Nat ive Giga For mat Player

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Special thanks to: Sebastien Metrot for his invaluable advices, John Potter for the
graphics and web design, Dave Smith, Sophia Morizet, Erwan Le Marc'hadour,
Nicolas Choukroun and Tom Fratts for their precious help and support.

GigaStudio is a registered trademark of Garritan, Inc.

G-Player User Manual

Table of Contents
Part I About G-Player

1 Introduction
................................................................................................................................... 1
2 What's ...................................................................................................................................
new?
3
3 Requirements
................................................................................................................................... 3
4 Settings
................................................................................................................................... 4

Part II Quick Start

1 Main Window
................................................................................................................................... 7
2 Loading
...................................................................................................................................
files
8
3 Quick Edit
................................................................................................................................... 9

Part III Database

13

1 Introduction
................................................................................................................................... 13
2 G-Sound
................................................................................................................................... 13
3 Searching
...................................................................................................................................
for instruments
14

Part IV Stacking

16

1 Creating
...................................................................................................................................
a stack
16
2 VCA ................................................................................................................................... 17
3 VCF ................................................................................................................................... 18
4 Mapping
................................................................................................................................... 18

Part V Mixer

20

1 Opening
...................................................................................................................................
the Mixer
20
2 Track ...................................................................................................................................
Overview
20
3 External
...................................................................................................................................
plug-ins
21

Index

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About G-Player

1. About G-Player
1.1

Introduction
G-Player
G-Player is a native Giga file player for Mac OS X and Windows. It has been designed to support the
large orchestral sound libraries (streaming), the complex articulations (key switch, control switch) and
the layered instruments with multiple crossfades. G-Player has 16 parts and multi outputs. The
standalone version has 8 MIDI ports which gives you 96 MIDI channels.

Built-in Mixer
G-Player 2 has a new Audio mixer with Compressor, Equalizer and support for external plug-in effects.

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G-Player User Manual

G-Solo
G-Solo is the little brother of G-Player, it is available only as a plugin format. It has exactly the same
features than G-Player but is limited to one instrument and therefore is only stereo. It is not
recommended to use G-Player and G-Solo at the same time.

No conversion required
Save time and hard drive space, G-Player plays your Giga sound libraries directly without any
conversion.

Quick Edit
G-Player allows you to quickly modify some program parameters (ADSR, VCA, VCF, Pitch Bend)
without having to edit and save the giga file.

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About G-Player

1.2

What's new?
G-Player 2.0 includes the following changes from version 1:
1. The standalone version has 8 MIDI ports and is therefore able to support up to 96 MIDI channels
2. A 16 track audio mixer with built-in Compressor, EQ and support for 2 external effect plug-ins. All
parts are now routed to the audio mixer.
3. A new G-Sound utility that scan your hard drives and build a database of all your Giga files.
4. The stack icon in the toolbar has been replaced by individual stack buttons for each part
5. The VCA and VCF can be adjusted for each part in a stack
6. The part order in a stack can be modified by simply dragging one part up or down
7. The built-in keyboard displays the notes played on an external keyboard or MIDI track
8. Each part has a new pitch transpose control

1.3

Requirements
Mac OS X
Mac OS X 10.5 or higher
Processor: Intel 1.6 GHz or faster
Processor: G4 1 GHz or faster
512 MB RAM or more
20 MB free hard drive space for the installation
CoreAudio driver for the standalone version
VST, AU or RTAS host for the plug-in version

Windows
Windows XP, Vista or 7
Processor Intel 2.6 GHz or faster
512 MB RAM or more
20 MB free hard drive space for the installation
ASIO souncard for the standalone version
VST host for the plug-in version

Regarding the Processor on Mac OS X

G-Player is Universal binary and will therefore works on Intel and not-Intel Mac computers. However GPlayer is more optimized for the Mac Intel platform

Regarding the Memory

G-Player loads the beginning of all the samples in memory and streams the rest from the disk. For
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G-Player User Manual

example, a 1 gigabyte piano instrument will only take 240 megabytes of memory. Mac OS X supports
virtual memory which means that an application can allocate more memory than the available physical
memory. The drawback is that virtual memory does not have the same performance than physical
memory. Given the size of some Giga files, we strongly recommend you to have at least 1 GB of
RAM.

