I know there’s no right or wrong answer for this question. I’m mostly curious for the sake of flexibility which way may be better. I can map a control directly to a plugin parameter, or I can create a widget that controls that plugin parameter and assign the physical control to the widget instead. If I go into another situation where I am borrowing someone’s controller and I want to use Rig Manager to control everything, is it quicker or more flexible to do so with controls that affect widgets or controls that affect plugin parameters directly. Maybe the second way with a Midi Filter in the middle to remap controls?
Always use widgets. And if you expect to be using different controllers then define all your widget controls in the rig manager. That way you only have to teach the rig manager the midi messages being sent out and then everything will still work.
If you control plugins directly from midi controllers then you would either have to relearn the midi messages from the new controller for every single plugin or you would have to reprogram the controller to send out the right messages (if you can remember them)
Widgets avoid both of these issues and have many other features.
Yes!
When I started with GP two years ago, I had the same question, coming from a host without the concept of widgets. Widgets have many advantages:
Visual feedback on the panel if the CC from the controller is working actually.
All mapped CC can be seen at a glance, in contrast to hidden mappings in different plug-ins.
Flexible remapping, inverting and so on of the CC.
Remapping to a new controller is quick and easy by the rig manager, once you understood the concept. Define these few CC which you need typically and give them resonable names as aliases.
Usually you require only a few widgets for a few controllers or CC for one song, which you really need for that song during performance. This is setup very quickly on a per-rackspace per-song basis.
No need to program exhaustive widget orgies for every parameter of your plugin…
Thanks everyone. I put together my first rackspace for a dual manual B3 organ and started mapping the drawbars for both manuals on the two controllers. That got me thinking about widgets vs plugin parameters. In this case, I want access to the drawbars. I will use that rackspace in a lot of different band situations so I’m always fiddling with them in real time from band to band.
