Is there a way to separate the MIDI-routing side of rackspaces from the sound design side?
I like to use a large number of different plugins, and want to increase the amount of re-use of those plugins within my song parts.
For example, imagine I built five rackspaces, which are basically five sounds:
a) Pad (a combination of 3 vst plugins, blended together with audio mixer)
b) Lead (a combination of 2 vst plugins)
c) Strings
d) Piano
e) Bass
For one song / song part I might want to use the Lead on the top keyboard controller, and the Strings on the bottom keyboard controller.
For another song / song part I might wan to use the same Lead on the top, but with the Piano on the bottom.
Currently I am creating duplicate Rackspaces to accommodate the different assignments of Rackspace sounds. And I’m getting to the point now where I have too many to navigate through as a result of all the different potential combinations.
What’s the textbook way to achieve what I’m looking for? I’d love to be able to design definitive versions of staple sounds (e.g. 80’s warm pad) and have the flexibility to use them with other definitive sounds in different combinations across my two keyboard controllers (without having to create multiple duplicates).
Use switchable Midi Note-On filtering and variations!
Technically: use a Button widget and map it to Note On in a MIDI filter plugin.
Create variations of this rackspace and enable/disable the widget.
I often use this in songs where I typically have a pad on the top board and switch to a lead for soloing.
I think you’d have to MIDI connect each keyboard bottom/top to each VST in your rackspace, so that every VST is conected to both of them. Then use the note-on filters in each connection and enable/disable them by using corresponding widgets.
That way you can simpy control which keyboard is feeding which plugin(s) with variations (or snapshots in setlist mode).
I have about 50 songs in my set list, many with up to 5 song parts, and I’m drawing from a pool of about 70 rackspaces currently (some of which are duplicated to achieve different midi arrangements e.g. splits)
Wouldn’t this require all my sounds (dozens of them) to be within a single rackspace though? Which might introduce complexity in the GUI for me?
Yes and no: it’s a tradeoff. Personally, I have some rackspaces for dedicated songs on my setlist, but also some rackspace which I share by variations to multiple songs on the setlist (or just use in a song parts within a song).
It’s not either or - it’s about finding out what suits your needs best.
And, there’s no need to save rackspaces or variations. That’s the beauty of GigPerformer!
Thanks schamass, this sounds interesting. But I think I can only select a single rackspace per song part? So if I wanted rackspace A (say variation 1) with rackspace B (with variation 2) on a single song part, I couldn’t do that?
I was trying to work schamass’s suggestion through to achieve what I’m looking for (basically to abstract sound design from midi configuration, and maximise reuse/simplicity where I can).
Yeah, ok… you cannot mix/combine multiple rackspaces within one songpart.
That’s not possible.
My suggestion is only about from which keyboard (Bottom/Top) the regarding rackspace/variation will be controlled.
At the risk of being repetitive, one way to do it is to have one rackspace space with plug ins for every sound used in the particular song. So, for the sounds with multiple layers, you would need a different plug-in for each layer. I can’t tell from your post how many plug-ins this comes out to.
Connect both keyboards as midi inputs into each plug in.
Then use bypass and midi filters to create variations to use with each song part.
[Note: if bypass works, that is better because bypassed plug-ins do not (should not) use cpu. Also, although this method probably takes longer (and requires more thinking) than just duplicating rackspaces for each song part (they way I used to do things), it also saves ram because duplicate rackspaces use additional ram.]