Installation
Just launch the installer and follow the instruction to install G-Player on your computer. When you first
run G-Player, you will be asked to enter your user key:

1.4

Settings
The following settings are only available in the standalone version. Click on the Settings icon in the
toolbar to display the Audio and MIDI settings.

Audio Settings
G-Player supports the CoreAudio drivers on Mac OS X and the ASIO drivers on Windows. Select the
Audio device (Audio out), the audio device output channels and the sample rate and click Ok to
validate your choice.

MIDI Settings
Select the MIDI in device where G-Player will receive its MIDI events and click on Ok to validate your
choice.

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About G-Player

Memory Settings
Here you can set how G-Player will preload the samples in memory.
Every sample that is shorter than the preload tolerance will be completely loaded in RAM.
Every sample that is longer than the preload tolerance will be loaded at the preload minimum value.
We recommend a preload minimum between 0.8 and 1.6 secondes.

Plug-in
Here you can see the list of plug-ins that G-Player has found on your computer.
These plugins can be used in the mixer.
If you have installed a new plug-in on your computer, click on the "Rescan" button to update the list of
plug-ins.

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G-Player User Manual

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Quick Start

2. Quick Start
2.1

Main Window

The main window is made of 3 parts (the standalone version has one more part for MIDI port selection),
from top to bottom:
- Toolbar: Here you can find the usual Performance functions (New, Open and Save), you can open the
browser, the database, the mixer and the settings.
- MIDI ports: The standalone version has 8 MIDI ports, you can select one of them here.
- 16 parts: Each part is linked to one MIDI channel and can have one instrument or several (stack
mode). The selected part has a blue frame around it.
- Keyboard: The keyboard displays the key range and the notes being played. If the selected part has
some key switches, they will also be displayed on the keyboard.

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2.2

G-Player User Manual

Loading files
Loading an instrument
There are 4 ways to load an instrument:
1. Click on the instrument name and select "Load an instrument", then browse for a .gig file. G-Player
will load the first instrument of the selected Giga file.

2. Select an instrument from an already open Giga file. To do this, click on the instrument name and
move the mouse cursor on one of the previously loaded Giga files, you will be able to select one of the
instruments from this file as illustrated below:

3. The easiest way to load an instrument is to use the buit-in browser. Click on the browser icon in the
toolbar, this will open the Giga File browser.
Select a giga file from the browser, this will display the list of instruments in the right column, you can
then drag an instrument and drop it on the player (you can also double click on one instrument).
You can also create favorites, just drag a folder from the browser and drop it in the 'Favorites' column.
Click the browser icon again to hide the browser.
To remove a favorite from the left column, click on it and grag it outside of the favorites column.

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Quick Start

4. G-Player version 2.0 has a database with a search feature which makes finding and loading
instruments even easier. This new database is described in the next chapter

Unload an instrument
Click on the instrument name and select "Unload Instrument". After all the instruments of a Giga file
are unloaded, the Giga file will disappear from the Load menu.

Select an Instrument
Click on the Instrument number (1 to 16) to select which instrument is played when you click on the
on-screen keyboard.

Controls
You can adjust the volume, panning and tuning for each Instrument. You can also Mute or Solo an
Instrument. There are other parameters that you can modify in the Edit zone. All the faders and knobs
share the same behavior:
Click and move: Change the value
Shift + Click and move: Slowly change the value
Control + Click: Reset the control to its default value
Moreover the knobs will change color when their value is negative (red) or positive (green). Default knob
values are represented in white.

2.3

Quick Edit
Each part is divided into the header (top) and the Edit zone (bottom). If you do not see the Edit zone,
you can access it by clicking on the white arrow at the left side of the part. You can also click on the
Expand button in the toolbar to open all the parts at once.

Mixer Zone

Edit Zone

The Edit zone (bottom) is made of 5 parts, from left to right:

Infos

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This shows you the following information about the Giga program loaded in the tone:
Key range
Number of different samples used by the instrument
Maximum bit depth for all the samples (16 or 24 bits).
Streaming mode (on or off). The streaming mode is automatically determined according to the size
of the samples.

