GEAR REVIEW
GIG PERFORMER | David Pfaltzgraff
Anyone that knows me knows a few things
about me. I love smoking good barbecue
on the weekends, I love Sci-fi movies, and I
love MainStage 3. That third one, especially.
I’ve been using MainStage 3 for my live keys
sounds at church for years and years and at
this point I think there aren’t many stones left
unturned.
KEY FEATURES
• Full Support for VST and AU Plugins
• Live-Performance Focused
• Flexible Setlist/Patch Management
System
• Unique ‘Connections’ View for
Assembling Your Patches
• Connect to Other Apps via Abelton
Link
Along the way I’ve also done a lot of work in
Ableton Live, learning how to program it to
achieve the same kind of live functionality
and outcomes that I rely on MainStage for.
At Sunday Sounds we’ve helped tens of
thousands of worship musicians get great live
performance results in both softwares.
So when I first heard about Gig Performer
several years ago I was immediately intrigued.
Gig Performer is a software akin to MainStage
in that it is entirely focused on live performance.
Over the last few weeks I’ve had the chance
to test it out and see what it can do. As you’ll
read in this review it’s a really interesting and
engaging program that stands on its own in
some ways and in others does a good job of
achieving similar functionality to other popular
live performance apps like MainStage.
GETTING STARTED
The first time I opened Gig Performer it
immediately scanned my computer and
recognized all plugins I had available. Once the
program loaded, I was greeted by a muted,
grey UI that’s quite minimal. As I took some
time to just explore I couldn’t get away from
comparisons to the software I was used to.
Numerous times as I just clicked around and
explored during that first session I said things
like ‘Oh, okay that’s similar to how MainStage
does that’ or ‘that’s an interesting difference
from achieving the same results in Ableton
Live.’
To be honest I never could get out of a
comparison mindset as I was working inside
this software and upon reflection I don’t think
that’s a bad thing. In today’s world musicians
have no shortage of options and Gig Performer
has some really cool features and workflows
going for it that make it unique in the space,
while not being so distinct from other options
as to be entirely unfamiliar.
Before we dig in to what Gig Performer can do
it’s worth noting that while I’ll be talking about
this program specifically as it would relate to live
keys playing, Gig Performer is not limited to a
keys context alone. It would also be well suited
for guitarists who rely on software, vocalists
desiring to add real-time effects to their vocal
signal, etc.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Gig Performer features a variety of views
that you can switch between, each with their
own specific workflow and purpose. At the
96 August 2020
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