Virtual File location

[bartiest]

First I love Gig Performer and is far superior compared to other alternatives.
One thing is very annoying. I use Gig Performer on two Macs.
One Mac is in my studio and used for making and testing racks and setlists and the other Mac Book for the live setup. I use a lot of audio players and samplers in my setup.

When I transfer the gig file from one to the other Mac I have to reassign all the audio files.

Feature Request: Can there be a virtual location for storing audio and midi files. In the setup you define the location of the files.

This feature will buy me lots of time.

[npudar]

Maybe this tip can help: When your files are in different places on different machines

[bartiest]

Thanks for reminding me.
I was aware of this work around.
But I like to see it as a feature in GigPerformer

[dhj]

@bartiest

Can there be a virtual location for storing audio and midi files. In the setup you define the location of the files

So this is an interesting issue which we have thought about before - it’s never been quite clear how best to do this.

So for example, we could define a location (not sure what you mean by “virtual”) where audio files should live but what should happen when you just drag a song into the streaming file player from some arbitrary location? Should we make a copy of that file to the defined location or should we require that the songs already be in that defined location to be useful?

Personally I don’t love either of those options.

Another option might be to allow a list of search paths where songs are allowed to be located. In that situation, we could add the search paths automatically if you use a new location.

When you use a different computer, the onus would be on you to make sure that wherever you put those songs, you would have those search paths in the search path list.

Thoughts?

[rank13]

There is a ‘Shared’ user folder on Mac that is currently where the GP extension files are stored. This path will be the same on all Macs, so I assume will work as you need if you keep your audio files in this location on each Mac.

/Users/Shared/Gig Performer

[tripleB]

As @dhj already outlined: all the ways to go have their pro’s and con’s

I personally have the same user-name on my macs, therefore everything GP relevant has the same folder structure within the user folder, which I sync manually

Otherwise I would go the way @rank13 lined out, same location on all macs

Third option is to work with dedicated paths like NI Kontakt or Song Master Pro does, but then you are limited to work in these paths only.

Big pro: you can store cour content on an external drive on one mac, and local on the other (or you work with links)

To bring in just one more idea:
I think Song Master Pro is one of the few apps offering two path setups for content. Even more complex. So one path for the standard audio/music library, and one for some kind of pool, where you can store ‘other’ or temporaray content. Meta Data from the edited songs is stored in a third path (which you also could syn between different computers). Best of both worlds?! I don’t know.

I’m fine with the current Gig Performer inmplementation!

[Dave_bass5]

I wonder if something like the Rig manger system would work for this, but for folders.

[Frank1119]

@Dave_bass5

Rig manager

‘Library Manager’?

I’ve been thinking about something like this, because I’m developing a plugin that uses external audio files.

What I have in mind (also with its pros and cons):

• A library is a (user configurable) path.
• A library has a unique name
• At any point where a file in a library is used, there’s a special notation, for example prod_audio::Murder on the dance floor.wav
• When a file is assigned (for example using drag and drop), first it is checked whether is in library. If it is, the name is changed to have the library prefix. Otherwise the file name remains unchanged. Maybe a question might popup: ‘do you want to copy and import this file to a library or just use it from its current location?’

[dhj]

@tripleB

I personally have the same user-name on my macs, therefore everything GP relevant has the same folder structure within the user folder, which I sync manually

That’s exactly how I do it as well. But I can imagine where a backup machine might not have the full specs (e.g, smaller disk/SSD) making it necessary to use an external drive if you have hundreds of songs and unless you start dealing with symbolic links which require some expertise, it’s still a problem.

I’m considering experimenting with the following idea. If you look at the screen shot below, the idea would be

1. Allow user to specify search paths for files
2. When you drop a song into the SAFP, the path for that song would be added to the search path if it didn’t already exist
3. When you reload your gig file, the SAFP would first look for the song using the full path. If not found, it would then just use the filename without the path and search the various paths looking for it.

This would then allow someone to define paths in advance on another machine, copy all the songs there and then they would be found when the gig file is loaded on another machine.

The only problem that concerns me is if there are two different songs with the same name.

Thoughts?

[tripleB]

Hm, on first look yes - why not, on a second look:

I typicaly organize my MP3 files in a folder structure like /SOMEROOT/ArtistA/AlbumA/SongName.mp3

How would you handle this? If I add e.g.