Dimensions

The dimensions used by the current instrument, every active dimension is highlighted with a bright
color. The first row display the dimension that are not a MIDI controller: Velocity, Key switch and Note
off. The 2 other rows display the dimensions for the main MIDI controllers. The dimensions are defined
inside the Giga file and cannot be edited here.

Pitch

The first knob is the pitch transpose, It is set to 0 (no transpose) by default, turn the know left or right
to transpose the entire instrument.
The second knob is the pitch bend. It is the original pitch bend value as defined in the Giga file, you
can change it to a lower or higher value..

Volume - VCA

Sometimes, you need to adjust the velocity response or the volume envelope. For example you want a

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Quick Start

11

little bit more release on a Piano instrument. In that case, you just have to move the Release knob
slightly to the right and it will increase the release time of all the samples of the Piano. By default, all
these knobs are set to 0 which means that you are using the parameters as defined in the Giga file.
The values that you set with these knobs, do not replace the individual sample values, they are added
to (or substracted from) the original parameter values. You can adjust 5 parameters:
Velocity response: Increase it to have a more percussive sound (like a drum) and decrease it to
have a more flat sound (like an organ).
Attack: The attack duration of the amplitude envelope
Decay: The decay duration of the amplitude envelope
Sustain: The sustain level of the amplitude envelope
Release: The release duration of the amplitude envelope

Filter - VCF

This is similar to the Volume section but for the Low-Pass Filter. This part will be activated only if the
selected instrument uses the Low-Pass Filter.
You can adjust 5 parameters:
Cutoff: Offset the filter cutoff frequency.
Velocity response: Increase if you want the filter to open more with high velocities.
Attack: The attack duration of the filter envelope
Release: The release duration of the filter envelope

Understanding how the controls work

Having one knob for each parameter does not mean that all the sample zones share the same
parameter value. In the Gigastudio format, each sample zone can have it's own parameters and GPlayer uses them all and play all the samples with the finest level of detail as Gigastudio used to do.
So how does G-Player use only one knob per parameter for all the samples?
The initial value displayed for each parameter is not shared by all the samples, it is the average value
of all the samples. For example if an instrument has just 2 samples with the velocity response
respectively set to 0.6 and 0.8, then the value that will displayed by default for this instrument will be
0.7
If you change the original value, it will add (or remove) an offset to all the original values. For example,
with the same 2 sample instrument described above, changing the velocity response from 0.7 to 0.8
(a +0.1 difference) will change the sample velocity responses to 0.6 + 0.1 = 0.7 and 0.8 + 0.1 = 0.9
This method allows G-Player to always preserve the personality of an instrument by applying offsets to
the original settings of all the samples.

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The illustration below shows how the release time of 3 samples is affected by moving the Release
knob in G-Player:

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Database

13

3. Database
3.1

Introduction
G-Player version 2 has a database that allows you to search for Giga instruments by name..
A separate utility called G-Sound allows you to scan your hard drives and build a database of all your
Giga files and instruments.

3.2

G-Sound
G-Sound is a little utility that comes with G-Player, it is installed in the same folder than the standalone
version and this user manual.
On Mac OS X: /Applications/G-Player
On Windows: C:/Program Files/G-Player
You must run this utility first before using the Search feature in G-Player.
G-Sound scans only the folders that you want him to scan. The first time you open G-Sound, it will be
empty, You need to add at least one folder.

Click on the + button to add a new folder to scan. You can then click on the "Scan folders" button to
start scanning the selected folders.
G-Sound will then display your folders and the number of Giga files found in each folder.

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You can now close G-Sound, your database is ready to be used within G-Player

3.3

Searching for instruments

To open the database, click on the Search icon in the toolbar.
To search for an instrument, enter a name and press the search button.

All the instruments that match your request will be displayed in 3 columns. The first column display the
file name, the second column displays an optional rating (from 0 to 5) and the third column displays the
instrument name. You can sort the results by ascending or descending order, just click on one of the
column headers.
To load one of the instruments, double click on it or drag it and drop it on one of the 16 parts.

