giada audio software - documentation

7/21/2019 Giada Audio Software - Documentation

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Documentati on.

1. Introduction, installation and first run(/documentation/show/introduction)

2. Requirements(/documentation/show/requirements)

What you need to run Giada

3. Compi ling from source(/documentation/show/compiling-from-source)

4. A look at the main window(/documentation/show/look-at-the-main-window)

How to interact with

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/look-at-the-main-window


http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/introduction

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation

https://github.com/monocasual/giada

http://www.giadamusic.com/



http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/compiling-from-source

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/requirements


http://www.google.com/settings/ads?hl=en

http://void%280%29/

http://www.giadamusic.com/forum

http://www.giadamusic.com/source



http://www.giadamusic.com/download

http://www.giadamusic.com/screenshots

http://www.giadamusic.com/features




5. Performing part 1(/documentation/show/performing-1)

What can I do with Giada?

6. Performing part 2(/documentation/show/performing-2)

Understanding channels and sequencer, keyboard interactions

7. Channels and samples(/documentation/show/channels-and-samples)

8. Channels and MIDI(/documentation/show/channels-and-midi)

9. Recording actions(/documentation/show/recording-actions)

How to store your performances

10. Live sampling (/documentation/show/live-

sampling)How to store your performances, episode II

11. The action editor(/documentation/show/action-editor)

Fine recording tuning

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/action-editor

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/live-sampling

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/recording-actions

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/channels-and-midi

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/channels-and-samples

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/performing-2




12. The sample editor(/documentation/show/sample-editor)

Fine sound tuning

13. The FX stack (/documentation/show/fx-stack)

14. MIDI input management(/documentation/show/midi-input-management)

Deal with physical controllers (and more)

15. Save, load, export(/documentation/show/save-load-export)

Save your works, other interesting options

16. Configuration(/documentation/show/configuration)

Setting up Giada

17. Development - Git setup(/documentation/show/development-git-setup)

Developers, let's join us!

Giada is developed by

(http://www.monocasual.com)

news archive (/news-archive) | privacy policy (/privacy) | terms of service (/tos) | contact us (mailto:[email protected])

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.giadamusic.com/tos

http://www.giadamusic.com/privacy

http://www.giadamusic.com/news-archive

http://www.monocasual.com/

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/development-git-setup

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/configuration

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/save-load-export

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/midi-input-management

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/fx-stack

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/sample-editor



VST Plug-In Technology by Steinberg.

VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.



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FEATURES (/FEATURES) SCREENSHOTS (/SCREENSHOTS) DOWNLOAD (/DOWNLOAD)

DOCS (/DOCUMENTATION) DEVELOPMENT (HTTPS://GITHUB.COM/MONOCASUAL/GIADA)



Introduction, installation and first Run

Giada is a free, minimal, hardcore audio tool for DJs, live performers and electronic musicians. How does it work?

Just pick up your channel, fill it with samples or MIDI events and start the show by using this tiny piece of software

as a loop machine, drum machine, sequencer, live sampler or yet as a plugin/effect host. Giada aims to be a

compact and portable virtual device for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows for production use and live sets.

Warnings

Giada is in a constant stage of development and may lack of some functionalities which could make it hard to

use. Please see the ch angelog file inside the package to understand the direction of development. Giada is

obvi ously full of bugs, too. S o please join our forum (/forum) and submit any ma lfunction or suggestion.

If yo u are a coder / progra mmer / developer / hacker an d you want to collaborate with the project, join us on

GitHub (https://github.com/monocasual/giada). More informations on the Git setup

(/do cumentation/sho w/development-git-setup) page.

How to run Giada on Windows and OS X

Simply double-click on the program icon to start Giada. No installation or setup needed.

How to run Giada on Linux













http://void%280%29/











If you have installed Giada through the Debian package, you should find a shortcut in your main menu. Otherwise

open a terminal and type

giada_lin

to start the show, or put the binary file wherever you want in your filesystem and double-click on it.

The configuration file

Giada saves its configuration inside a file called giada.conf , generated somewhere in your filesystem:

Linux — /home/[your_user]/.giada/giada.conf ;

OS X — [your_home]/Library/Application Support/Giada/giada.conf ;

Windows — in the same folder of the binary file.

