I’ve been looking into Gig Performer coming from MainStage. The benefits seem incredible, and MainStage is getting annoying because it doesn’t have Ableton Link and so you can’t sync arps and stuff to tracks in Ableton.
The feature list looks incredible… but in my opinion it looks pretty dated. Even though it is the cutting edge of live VST performance.
The only thing holding me back from switching is the lack of image support for customizing how Gig-performer looks. Unfortunately, I am a huge stickler for aesthetics. Here is my MainStage view while Im performing.
I have the entire thing as a photoshop file that I can manipulate, so the whole background is just one image. I would love the functionality to display everything that Gigperformer shows, just where I want it on the screen, not where gig-performer has decided it should go. In my opinion there is a lot of wasted space.
I am not saying this to hate on GigPerformer, the further I dig into it, the more impressed I am with the application. However I can’t justifying switching if the professional version makes it look like I’m using a cheap application, or I can’t match the rest of my gears aesthetic. I know its super picky but it is what it is haha.
Im creating this thread to ask what kind of customization options there are, and I’m hoping image support can get added, because I will happily purchase a license for the application if there is custom image support, as well as things such as designing custom faders and knobs
Honestly, our focus is on reliability and management of plugins for live performance. It’s very nice to have Apple’s trillions of dollars to invest in making MS look pretty but the rest of us have to make choices.
If the look is more important to you than the actual behavior on stage, then I guess that GP is not for you.
I totally understand that and I love that about this program! I also understand Apple has a lot of money and a lot of experience in UI design.
Im not asking GP to do that design, I am perfectly happy to do it myself. I would just like access to change UI features or at least import images into the rack, as I don’t believe that would have any more performance impact that the textures already in place.
I also know that Im being a snob and GP is 95% of everything I’ve dreamed about, just seeing if theres a way to get that last 5%. But again, I am perfectly happy to do that design work myself, I would just like to see GP handing the option over into the users hands.
letting the community be able to make themes would take that off of your guys’s hands and make something even more flexible and customizable to peoples needs! More functionality, seems like a win win to me!
I very much agree that it is pretty. However I would still like the ability to at least add custom images to the shape block. That alone would open up a whole new world of possibilities!
Nemanja - what can you do with the GP SDK? I know it exists and have seen some posts about it, but have no clear idea of what the extent and reach is as far as the capabilities go. Could it be used to develop custom “rack canvases”? Not sure if that is even the proper terminology! Do you have an article or help topic on this (yet!!)???
Yes, I did see those. As I understand it, they were written using the GP SDK? I guess my question is would it be possible to write something like CodyWright talks about using the SDK? And is there other information about the SDK, it’s capabilities, and where it can be found if someone wanted to write one of these extensions? I saw references to Github but too lazy to go digging, not that I could do something like that!
@dhj Fantastic, I thought so. It’s hosted in Github? Is there a link for that? Could someone - assuming they wished to do so - write an extension like CodyWright describes?
You can’t write into the GP GUI (although that might be interesting to support at some point) but you can write separate GUI windows as several people have already done
OK, it sounds like an inventive and enterprising enthusiast could write something like CodyWright describes now, which answers the question. It can already be done. Would it be worthwhile putting placeholder in the feature request list about writing into the GP GUI or is it enough that it was covered here?
The more you find out about GP the better it gets. So much is already available, especially with some members of the community who are really good at things like this.
In theory. To get an extension to the point of being an alternate to the panels view, with working controls that have custom images etc, would be a very large undertaking. Because the end result is really just aesthetics, I’m not expecting this individual to attempt it over other extensions that add some new functionality. Don’t get me wrong - I’d love to have the time to do something like this (and opportunity to learn new skills with Juce UI controls)!
LoL! Name another application like GP where you can do this as the program evolves. To me it just points out how generous the developers are with respect to their program - in contrast to other companies that have everything locked down and charge $$$$ for the right to build anything that works with their app. As Neo said to the Architect in The Matrix - the problem is choice. In this case it’s a great problem to have!
