDI monitor when you move your controller?
I use the GPScript solution with my controller for the knobs. It is quite easy to adapt to your own use. The solution of @Pianopaul seem to be appropriate for you, but if you prefer scripting and need help, don’t hesitate to ask again.
GP script is a cool feature - relative knob control ist working with the help of the script @pianopaul linked - check!
I already bookmarked some other threads for the weekend. So far everything looks promising.
I think I will upload some rackspace examples in the user script section later on. I think this section could provide some more examples for starting up with GP
This is only a community forum not a GPScript tutorial section, but if you want to add one, I suppose other users could appreciate
But, I hope you don’t absolutely need scripting to start with GP.
Well, I think there are tons of possibilities and new flexibilities which I missed in MS. However I will need some minor GP Scripting for some actions I also triggered in MS by AppleScript, e.g. running / or bringing in front of external SW like the Soundcard interface or mixing console remote by a button of my Keylab, triggering iTunes/music etc.
I think this weekend will be both long and short at the same time
Today I created a bigger B3 rackspace based on the Arturia B3, a Master Rack for a second instance of GP.
Both use intense GPScript to fulfil my needs:
mapping widget texts to plugin parameters (Leslie speed, Chorus types)
using relative MIDI encodprs on my Arturia KeyLab MkII
starting AppleScript Snippets by MIDI to switch between GP and mixer/soundcard remotes
remote controlling Apple music for background music
I unfortunately also have a minor issue with syncing plugin and GP widgets - we are already discussing here: Sync Widget Drawbars to Kontakt B3
Currently the two instanced do not interact. I considered some things like routing MIDI by IAC between the instances, or use loopback audio to get a real master in my 2nd instance. But currently this is OK.
Next steps will be recreation of some of my MainStage patches / concerts and MIDI navigation
Last Question for today: as far as I can see the global MIDI preferences in the instances are independent (I assigned a controller for Panic in my Main instance, which shows not up in my 2nd instance - which is absolutely OK),
This one also seems to have gone while further evaluating. I can’t say what I (not) did in my first test. Today this worked as expected: I can create a rackspace with any Arturia Instrument Plugin and navigate with my KeyLabMkII in the library and get feedback on the LCD screen
I don’t know if you noticed the GP4 announcements, but with GP4 you now benefit from a global Racskpace in each GP instance which would make your life easier.
This was reproducable - so I added the VST version of the B3 and everything went fine. This was some kind of surprising, as GP advertises with stability as one of the top features?! Other Arturia Plugins work fine as AU…
