Midi keyboard configuration with 2 instances

I have a keyboard player in my band and we try figuring out some sort of arrangement for his part and we have some problems…
He plays many different parts in each song, where sometimes he splits the keyboard into 2 sounds. We don’t know if and how we can arrange something like this in one instance, so we created an instance for the left hand and the second for the right hand. The problem is, the midi keyboard doesn’t seem to be recognized in 2 different instances. one of them is working while the other doesn’t receive any midi commands (even though the midi settings are all set to work) and whenever we restart the keyboard the selected side is random.
So that brings up 2 questions:

  1. is there any better type of arrangement for non-repeated sounds that split in the keyboard?
  2. if not, why does it not work with 2 instances? How can we make it happen?

I’m using a Windows 10 system if it helps with the problem

Why use 2 instances for a keyboard split?
Use 2 Midi In Plugins this way

That’s one way, but let’s say we use the right side of the keyboard with 5 different sounds. and each of these sounds has some clashes with different instruments on the right hand. so that would cause us to create an enormous amount of rackspaces (or variations with bypassing plugins). That leaves us with instruments we use in both hands, or with one-time used instruments… My keyboard player used AKAI’s VIP plugin before but it’s very slow and clunky, so until he saves up to buy a synth, we wanted to see if it’s possible with the gig

OK I understand.
I created a rackspace for each song I play.
How many songs are you playing?

I have a gig file with about 70 rackspaces and sometime with the same plugins and sounds.
But that is not really a problem.

When you do not want to create such an amount of rackspaces then you have to switch
your sounds in the presets.
Yes you can save the amount of rackspaces used, but this not the optimal way of using Gig Performer.
One big advantage of using different rackspaces is patch persist and the absolute glitch free switch of sounds.

We are a fairly new band and we have 6 songs now, more on the way. my keyboard player uses 8-20 different sounds in each song, where some of them might repeat in other songs but not necessarily with the same instrument on the other side of the controller, thus the complexity.
He gives the whole tone and fill in the background so each song has it’s own different sounds. many of them are single used

70! wow that’s impressive! each rack for a different song? you play 70 songs in total? or do you also count the variations? The only way we can do it is with several variations and bypassing the instruments that are not playing at the moment. is it how you do it?

You know SetList Mode?
Here you can create Songs and Songparts where you can reuse Rackspace variations

Your keyboarder should bite in the bullet and build a rackspace for each sound combination and then
build songs and song parts in SetList Mode where each song part uses a rackspace variation.
That way things keep simple and you have full advantage of patch persist.

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That’s what we thought of doing, we were just wondering if there’s any other way we might not know of. Doesn’t 70 racks take hours to open? I know the Gig is loading them every time you open it and with just 7 racks for the guitars it takes around 10 seconds, How would it work with racks that have around 10 instruments in each? (times the songs in the future that we might add)

Don’t you think that, as suggested by @pianopaul a much better way is to use different Rackspaces where the unused (bypassed) plugins are simply removed ?

Your issue with MIDI only active in one instance is due to a non multi client MIDI driver. But, I don’t think you really need a second instance for what you plan to do. :wink:

Not a all, in the preferences you can enable predictive load and set the amount of rackspaces loaded at the same time.

potentially yeah, but we thought it would be easier to name the rack after the song, and inside have all the different plugins controlled with variations. this way it could be easy to navigate them. like I mentioned, we have too many instruments that are used just once, so if that would have to play with a lead on the other side of the keyboard it means we open a rack just for this combination. now multiply that by 40 other instruments we use in different combinations…

I did not know this option! amazing, I’ll look into that

Here it is

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That would come in handy (= now to start building it :partying_face:

That’s what songs in setlist mode are for. :+1:

wait, I’m not following… we are using the song setlist but let’s say that, for the example- I have 20 different sounds:
1, 2, 3 … 19, 20

in song #1, we have several left-right keyboard sides combinations:
opening: 1 + 5
verse 1-1: 3 + 11
verse 1-2: 3 + 15
chorus 1-1: 8 + 13
chorus 1-2: 4 + 7
etc.

how can I organize the rackspace for something like that? if I start matching all these instruments, by song #20 I could end up with over 200 different racks

Which kind of music do you play and what kind of sounds are you talking about?

If the sounds are instruments that need the full keyboard to be played, it is not like fx sounds that need only a few keys to be triggered. Can you use multiple splits on the keyboard controller?

We play metal music but have heavy emphasis on keyboard. it’s meant to increase the emotions and create a bigger space. The sounds are very dynamic and changing constantly based on the song’s overall feeling and includes almost every type- pianos, bass, leads, distorted, effects, pads, plucks, orchestra etc.
multiple split could also work, we need to rearrange some of the controls for that

Then you probably have to talk with your keyboardist. As a keyboardist, I prefer a reasonable amount of multi splits, than changing from Rackspace to Rackspace too often. Another idea could also be to add more keyboards to the rig of your keyboardist. Using GP you can easily use any older MIDI synth as a multi split MIDI controller. :wink:

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