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Database

15

The rating column allows you to give a 0 to 5 rating to your instruments, just click on one of the stars to
change the rating or slightly on the left of the 5 stars to remove the rating.

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G-Player User Manual

4. Stacking
4.1

Creating a stack
You can stack up to 16 instruments per MIDI channel and select which instrument you want to play by
Program Change, Control Change, Key Switching, Velocity or Random.

Stacking Instruments
To enter the stack mode for one MIDI channel, click on the stack button:

By default, the stack mode will be set to "Play all parts" which means that all the instruments inside this
stack will play at the same time.
You can now select several instruments from the Browser (by drag and drop or double click) to load
them inside the same MIDI channel. For example after loading 6 instruments, you should get something
like this:

Here you can adjust the Volume, Tuning and Panning of each instrument inside the stack.
The stack editor has 4 display modes that you can access with the Mix, VCA, VCF and Map buttons:

Changing the stack mode

The default stack mode can be changed by clicking on the Stack Mode drop down menu, for example
here we select Key Switch:

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Stacking

17

Some stack modes have additional options. For example with "Control Change" you can select the MIDI
controller and with "Key Switch" you can select th eKey Switch range. Here we select the Key Switch
range and we see it in red on the keyboard.

4.2

VCA
In VCA mode, you can adjust the velocity response and the volume envelope for each instrument.

The initial value displayed for each parameter is the average value of all the samples of each instrument.
For example if an instrument has just 2 samples with the velocity response respectively set to 0.6 and
0.8, then the value that will displayed by default in the stack editor for this instrument is 0.7
If you change the original value, it will add (or remove) an offset to all the original values. For example,
with the same 2 sample instrument described above, changing the velocity response from 0.7 to 0.8 will
change the sample velocity responses to 0.7 and 0.9
To reset a parameter to its original value, click on it while pressing the Control key.

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G-Player User Manual

VCF
In VCF mode, you can adjust the cutoff frequency, the velocity response and the filter envelope for each
instrument.

The initial value displayed for each parameter is the average value of all the samples of each instrument.
For example if an instrument has just 2 samples with the velocity response respectively set to 0.6 and
0.8, then the value that will displayed by default in the stack editor for this instrument is 0.7
If you change the original value, it will add (or remove) an offset to all the original values. For example,
with the same 2 sample instrument described above, changing the velocity response from 0.7 to 0.8 will
change the sample velocity responses to 0.7 and 0.9
To reset a parameter to its original value, click on it while pressing the Control key.

4.4

Mapping
In Mapping mode you can see the mapping of all the instruments:

You can change the key range and transpose each instruments with the following methods:
Click + move on the left side of an instrument : change the lowest key
Click + move on the right side of an instrument : change the highest key
Click + move right or left : Transpose by octave
Shift + Click + move : Transpose by semitone
Control + Click : Reset the instrument to its original pitch and key range.

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Stacking

19

You can also change the instrument order in a stack by clicking on the instrument you want to move,
and while holding the mouse button down, move it up or down.

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G-Player User Manual

5. Mixer
5.1

Opening the Mixer

G-Player 2 has a new Audio Mixer, all the parts are now routed to this mixer. Click on the Mixer icon in
the toolbar to open the Mixer.

All the mixer settings will be saved with the performance.

5.2

Track Overview
Each track has 4 inserts: Compressor, Equalizer, First Effect and Second Effect. You can turn on or off
any insert by clicking on one of the 4 insert buttons.

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Mixer

5.3

21

External plug-ins
Each track allows you to insert up to 2 external effect plug-ins.
Windows:
G-Player supports 32 and 64 bit VST plug-ins that are located in:
C:/Program Files/ Steinberg/VstPlugins
Mac OS X:
G-Player supports 32 and 64 bit AudioUnit plug-ins.
To access the list of plug-ins, you have to manually click on Settings in the toolbar and select the Plugin tab.
In this setting window, click on "Rescan" to search for plug-ins.
If there is a problem with one plug-in that causes G-Player to crash, simply reopen G-Player and it will
resume the scan and skip this plug-in.

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