If you accidentally delete or alter it, the default setup will be used. This file is restored the next time you quit the

program.

Index (/documentation)

Introduction, installation and first run (/documentation/show/introduction)

Requirements (/documentation/show/requirements)

Compiling from source (/documentation/show/compiling-from-source)

A look at the main window (/documentation/show/look-at-the-main-window)

Performing part 1 (/documentation/show/performing-1)


Channels and samples (/documentation/show/channels-and-samples)

Channels and MIDI (/documentation/show/channels-and-midi)

Recording actions (/documentation/show/recording-actions)

Live sampling (/documentation/show/live-sampling)














The action editor (/documentation/show/action-editor)

The sample editor (/documentation/show/sample-editor)

The FX stack (/documentation/show/fx-stack)

MIDI input management (/documentation/show/midi-input-management)

Save, load, export (/documentation/show/save-load-export)

Configuration (/documentation/show/configuration)

Development - Git setup (/documentation/show/development-git-setup)




















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Requirements

Giada is based upon RtAudio (http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtaudio/), FLTK (http://www.fltk.org/) (GUI),

libsndfile (http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/) and libsamplerate (http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/). These

libraries are statically linked: everything you need is inside the binary you have downloaded. Nevertheless things

get little different whether you are using Windows or Linux version of Giada.

Windows

You should be able to run Giada without troubles if you keep pthreadGC2.dll in the same directory where

gi ada_win.exe is lo cated. Supported version: Windows XP or greater.

O S X

Don't worry about a thing. Supported version: Mac OS X 10.5 or greater.

Linux

Well, we lied: on Linux libsndfile (http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/) and libsamplerate (http://www.mega-

nerd.com/SRC/) are not statically linked. Moreover Giada relies on Jack (http://www.jackaudio.org) to benefit of its

advanced streaming functionalities. Those should not be a problem thanks to the comfortable deb package for

Debian distros, which should take care of the missing dependencies. If you experience any troubles with that





http://www.jackaudio.org/

http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/

http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/



http://www.fltk.org/

http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtaudio/


http://void%280%29/











package you may try the "plain" binaries in the download section, but remember that you still need

libjack.so , libsndfile.so and libsamplerate.so to run Giada. If you wish to dig deeper we report

the complete ldd command (shared library dependencies):

linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00fc6000)libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x007ea000)libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x0083b000)libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXft.so.2 (0x00f4b000)libXpm.so.4 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXpm.so.4 (0x0041a000)libjack.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0 (0x00361000)libasound.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libasound.so.2 (0x00110000)libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00660000)libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00785000)libpulse-simple.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpulse-simple.so.0 (0x003b2000)libsamplerate.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsamplerate.so.0 (0x0042c000)libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00202000)libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x0099b000)libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x002e7000)libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x009c7000)libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x00e81000)libpulse.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0 (0x00dee000)libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00305000)libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00598000)libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0x0096f000)librt.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00326000)/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0069c000)libpulsecommon-1.1.so => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpulsecommon-1.1.so (0x006be000)libexpat.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00d79000)libjson.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjson.so.0 (0x0032f000)

libdbus-1.so.3 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdbus-1.so.3 (0x003b7000)libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00337000)libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x0033b000)libz.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00342000)libwrap.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libwrap.so.0 (0x0037f000)libsndfile.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsndfile.so.1 (0x00b71000)libasyncns.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libasyncns.so.0 (0x00d4a000)libnsl.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnsl.so.1 (0x00389000)libFLAC.so.8 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libFLAC.so.8 (0x00723000)libvorbisenc.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libvorbisenc.so.2 (0x00fc7000)libvorbis.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libvorbis.so.0 (0x00d01000)

libogg.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libogg.so.0 (0x00d68000)libresolv.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00c33000)











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Compiling from source

The configure script inside the package is designed for Unix systems and MinGW (Windows). It will help you to

guess correct values for various system-dependent variables used during compilation. You have to pass it the -

-target parameter depending on your operating system:

./configure --target=[linux | osx | windows]

e.g. if you want to compile for Linux, do:

./configure --tar get =linux

When the script is done without errors, change directory to src then type

make libs

in o rder to compile the incl uded libraries, and finally

make

to compile everything. If you wish to install Giada on Linux, become root and type

make install

to copy the binary file into /usr/local/bin path.

