Gig Performer 4.7 includes a new neat feature that allows you to manually refresh all widgets mapped to a plugin’s parameters.
Broadcasting parameter changes to a host
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When you change a factory preset of a plugin, the whole plugin state is reloaded; as a rule of thumb, plugins report their parameter values back to the host when their state is reloaded. For example, SynthMaster has more than 4000 parameters and 1200 presets and reports any parameter changes to its plugin host:
If a plugin doesn’t report these values, then one of the following may apply:
a) There is a bug in the plugin. If that plugin is available in different formats, try another format.
b) A plugin developer decided to not report these plugin parameter values deliberately. The reason for this implementation decision is most likely the developer’s concern that reporting a large number of plugin changes back to the host when the plugin’s state is reloading would seriously slow down the plugin state reloading process.
For example, let’s assume that a plugin has 8,000 parameters available, but there’s only one widget tied to its parameter. Since the plugin cannot know that there is just one mapped to some parameter, the plugin has to “broadcast” all of its parameter values back to host.
If a plugin does not report its parameter values back to the host, the host will not be aware that plugin parameters changed.
What are the possible solutions?
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From a plugin‘s perspective, the only solution is that a plugin developer implements the plugin parameter change notifications to a host. Alternatively, you can try a different version of the same plugin, maybe there is a bug in the plugin format you currently try to use and the different format doesn’t have this behavior.
From the plugin host’s side, Gig Performer 4.7 implemented a feature called “Refresh Widgets from Plugin” that allows you to manually refresh widgets that are attached to plugin parameters.
The Refresh Widgets from Plugin feature
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The Refresh Widgets from Plugin feature works this way: after the plugin state is loaded, Gig Performer explicitly queries the plugin to find out the current values of just those parameters that are mapped to Gig Performer widgets and then update the widgets to match these corresponding parameter values.
To demonstrate this feature in practice, we’ll use an ADA Flanger VST2 plugin. While the VST3 version works correctly, the VST2 version of this plugin doesn’t report parameter changes to its host when changing its presets.
In this example there are four widget knobs attached to four plugin parameters:
When we change from A to B (indicated with the red rectangle), note how knobs change in the ADA Flanger plugin editor window, but the Gig Performer’s knob widgets don’t match this change (indicated with the blue rectangle).
When you click on the three-dots menu and then click on the Refresh Widgets from Plugin menu item, the knob widgets in Gig Performer are immediately reset to the correct parameter values as displayed by the knobs in the ADA Flanger plugin editor window:
If you have any questions or you want to share your feedback, please visit this Community thread.
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Own The Stage® with Gig Performer®
Nemanja Pudar
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Related topics:
– New features in Gig Performer v4.7
– New features in Gig Performer v4.8