I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
If I set predictive load to “1”, when playing song nº 1 GP should load one song ahead (song nº 2).
The question is: will it load rackspaces 2 and 24, used on song nº 2?
You have to use a higher value
Just play around with the values and you will see
Yes, it does.
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I use an iPad networked to GP as I have mentioned elsewhere. Finding songs at random from a set list of several hundred was quite an issue. So I approached the developers of the iPad app I use and asked for a quick way to select songs. They told me to touch the song heading which brings up an on screen keyboard with interactive typing. First letter goes in and others follow, and then a possible list is presented from which the required song is selected. The chosen song then sends its message and GP loads the correct song. I have not timed this method, but I think it is only a few seconds. Of course an iPad is required, but this process could be a compromise between a follow on set list that loads in order, or a predictive based set list with moderate random choosing and loading. Worth a thought and a bit of testing.
You use OnSong. Me too. I was aware of the quick selection feature. It feels slow, though, because you have to wait for the keyboard to appear. I’m new here and I’ve already bombarded everyone with my questions. My current workflow is as follows: Predictive Loading is set to 1, and I load each song individually because we don’t have a fixed setlist.
However, I have a separate Rackspace for each song because I want to program each one individually.
I use predictive on 1 as well. I started GP with V1 a few years ago. At the time, the lowest predictive setting was 3. As I could not/did not want to use the setlist feature (introduced in V2 I think), I put in a feature request to have the 1 predictive option added. They agreed after I explained that I basically wanted to random chose songs and not follow a set list. I did not see the point of loading and unloading extra songs when I could choose the next song anywhere rather than the next in the set list. I also use rackspaces too because a large percentage of my songs feature a bass vst and a drum vst. So every rackspace is different due to the drum/bass requirements changing all the time.
In the days of giging with a Roland workstation, I had 4 second loading all the time. I must say that it has taken me a while to get used to having to wait maybe 6 to 10 seconds for the next song to load. However, I have gotten used to longer load times and the quick select feature that OnSongs uses is the best option at this stage.
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Cool. Now GP has at least two users for Predictive Loading 1.
I had similar loading times in Logic (although GP is faster) and I got used to it. As long as I don’t want to spend more money on 128 GB RAM machines, this remains the best option.
Keep in mind when using predictive load to 1 then you are lost in stage when a plugin crashes while switching to a new rackspace.
I do not use predictive load and in rare cases a special plugin crashes when I load the gig.
When the gig is loaded, all is fine.
But with predictive load set to 1 then it could crash while the show.
Oh no. I was really looking forward to a solution I could live with. I can’t live with crashes on stage.
Do you mean that even after the gig file is loaded, crashes can still occur when I switch between rackspaces? On stage, I’ll be switching the songs in the setlist using program changes. But those are linked to the rackspaces. Is it the same there?
What are your experiences, @bigalminal?
During the programming phase, I’ve only had a very few crashes, all caused by opening a plug-in. I’ll simulate a live situation once I have all the songs.
With predictive load set to 1 only 1 rackspace (and it’s plugins) are loaded.
So when you switch a rackspace the necessary plugins are loaded.
When predictive load is not enable all rackspaces and all plugins are loaded.
I never faced a crash with this setting (except the plugin is buggy).
Does the same thing happen if the predictive setting is set to 3? I probably wouldn’t mind if the computer loaded the song before and after the main song.
Same could happen as with predictive load always new rackspaces are loaded and old ones removed from the memory.
some plugins do not like to be loaded, unloaded and loaded again.
That is not an issue of Gig Performer.
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Ideally, you want to have everything preloaded ahead of time so that all the plugins are just there – no risk — flawless behavior.
Predictive loading was added as a compromise to try and address the problem where a user just doesn’t have enough RAM available in his/her system to preload everything but still wanted to be able to step through a setlist with no interruptions.
But, to use an analogy, it is like buying a low-budget automobile and expecting to be able to drive it at 90/miles an hour continuously with no problems. It might work but if you really need to drive a card at 90/miles an hour, then you need to have the right car.
In the case of predictive loading, we are depending on the plugin developer having carefully implemented the entire VST API properly. When they do saw, predictive loading will be flawless and these days most plugins do work just fine.
However, sometimes a developer will make assumptions for how their plugin will be used and don’t address all the corner cases properly. To give you some examples (not specifically related to predictive loading), some plugins don’t like having the sample rate or buffer size changed once they have been initialized. So if you have certain plugins loaded and after a while you change the sample rate, they could crash. Again, we used to see this a lot more years ago but fortunately developers have gotten better at dealing with this kind of thing.
In the case of predictive loading, plugins get reused and so they have to have their state reloaded because (of course) the sound of the plugin can be different at different times. But some plugins don’t handle things properly if a MIDI message is sent to them while new state is being loaded. So if you try playing a plugin that hasn’t finished loading, then you could have a problem. There is no way for us to know when a plugin has finished loading because they can load some of their information asynchronously.
So if you must use predictive loading, you need to test your gig file really carefully, specially if you’re you’re jumping around at random rather than just going through a setlist.
This is not specifically a Gig Performer flaw or bug - it is unfortunately a consequence of how plugins are (not necessarily properly) implemented.
I have had problems with OnSong, but this has been entirely my own fault. From the All Songs menu in OnSong, I have copied songs into various sets. After the sets were completed, I then began to edit each set as necessary. Then GP would not load, crash etc due to these edited sets. What I should have done was go back to the All Songs menu in OnSong, carried out any editing there, then re-import the edited song back into the set where it belonged. It took me ages to figure out that maybe I was doing something wrong in OnSong. And it also took me ages to correctly edit all songs and rebuild all the sets with the correctly edited songs. Once that was done after several weeks work, I could load any set (including my Monster Set of 550 songs) without any problem and no crashes. Just a simple procedure that turned out to be a major problem for me for a long time. I used to read forum comments about GP being rock solid, but it never was for me until I corrected all the OnSong issues. I think the moral of the story is this - If GP is playing up for any reason, it will mostly likely be a crook plugin or an outside influence like OnSong. Cheers.
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With my huge Monster Set of 550 songs, I don’t think that even a 1,000,000 gigs of ram would be enough! And if it was, then the loading time would be enormously long!
My Surface Pro 9 uses a 12th Gen CPU, and the next step could be an upgrade to a 13 or 14 gen CPU. This would speed things up most likely. But when do you stop upgrading? I am 80+ now and on a pension. My age explains why I’ve had programming issues due to my slower learning rate. As a Baby Boomer, I’m playing songs from a big range I remember from the 20th century. Sounds stupid I know, but that is my age grouping. I play in some rest homes where the clients are younger than me, but are unable to do much for themselves. There are students in the local cemetary that I use to teach. In the end, I do what I can, play songs that I like (no matter how old), and try to reach people- at Farmers Markets etc and help them have as good a time as possible.
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Respect – it’s really cool to use this modern technology at your age. My dad is 77 and has played keyboard his whole life. But somehow he’s stuck in the 80s with the technology. He just doesn’t get what I do.
Same as me.
Just kidding 
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Thanks for the tip about OnSong. I’ve only been using Google Play for a few months, and I also had a problem with crashes when switching from OnSong. It turned out I had some kind of issue with the local port. I removed that local port from my songs, and it’s been working fine ever since.
Who knows how our descendants will make live music someday.
They will use clever prompts…
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