Hello, friends. I’m joining a band where I’ll be the keyboardist and also do occasional vocals. I’ve never used GP (nor any VSTs really) before, but I’m convinced that this is the way to go, so I’m doing everything from scratch; these next couple months I’m gonna be delving in deep, so get ready for lots of newbie questions from me!
In my setup, I’m planning on using three audio inputs: a custom stereo send from the FoH (consisting of everyone else in the band except for myself; in fact, I’ll mix this myself using a personal Aviom mixer rather than asking the FoH engineer for anything special), and my vocal microphone.
I intend to use four physical outputs: a stereo headphone mix going to my IEMs, plus two mono channels to send to FoH: a mono mix of my VSTi’s (controlled by my keyboards, so I’ll call it the “keyboard mix”), and my processed vocal in mono.
The stereo IEM output should be a mix of the audio metronome (for situations where I’m starting a song alone), the Aviom mix, the keyboard mix, and my processed vocal. I’ll have a widget controlling the gain on the keyboard mix in my ears, with a limiter too I guess, so that when I’m playing quiet background pads I can turn my keys up in my ears without affecting the FoH, but when I’m playing a loud keyboard solo I can turn it down so it won’t be too loud in my ears.
I’m intending to do multitrack recordings of some of our shows. I want to record six channels of audio: the stereo Aviom mix, a stereo keyboard mix, and my processed vocal (in stereo because it will potentially have been processed using stereo plugins).
It seems that GP’s recording functionality is limited to recording the inputs and outputs of my interface. There is no built-in GP plugin block called “to Recorder” for recording arbitrary audio signals. Does this mean that if I want to record something, even if it’s not something I need to send to a physical output for any reason, I have to use up an output channel on my interface (with nothing physically plugged into it) as a placeholder for that recording track?
The interface I intend to use is an evo8, which has four physical outputs. This should be just enough for my live sound needs: two for my IEM mix, and two to send to FoH (the mono keys mix and the mono vocal channel). However, this means I’ll run into a problem when it comes to recording: I don’t want to record the IEM mix (since it includes the metronome, and since it includes the keys mix whose level I’ll be fiddling with unpredictably during performance), and I don’t want to record the mono keys mix nor the mono vocal channel (I want to record both of those in stereo).
Now, as it happens, the evo8 actually presents six output channels to the host rather than four, and the evo8 mixer app allows creating two independent stereo mixes from these six channels to send to its four physical outputs. But this is insufficient for my needs, firstly because I would need seven output channels including the metronome output, and secondly because I wouldn’t be able to control the level of keys in my ears from a widget (since there is no way I’m aware of to connect a widget to the evo8 mixer).
The only solution I can think of would be to use a third-party ASIO mixer app that has more virtual outputs, such as Voicemeeter Potato (which apparently has 8 outputs and can also be controlled via MIDI). I guess that’s the way to go, but that will introduce more latency and more complexity.
So, two questions. First, for the community: am I understanding everything correctly? Can you think of a different approach? And second, for the devs: if this functionality doesn’t already exist, can you please add a “to Recorder” block that gives virtual outputs to use as recording channels which don’t correspond to outputs on the interface?
Okay, maybe that was three questions. Here is one more:
I read in section 24.6 of the documentation, on the topic of opening a file which was created on a system with more outputs than the current system,
Similarly, if the audio interface connected to the current system does not have enough inputs or outputs to accommodate the setup utilized by the file, Gig Performer will prompt you to create “Virtual channels” that produce no input or output but retain all connections.
So maybe a workaround would be to borrow a different interface from someone, one with eight outputs, and make all the necessary connections (two outputs for my IEM mix, two outputs to send to FoH, and four outputs for my recording), and then when I switch back to my evo8, the first four will remain physical, and the last four will become virtual. But I’m not sure that those four virtual outputs will record correctly…they “retain all connections” (yay!) but “produce no output” (so would I be recording silence?)
Thanks everyone!