Dependencies

Giada is based upon FLTK (http://www.fltk.org/) (GUI), libsndfile (http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/),

libsamplerate (http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/), RtMidi (http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/) and a custom

version of RtAudio (http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtaudio/), shipped with the source package. At the present



http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/



http://void%280%29/








http://www.fltk.org/


http://void%280%29/











moment we suggest you to use the following versions:

FLTK — 1.3.[0 or greater];

libsndfile — 1.0.25 or greater;

libsamplerate — 0.1.8 or greater.

RtMidi — 2.0.1 or greater.

How to enable VST support

In order to compile Giada with VST support you have to enable the feature via configure script. Add the following

parameter:

--enable-vst

e.g. if you want to compile for Linux with VST support, do:

./configure --target=linux --enable-vst

Missing headers!

You won't find any VST header into our source package, since we cannot distribute the SDK from Steinberg. To

solve this issue:

1. go to the Steinberg third-party developer support site

(http://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developer.html), login into the developer zone and download VST

Audio Plugins SDK version 2.4;

2. create a new folder called vst inside Giada/src ;

3. extract all files from the VST SDK package, grab aeffect.h, aeffectx.h and vstfxstore.h and

put them inside the new vst folder;

4. start compilation and cross your fingers.

June 2014, version 0.8.4









http://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developer.html



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A look at the main window

After the startup, you should see the main window where all buttons and levers are grouped. Horizontal lines are

channels, which contain samples or MIDI events. Don't worry if you don't understand the behavior of these tools

right now; they will be covered more clearly in the Performing 1 (/documentation/show/performing-1), Performing

2 (/documentation/show/performing-2), Channels and samples (/documentation/show/channels-and-samples)

and Channels and MIDI (/documentation/show/channels-and-midi) sections.

Input and o utput stuff

This is th e output peak meter . It goes from -60 to 0 dBFS; when the bar is

completely full it means that your program is pla ying at the maximum range

ava ilable. If you exceed thi s limit your sound starts to clip and the meter turns to red. The circular knob controls

the master volume.

This is the input peak meter . It works exactly as the input meter but it manages

the sound level coming from the soundcard. Turn the knob to zero in order to

mute the recorder.

The button between the input and the output meter is a stream linker . If enabled, it takes the

processed input and it copies it straight onto the output channel, in order to obtain a "hear what you're

playing" functionality.

The sequencer

The sequencer shows the current

running beat and the total bars of


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your program. This tool is managed by the two side buttons: play/stop and rewind . The former simply

starts/stops the beat counting, the latter is used to quickly rewind to the first beat, useful for synching with other

audio sources.

Recording tools

These buttons manage the recordings . The first one sets Giada to record mode

(/documentation/show/recording-actions): if switched on, every action (key press, key release, mute

on/off, ...) is being stored in memory, then applied to the corresponding channel. The second one starts the live

sampler (/documentation/show/live-sampling): it records any sound from the sound card input(s) and puts it in the

first available channel. Finally the metronome might help you during a recording session.

Beats, bars, quantizer and BPM A set of tools dedicated to the beat management. You can find them grouped in

the top right area of the main window.

Quantizer — a useful feature which aligns the samples on beats and on exact fractions of beats

(for a detailed explanation look at Wikipedia - Quantization

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization_%28music%29)). The quantizer provides seven operating

methods: off (disabled), 1b, 2b, 3b, 4b, 6b, 8b. It operates only when the main program is running and

affects those channels which are in a oneshot mode (/documentation/show/performing);

BPM — Changes the BPM (i.e. the speed) of the performance;

Beats/bars — Changes the number of beats and bars; the feature was designed to provide a

graphical hint for your performance and to activate the loop repeat mode

(/documentation/show/performing). This tool allows to shrink or expand the recorded actions on the

timeline through the checkbox resize recordings in the small popup window, as well as manage the sub-

beats division;

Beat operators — Dynamically shrink or expand the range of the sequencer (i.e. the total

number of beats of your performance).

Sample Channels

The first type of channel is the sample channe l .

