Mapping to midi controllers

General discussion about Gig Performer
1

I am trying out GP 4 PA. I am using it to create an in the box guitar rig. I have all of plugins set up in the wiring screen and it works great. However I can’t find a way to map the knobs on my MIDI controllers to the knobs on the plugins. I expect to open a plugin and be able to map my controllers to the knobs on the plugin but i can’t find any option for this.

All I can find is a way to map my knobs to widgets on the Panel and then I have to map the widgets back to the actual plugins.This means I have to recreate every plugin as a panel of widgets. That seems really unreasonable and time consuming so I am guessing I am just misunderstanding how this works.

So how do I do the obvious and easy thing that every other similar product lets you do and map my knobs directly to the plugins. For the record I am currently using Cantabile Solo and mapping is straightforward and obvious.

Thanks…Bob

1 Like
2

Hi @Bob, welcomne to the family.

Did you read the manual about using widgets and map them to plugin parameters?
Then you can assign this widgets to your MIDI Controller and you are ready to go.

I would never map plugin parameters directly to MIDI CC, better use so called Host automation.

3

When the plugin provides a MIDI learn mode, sure you can do that.
Enable this mode and move your connected controller to learn this MIDI message.

But better is the way you just found - believe me.

What do you do when you change your controller and the MIDI message changes?
With Rig Manager you can define a global name and when the message changes just change it in RIG Manager once and assigned widget will automatically react on that changed message.

With direct learn MIDI in the plugins this is not possible.

Same issue when the Message does not change but you change your device.

And with scripting you can simulate controller changes, like moving you expression pedal to raise the cutoff.

This is only possible when you use widgets.

2 Likes
4

As Arthur Hailey once wrote, “Mistrust the obvious” - we’re not like every other “similar” product for, oh, so many reasons :slight_smile:

As @pianopaul said already, avoid mapping plugin parameters directly to MIDI controls. That’s a really old and very inflexible approach. Gig Performer leverages host automation which is much more powerful with widgets for indirection, thereby allowing you to essentially ignore actual MIDI messages.

Just watch this video from the well known Larry the “O” to get up to speed quickly with the concept

3 Likes
5

Hi Bob, welcome to our community!

As you might have noticed already, GigPerformer follows a diffrent concept than most of the other VST-hosts. The main purpose of GigPerformer is the best possible support of “Live performance”, like the name already states… and one the best features of GigPerformer to achieve this, is the use of widgets and user-defined panels.
That way you are not only more flexible regarding to how you setup your whole rig (or if something should change, like Pianopaul already mentioned), but you have also only those parameters under control which you really need for your performance… not more and not less.
Of course, it needs a bit of work to build a panel, but i’d say it’s always worth the effort in terms of live-usability!
Maybe you are used to map your controller directly to the plugin, but how many of the parameters that a plugin offers do you really change during a performance?
I guess in most cases it might be a number of max. five… and mostly it would be something like “switch effects on or off” or “change gain”.
So if a plugin offers you some dozens of parameters on switches and knobs, you maybe will use only five or ten of them. And these can be “mirrored” onto your rackspace panel by using widgets.
You shoud always bear in mind that the state of every plugin you use in a rackspace will be stored within this rackspace! So changing rackspaces will also recall the settings of all the plugins in it.
And this works seamlessly!

Imagine you setup a rackspace for a clean sound… you could use two or even more diffrent amp plugins, mix them together (parallel or serial), use a separate plugin for chorus and reverb (parallel/serial as you wish)…
Now if you use widgets to design your own panel for this you can adjust the needed parameters of the diffrent amp plugins, the level of each of them in the mixer block (or mute some), the amount of effects (or bypass some)… you can check the levels on diffrent places of your signal chain by using VU-widgets. So it is not only the flexibility of accessing diffrent plugins and their parameters at once, it is also a visual feedback for you - i guess this might be difficult (or impossibe) if you access the pugins directly.

6

Welcome, Bob.
…of course, you only need to make widgets for parameters you will actually change live during a gig

1 Like
7

BTW: What controller(s) do you use? Maybe we can share some ideas on how to use it best with GigPerformer… :beers:

8

If you’re new to GP it might not be obvious that when you drop a plugin block on the wiring view, if you want to use midi to directly control it you need to connect a MIDI in block to the red dot on your plugin. Once you do that it’ll “midi learn” in GP the same as it does in any other host.

But as others have said above, this is not how most people do things with GP. It depends somewhat on the plugins you’re using and how you use them, though.

