Multiple Instances: Clarifications on Setup and Program Changes. Good Scenario?

General discussion about Gig Performer
#1

I’m contemplating changing my Gig Performer setup to use multiple instances. I need clarification on setting up multiple instances to handle independent program changes (i.e. switching rackspaces). However, I also need input on whether setting up multiple instances is a good choice.

The reason I want multiple instances is to allow two separate keyboards (top and bottom tiers) to have independent control over which rackspaces they use in their respective gigs. For my scenario I need to adjust the Global MIDI option for Program Change Control. I’m thinking I do not want “Accept Program Change Messages from any Device”.

I don’t understand how to make Gig Performer instances independent of each other for program changes via Global MIDI settings. Are the Global MIDI settings truly “global” in that one set of properties applies to every instance of Gig Performer, or, are the Global MIDI settings configurable and isolated per Gig Performer instance? Are the “global” MIDI settings stored in a separate section in an .ini file named after each instance?

When I manually launch Gig Performer and open up a gig (current setup), what “instance” (i.e. name) is running?

I understand how to create a shortcut that fires a Windows batch script to invoke the named Gig Performer instances. In a community post I found the following Windows batch script.

cd "C:\Program Files\Gig Performer 4\"
start GigPerformer4.exe
start GigPerformer4.exe -in="Guitar"
start GigPerformer4.exe -in="Vocals"

When “start GigPerformer4.exe” is run with no “-in” parameter, is there another “default” instance running? Can a gig be loaded without starting an explicitly specified instance?

Taking a step back, I’m not sure going down the multiple instances route is correct or if I should stick with my current setup.

For the top keyboard I’m using the global rackspace and scripting to control switching between instruments (plugins) similar to radio buttons. Right now the global rackspace has 16 plugins and it’s hard to manage the wiring view on a small laptop screen. I want to go beyond the 16 instruments but this implementation will require making the wiring and scripting more cluttered and complicated.

Loading the global rackspace takes the most time of all the rackspaces (i.e. a few seconds). From a best practice perspective I wonder if it’s “safe” to have many instrument plugins in the global rackspace. Through scripting only a few plugins at any given time are concurrently active and the rest are bypassed. I am contemplating having 64 instrument plugins to choose from. With the multiple instances setup, a separate gig file would have 64 rackspaces.

The global rackspace is also currently used by the bottom keyboard. There are commonly used FX plugins. I’ve put these FX plugins into the global rackspace to remove un-necessary duplication across individual rackpsaces. The FX plugins are always active (never bypassed unlike the instrument plugins used by the top keyboard).

Thanks for all suggestions and clarifications.

#2

This.

The “start GigPerformer4.exe” command tells GigPerformer to open. That line in the batch file opens the main instance of GP.

In the Options menu of each instance there is a setting for whether the last gig loaded should be opening on startup. If you turn it on for a particular instance, you don’t need to specify the gig file you want to load. It will load the last one automatically. If you turn it off, an instance of GP will load without any gig file loaded.
ScreenHunter 25

You create a new instance of GP from the main instance, but each new instance you create comes with its own settings that are entirely adjustable and independent of the main instance, and the gig files loaded in each of those instances are separate from each other.

I suggest doing some experimenting first to learn about how instances work in GP before deciding if applying them to your particular setup is the best solution.

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#3

Thank you. Is there a “main” or “default” instance in the .ini file where my current Global MIDI settings are stored?

#4

There’s no .ini file. Things are either stored in the gig files themselves, or the settings files for each instance, located in C:\Users\ your username \AppData\Roaming\Gig Performer.

#5

Doing well so far with multiple instances.

I had to export my rig from the main GP instance and re-import into the two instances I created for my top and bottom keyboards.

Each instance needed to be reconfigured. Not just global midi options, but audio options as well. They defaulted to Windows audio instead of ASIO and the USB Focusrite drivers.

After filtering the devices used for midi and program changes for each GP instance it appears to be working well. No glitching and cpu usage is good.

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