./Pink Floyd/The Wall/Mother.mp3
./Jamiroquai/Dynamite/Starchild.mp3
./Adele/21/Rolling in the Deep.mp3

Which folders get added to the search paths?

Then I’m more on the sugesstion from @Frank1119

The more I think about it: I personally like the way Song Master Pro has implemented this

[dhj]

@tripleB

./Pink Floyd/The Wall/Mother.mp3

First, when you add something like that, the relative path would be converted to the absolute path anywah – using. “./” is a user convenience

Secondly, the paths could be used recursively so if you were to add /SOMEROOT as the top path, then everything else could be found underneath

I have actually found the Song Master approach awkward to use myself.

[tripleB]

@dhj

Secondly, the paths could be used recursively so if you were to add /SOMEROOT as the top path, then everything else could be found underneath

Then I would be fine

@dhj

I have actually found the Song Master approach awkward to use myself.

OK, why?

I use SM Pro now for some weeks on both of my Macs and find it quite comfortabe!
Just some background information as I think, this would also be interestiung for GP

I have it on both of my macs. I also use it with my shared main music library. I sync my shared music library manually from time to time (some 10k+ MP3/AACs) in a folder structure. On one mac this is part of the user folder (internal SSD is big enough), on the other on an external drive. Music is configured accordingly - OK. SM pro can access these with different ‘audio’ - root paths on each machine accordingly. OK
I also use dedicated NAS shares to sync automatically the Songs and Playlists in SM pro, and some additional content like tempory MP3s like own rehearsal recordings, playbacks etc. which I don’t want to have in my main music library (SM pro reflects this with the ‘other’ - root and the roots for own playlists and song metadata.

→ I have on both macs acces to the same (synced) content. I can prepare the songs on playlists on my office Mac and access them (after sync) immediately with the macbook.
I also can go the other was around (e.g. modify on the macbook and continue in the office mac)

Very good solution for me. SM pro just adds metadata for songs/playlists in an own structire besides existing/growing audio content.

I think this is very close to your suggestions - one search path to my main library, one additional search path for the ‘other’ content GP specific content in the gig files…

[bartiest]

Personally, I try to manage audio and midi files in a central location. Especially if you have to migrate to other systems, you do not have to search entire disk structures to see where the various media files are located.

Therefore, looking at the example below, it would be ideal for me to be able to set the /SOMEROOT location in the settings as a reference to the path where the media files are located.

@tripleB

/SOMEROOT/ArtistA/AlbumA/SongName.mp3

[dhj]

Forget MIDI for a moment, MIDI files are stored inside the gig files so it doesn’t matter if you open the gig on a computer where the MIDI file doesn’t exist

So the algorithm I’m proposing for the player is as follows

1. When you drag a file into the player, the player will try to load the file using the entire path
2. Assuming the file is found, the path will be added to the locations unless it (or parent) is already there
3. When a gig loads up, the system will first try to load the file using the entire path - this is fast if the file already exists as there will be no need to search
4. If the file is not found, then we will use the file name and search recursively under search paths. If the file is found with one of those search paths, then the file will be loaded and the SAFP will use the new full path so that (3) above will work

[Frank1119]

@dhj

2. Assuming the file is found, the path will be added to the locations unless it (or parent) is already there

That may lead to many locations added to the search path. It’s also not very obvious to the user imho, that this happens ‘under the hood’.

[dhj]

@Frank1119

That may lead to many locations added to the search path

Why would that be?

[Frank1119]

@dhj

Why would that be?

If a user just drops files from multiple locations, according to the algorithm you propose (if I understand it correctly), every time the location is not one if the previously added files will be added to the search path. Say:

1. /music/prod/genesis/1980/intheair.wav
   2./music/test/kansas/1980/leftouverture.wav

This would lead to adding search paths /music/prod/genesis/1980 and /music/test/kansas/1980 (again, if I understand correctly)

[dhj]

Yes, that is correct and the user could replace both of those entries with a single entry called /music

The alternative is to not put anything in automatically and then just hope that the user will add a search path

[bigalminal]

@dhj

When you use a different computer, the onus would be on you to make sure that wherever you put those songs, you would have those search paths in the search path list.

I have three partitions on my Surface Pro 9. I have “day to day” Windows on one partition, an optimized version on the second for giging and the third is Data only… The giging version never goes on the internet and wireless and updates are both turned off. I store all my gigfiles on the Data partition which is accessible to both Win installs.