One example I can think of is plugins that allow you to do “next bank / previous bank” and “next patch / previous patch” things with MIDI that you can’t easily do using widgets. I use TH-U for guitar, and once upon a time I set up all my “sounds” as patches in TH-U and used midi footswitches to move between them and different footswitches to toggle chorus, reverb, delay, etc.

GP can handle that just fine by routing MIDI to TH-U, and then TH-U will work just like it works anywhere else.

I don’t do it like that anymore.

1 Like
9

@Vindes hope you don’t mind me asking, but in that use case (you used to use MIDI to select certain patches on plugins), how do you do it differently now?

10

Let me start by saying I don’t think there’s a “best” way to do it. There are always trade offs between one way and another.

In TH-U I had at most a couple dozen patches I used. So here’s what I did:

  1. Create a simple Rackspace that’s just TH-U (wired to audio in/out and my midi foot controller).
  2. Copy that to a new Rackspace in GP for every TH-U patch I use.
  3. One at a time, select each Rackspace, then in that Rackspace open TH-U and select the patch I want that Rackspace to use.
  4. Save the Gigfile…

That’s maybe a 15 minute process for 2 dozen patches or so.

The key thing to understand is that when you save a Rackspace you’re saving the complete internal state of every plugin in that Rackspace. At the time I was just using TH-U, so every Rackspace was literally an exact copy of each TH-U patch. It’s just a different way to do the same thing.

The tradeoff with the Rackspace approach is you gain a lot of flexibility on how to move amongst these patches, assign them to songs in a setlist, use variations, connect different effects outside of TH-U, etc. but it comes at the cost of using more memory on your PC. Every Rackspace exists in parallel in memory, so with 20 rackspaces you’re really loading 20 different instances of TH-U. Once upon a time I thought that would be a problem. But on modern computers it rarely is, and GP can work around that if necessary anyway.

Now the more complicated and maybe time consuming part is deciding what parameters I really want to control in real time in each of the Rackspaces. I had my foot switches set up before with chorus always on switch 1, overdrive on 2, distortion on 3, delay on 4, reverb on 5 or something along those lines. So I made a Panel that replicated that. I actually did that before copying the Rackspace 20 times.

TH-U is nice in that it allows you to connect a widget (button/knob/fader) to a lot of “generic” parameters that will automatically stay connected to the “right thing” if you switch out different pedals, amps, etc. in your TH-U patches. So if I’m using a Tube Screamer for overdrive in one rack, and a BD-2 in another, a button widget mapped to “Overdrive power” will automatically map to the right thing. Not all parameters map nicely this way, but most do.

Once I got that far I started to see I didn’t need nearly as many Rackspaces. I could achieve a lot of what I was doing in different patches using different variations and sticking in some more widgets to control the parameters I change the most.

Then GP4 introduced the Global Rackspace, and I found I could move some things there and consolidate more Rackspaces.

It’s probably a been a couple years since I’ve created or saved a patch in TH-U. All my “sounds” are in GP Rackspaces and Variations now, and for the most part I do reverb, EQ, compression, and delay with other VSTs outside of TH-U.

There’s definitely a learning curve to it, and multiple ways to approach things.

1 Like
11

Uh, me thinks @Bob1760 has disappeared :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

12

Hi…thanks for the all advice. I see the problem… this is not the product I am looking for. I use this as my guitar rig so part of that is at home for practice. I have about a dozen effects in my rig and use about a hall dozen different amps. And yes I really do turn all the knobs and switches. The amp I am looking at now has 20 of them. It would take me days to create widgets for all of this. No problem though…I bet this is great product for its intended audience. It seems really slick to me. I ma glad I checked it out!!!

Sorry for the delay in my response. Your responses all went in my junk mail folder and I thought you were ignoring me. LOL :slight_smile:

13

I am curious as to your midi controllers. Are you using some that have 20+ knobs and/or switches?

15

Akai Midimix. 24 knobs, 9 sliders, 17 buttons. It’s about $110. it does the job.

16

There’s a few shortcuts when creating and mapping widgets that mean you can do a lot in a few minutes.
In this example, I have a Behringer X-Touch Mini which I’m midi learning (using S-Gear amp sim).

17

Sure - turn away :slight_smile: and you still can do that in the plugin’s UI, then when you save the GIG it’s all saved.
We’re talking about widgets that let you map to certain parameters and then map those to MIDI or use in variations.

I can’t imagine playing a guitar and turning 20 knobs on stage at the same time, but nothing wrong if you are doing that.

I typically tweak things up to wazoo until I’m happy with the sound, then add widgets for things I like control over during my performance or for things that I like to have as variations… For example - certain effects are either on or off for certain variations…

There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with your working the old way of sending MIDI directly into your plugins - send away, but you’d be missing a lot of great functionality in GP. Also - sending various MIDI messages into your plugins must have taken forever to map and set up - using widgets is much faster as well.