Each element is composed, from left to right by

the following elements:

Key box — Shows the operative key associated to the channel. Press that key to activate it, or click

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/performing

http://www.giadamusic.com/documentation/show/performing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization_%28music%29





on it;

Status box — Reports the playback head position of the running sample;

Main button — Shows the name of the loaded sample and allows many operations on

it;

Mute button — Mutes the sample;

Solo button — Puts channel in solo mode;

FX button — Opens up the FX stack (/documentation/show/fx-stack);

Volume dial — Controls the volume of the sample;

Mode box — Sets the play mode of the channel.

MIDI Channels

The second type of channel is the MIDI channel .

Each element is composed, from left to right by

the following elements:

Key box — Click on it to activate or deactivate the channel;

Main button — If clicked, opens up a menu with options;

Mute button — Mutes the channel;

Solo button — Puts channel in solo mode;

FX button — Opens up the FX stack (/documentation/show/fx-stack);

Volume dial — Controls the volume of the channel;











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Perfor ming part 1

As you probably already guessed, Giada is based on the concepts of channels . A channel may contain one

sample (we call it sample channe l ) or MIDI events (we call it MIDI channel ) and you manage it through some

actions and play mode s .

An action could be the pressure of a key, the switch of the mute button and so on. Almost all of them can be

recorded during the action recording (/documentation/show/recording-actions) process or manually crafted in the

action editor (/documentation/show/action-editor). Play modes are basically t wo: loop or one shot and they

define the nature of sample channe ls .

Play modes, behaviors and statuses for each type of channel will be covered thoroughly in Channels and

samples (/documentation/show/channels-and-samples) and Channels and MIDI (/documentation/show/channels-

and -midi) sections.

Lots of ways of understanding Giada

Giada gives you the chance to play in several ways, described below.

Giada as a sample player — channels start to play immediately as their corresponding key is pressed.

No further actions are performed. This mode is designed to work in parallel with another stream (e.g. a DJ

set);

Giada loop machine! — each channel contains an element of the song: channel 1 stores drums, channel

2 stores pads, channel 3 stores leads and so on. While the sequencer is running, you launch and stop

those channels. You can also overlay effects and other sounds by playing the remaining channels as youwould do in the previous method. The quantizer helps you to align those samples to the grid and if you

enable the action recorder (/documentation/show/recording-actions) you can automate a lot of things;

Giada as a song editor — load up your samples or pick up some virtual instruments (synths, drum


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machines, ...), then open the action editor (/documentation/show/action-editor) in which you draw the

actions manually, as you would do in any other DAW or pattern editor out there. Then you can play those

channels in any of the ways seen before;

Giada as a live sampler — instead of loading samples from disk, record them from the real world! Those

sounds become regular samples that you can use in any of the ways previously discussed.

Giada as an FX processor — load as many plugins as you wish in the input channel and link it to the

output; Giada will process the FXs in realtime, outputting the result directly in your speakers.

Of course all of the previous modes can be combined together, according to your style and liking.


































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Performing part 2

In Giada, things usually happen because you have clicked on a channel or pressed its corresponding key (or

MIDI key in the near future ). For example, if you click a sample channe l 's key box ,

the sample starts to play. However the final behavior might vary, depending on various other factors such as the

play mode or the internal status of the channel.

This section is focused on general interactions; more information on each type of channel can be found inChannels and samples (/documenta tion/sho w/channels-and-samples) and Channels and MIDI

(/documentation/show/c han nels-and-midi) chapters.

The role of the ma in sequencer

The sequencer is the tool that basically handles

the performance informations. Each cell is a beatand beats are grouped in bars. The number of beat/bars, the speed and the size of the main pattern can be

adjusted through the beat tools , while play/stop and rewind buttons

control the sequencer and its position.

When the sequencer is on you are able to play your song, handle some kind of channels, record actions and

much more. In particular, it affects:

sample channe ls in loop mode;

sample channe ls in one shot mode with actions recorded;

MIDI channels .



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With the sequencer running you can also benefit from the power of the live quantizer , which helps you to align

your keystrokes to each beat. On the other hand, when the sequencer is off the channels listed above don't play

immediately: they wait (the buttons start to blink) until the sequencer starts over from the first beat. You still can

operate with:

sample channe ls in one shot mode, with or without actions recorded;

and they will play as soon as the corresponding key is pressed. We saw this style of playing in Performing 1

(/documentation/show/performing-1), and we called it Giada as a sample player .

