Rosenheim, Germany – July 2018…Keyboardist Thaddäus Weindl has a lot going on. From his home base in Rosenheim, Germany, Weindl roams Bavaria and environs playing in three very different bands. He utilizes lots of different sounds, plays pre-recorded backing tracks, triggers videos, and generally keeps busy during performances. It’s a lot to juggle, and he relies on Gig Performer to help him keep all those balls, or, more accurately, sounds, in the air.
Weindl had been trying to cover everything with a combination of a performance-oriented MIDI environment and a live processing host program, but the system was complex and cumbersome, and the resource-intensive nature of his setup created ongoing memory and CPU load issues. “My previous processing host functioned like a mixer: you have buses and aux sends and so on,” Weindl laments. “When I discovered Gig Performer, I was immediately impressed. The flexibility in routing VST plug-ins made it a much better solution for the things I needed to do.”
A programmer himself, Weindl is unafraid to dive deep with Gig Performer, constructing huge plug-in networks or making use of some its more subtle features, such as its GP Script language. Weindl uses a single gig (the uber level of organization in Gig Performer) containing more than 60 rackspaces, each rackspace consisting of anywhere from a single plugin to an entire complex network.
Weindl uses Toon Track Solo inside Gig Performer to send notes to GrandVJ over IAC (Mac OS X’s InterApplication Communication facility). Backing tracks are recorded, exported as MP3 files, and played via Gig Performer’s Audio File Player plug-in, but Weindl leverages more than that plugin’s obvious features.
“Sometimes as a keyboard player you have to use five to 10 sounds (for a song), and you switch from verse to chorus, and so on. With Gig Performer, I am using the Audio File Player to generate MIDI signals. Using the IAC driver, I can automatically switch variations within the rackspaces.” (A variation is simply a stored set of parameter settings for a rackspace.)
“Eighty percent of my songs have backing tracks, so I start the audio player, and it generates MIDI signals. I have scripting within Gig Performer, and when a change comes, the variation is automatically switched, so I do not have to take care of choosing the correct sound; the change is just made automatically from Gig Performer.”
Gig Performer really is the center of Weindl’s musical world. All of his keyboard splits and transpositions are done in the program, as well, so he requires only a keyboard that can send MIDI notes on a single channel to be able to cover multiple parts, play backing tracks, and trigger videos.
Putting one program at the center of your setup like that, life can suddenly become difficult if something in the system – such as the keyboard controller – has to change. But this turns out to be another place Weindl wins in Gig Performer by using its Rig Manager.
“The Rig Manager is very super. At home and live I play a Native Instruments S88 keyboard. For rehearsals, I have a Doepfer keyboard, and sometimes a Motif keyboard. With Rig Manager, when I have to do a rehearsal, it’s just a click and a switch and my whole setup runs fine with that different keyboard. “
Weindl’s enthusiasm is not unusual among those who have discovered Gig Performer, and neither is his praise of the company’s support. “For me, the support from the guys at GP is great. I’ve never seen such a good and fast response.”