1 Like
18

I don’t believe this is what @Bob1760 was doing. Cantabile Bindings works from the automation parameters as well - they just don’t have the additional step of creating the widget/s first.

I hope I’ve shown in my video that the step to add widgets can be done very quickly, and there are other tips when mapping and midi learning that make it very quick to set up a lot of widgets very quickly.

19

Sorry, LONG post !..
(edit: wait, my main point, that made me post, is only true for keyboarders…i overlooked that the OP is guitarist. But finally: i´m a bassist too…but my specific “workflow tipp” won´t help here as much.)

i totally get the OP.
i felt exactly the same after my first tests.
then i begun to check the widget + midi mapping thing, and quickly understood its power and capabilities.
Yet, what the OP states is still true.
But personally, i see and understand, that decissions had to be made, in the development process of this software.

I decided that GP gives me so much more than other VSt Hosts, that i will live with the widget + midi map dialog thing.

I´m coming from doing music with a big modularsynth.
it has around 900 knobs. close to 800 allways in direct reach.
its the normal for me to work with any knob, “used in a patch”, adjust it, test things, jam.
a patch in my modular has easily 80 knobs involved if not way more.
Even just for a monophonic (percussive) synth voice.

so, i use VSTs with the very same approach.
I turn all knobs, i check this and that and some more.
i load my Rackspaces full with VSTs,…to have options…i allways think in options.
It seems that the OP is also breathing along that line…

and what makes this all for me maneuverable, without ( or bevore) creating the frontracks with its widgets in it, is this: (and thats why i post)
i´m on a mac, and i use a trackpad !!!
and very very important:
i use a masterkeyboard with nearly no controls !
my computer qwrty AND the Trackpad do sit directly behind the piano keys.
where the piano keys end, there starts my trackpad…and the qwrty

The trackpad is only good to set …or: Jam!..with one parameter at a time. true.
But: as i have it, is it really workable to evolve the “patches” in this way, doing everything with just the trackpad.
Its quicker than any hardware synth in fact. At least for me.
…then when i have something worthy, do i begin to create the widgets and the mappings.

Another point that the OP seems not aware of:
We can create AND save the frontracks ( thats where the widgets are) !!!
i for example use three novation Launch control XL.
thats for a total of 96 Hardware Faders and Knobs.( plus banks if i wanted to use them, which i don´t do so far)

i have found my way, how i want to arrange things, and i try to keep some things allways the same, rackspace for rackspace, gig for gig ( for a better overview when i change the rackspace or a gig).

so, i have saved templates, i just can load such a template that reflects all controls “for one LaunchControl XL”.
thats then even allready mapped to the knobs and faders of that LC-XL.
so, i just have to map the widget controls to the parameters of my VSTs (mostly FX)

here comes another thing into play, that i had to learn:
i allways rename all my VST FX. its super important to have a specific naming sheme, and stick to it ! …create a naming sheme, stick to it !!!
That makes any assignement work, …widgets vs. your loaded VSTs way more easy !!!

It makes, that i allways find my vsts quickly in the assignement dialog !
…and that helps that no feel of “dislikement” could come up.

I agree: its ALOTS of work to deal with the widgets,
but there is also some wins given over other types of midi CC control arrangements !
And thats even more true with the GP V4 version, since we can create now curvatures, of how the widgets would behave !
also: is a min and max setting for the parameter values available ( and was allready in V 3).
That alone is for me invaluable ! ( plus beeing able to invert a midi control).
…your next VST don´t have that min-max setting, usually.

Getting used to work with widgets, is definitly something that needs its time, to get familiar with it, so that this work begins to flow when doing.
Its not flowing at the first attempts. Thats normal, …but this will become better with some time.
Especially also with doing some templates and then just loading them !

i usually still have to rework these templates alots, but the help for the start, to get some initial jamming potential with fresh Gigs/Rackspaces, is big.

In regards to widgets and the whole mapping thing, do i see, that decissions had to be made, and i find that working with widgets HAS many many advantages…in the long run.
its without any doubt.

and once understood, how phenomenal GP as such is, is the higher workload for some early and initial midi mapping within a patch, a price to pay.
This threw me also nearly off…

…don´t give up to early !

check exactly what features you REALLY need vs. your VST work, using VST-Hosts.

Hope it helps one guy, or the other…:wink:

20

the video is not visible for me.
mac / firefox

jfyi

21

Hmm. The forum will embed MP4 files and it works for me with Safari. I have converted it to an unlisted youtube video.