Here is an interesting thread in the German forum Musiker-Board.de.
Needless to say, the thread is in German, so I’ll post the translated version here.
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Due to a discussion in the “Pictures of your setup” thread, I’ve started to break down my Gig Performer setup.
NB: The first setup is here. The second, and considerably more complex setup, is in the second post.
Setup 1: Soul ‘n’ Blues
The premise is a lot of basic sounds. In most cases, the top board has a Hammond organ with drawbar, percussion, and C/V controls, which is globally controlled and always active, even if there’s no organ playing at the moment. There’s only one stereo output to the front.
Hardware
- Laptop: MacBook Pro M2 Pro, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
- Lower Keyboard: Studiologic SL73 Studio with sustain and “switch” via USB to the laptop
- Upper Keyboard: Nord Electro 5D 61 with swell and Leslie switch connected via 5-pin DIN to the SL73’s MIDI input
- Audio Interface: Radial USB DI
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The Global rackspace
- VB-3 II on MIDI channels 1 (upper), 2 (lower), 3 (pedal)
- Keyscape Rhodes MIDI channel 4
- Keyscape Wurly MIDI channel 5
- Keyscape Piano MIDI channel 6
Each instrument is routed separately in stereo to each song-specific program for mixing and effects.
The finished program is returned in stereo to a global EQ, limiter, and fader before exiting the interface.
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Gig Performer Song Template
Each MIDI input routes the corresponding incoming channel to the required channel for the instrument.
MIDI In Upper comes from the Nord via the SL to channel 2 and then goes to channel 1 on the global layer.
All other MIDI inputs come from the SL to channel 1, which is then rerouted to address what it needs on the global layer: Lower to 2, Rhodes to 4, Wurley to 5, and Piano to 6.
Just to be on the safe side, I’ve included a Chord Maker and MIDI Filter everywhere. I usually don’t need them, but it doesn’t hurt.
Then all the audio signals go to the mixer for each individual song (don’t forget to label them!). There’s some space between them to add a chorus or phaser for the Rhodes, if needed. Everything going to outputs 1-2 from the mixer goes through delay and reverb… usually everything except the Hammond. After the reverb, the signal goes into the program’s compressor, which is set very gently at 1.5:1 and only provides the “glue.” From there, it goes back to the global layer for EQ, limiter, and master volume.
This is my starting point for every song-specific program. Of course, this is how it sounds: the top manual only has the Hammond, which is fine, but below I have Rhodes, piano, and Wurley layered. If I only need the Wurley, I delete all the unnecessary blocks. While it would be enough to simply unplug the MIDI patch cable, for the sake of clarity, everything I don’t need is visually removed… It simply makes troubleshooting easier.
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Individual songs
This looks much tidier and is easy to navigate.
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Panels
The keyboard layout is simply a series of images (i.e. widgets); it’s not dynamic and has to be created entirely manually. The blocks below are the layout for the SL73, and the ones above are, logically, for the upper keyboard.
In the Global panel at the bottom, I have my drawbars and button assignments, and I also have a global pedal for skipping to the next track. Occasionally, the song-specific panels have an additional control, for example, for cutoff.
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