Global interactions

The following table shows how can you interact with the various tools of the sequencer.

action alternate action effect 1

backspace click on rewind button sequencer rewind to beat 1

spacebar click on play button sequencer start/stop

enter click on action re corder button action recorder start/stop

end click on input recorder button live sampler start/stop































Giada is developed by (http://www.monocasual.com)




















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DOCS (/DOCUME NTATION) DEVELOPMENT (HTTPS://GITHUB.COM/MO NOCASUAL/GIADA)


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Channels and Samples

A Sample channel contains one sample. By clicking on its main button you will be able to

load a new sound as well as doing further operations.

Case 1: the channel is empty A file browser lets you choose the new sample. Thanks to libsndfile (http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/) Giada

is able to load a large number of uncompressed file formats, most especially WAV, AIFF and RAW. If the loading

proc edure is successfu l the sample is re ady to play.

Case 2: the channel is no t empty

A popup menu appears with several options.

Load new sample — replaces the actual sample with a new one. Volume, actions, mode

will be preserved;

Export sample to file — writes the loaded sample to disk. This option is useful to export a

single take without saving the entire project (more infos in section Save, load, export

(/documentation/show/save-load-export));

Set key — binds keys to channel;

Setup MIDI input — binds MIDI events to channel, see MIDI input management

(/documentation/show/midi-input-management);











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Edit sample — opens a new window of the sample editor (/documentation/show/sample-editor);

Edit actions — opens a new window of the action editor (/documentation/show/action-editor);

Clear actions — deletes recorded actions from the channel: key press/key release, mute, volume or

everything. The option is grayed out if there are no actions to delete;

Free channel — discharges the sample and the recorded actions, if any. Volume and mode will be

preserved.

Delete channel — removes the channel from the stack. Actions and samples will be deleted as well.

Channel statuses

The status box gives you informations about the sample:

Off — the channel is stopped;

Wait/ending (blinking) — the channel is waiting for the first beat or is about to stop;

Play — the channel is active and playing;

Action recs on — the channel is ready to record actions;

Input recs on — the channel is recording something from the soundcard.

Play modes

Play modes define the behavior of a sample channe l . As said before, they are divided into two families: loop

and one shot . Main features of loop modes :

work only when the sequencer is running;

constrained to the sequencer's boundaries;

triggered manually: you can't record keypress/keyrelease actions on them.

Main features of one shot modes :

independent from the sequencer;

you can record actions on them.

icon type name effect





loop loop basic the sample starts at beat 1 and will play continuously until its key is pressed

loop loop oncethe sample starts at beat 1 and will play until finished. Then, at the next first

beat it starts again

loop loop repeatthe sample starts at beat 1 and will play continuously, rewinding itself at every

bar

one

shot

one shot

basicthe sample starts on key press and stops on a second keypress

one

shot

one shot

pressthe sample plays as long as its key is pressed

one

shot

one shot

retrigthe sample plays until the end; pressing its key rewinds it

one

shot

one shot

endlessthe sample plays in loop forever; pressing its key stops it

Keyboard interactions

Sample channels are playable either by pressing the key associated or clicking with the mouse on the channel's

key box . The following table shows what happens with channels in loop mode:

mode event alt. event result

loop

[key] click on the key box wait, then start/stop on next beat 1

shift + [key] shift + click on the key box immediate stop

control + [key] click on mute button mute

The following table shows what happens with channels in one shot mode:

mode event alt. event 1 alt. event 2 result

one

[key]click on the

key box - start

shift +click on read

actions buttonimmediate stop if channel has no actions,



shot shift + [key] click on the

key box

else start/stop reading actions (see

below)

control + [key]

click on mute

button- mute

Sample channels with actions

As soon as the channel in one shot mode has some actions recorded into it, the read actions button

appears on the right. If you disable it, Giada no longer reads the actions for that channel. That's slightly different

from the mute button , because you can still play the sample manually and hear it.

By default when you disable the "R" button the actions stop immediately. By checking the treat recorded channels

as loops flag in the configuration (/documentation/show/configuration) panel the actions will stop at the next first

beat, as a channel in loop mode would do.


























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Chann els and MIDI

A MIDI channel contains MIDI events. By clicking on the main button a popup menu will

appear, with several options available:

Edit actions — opens a new window of the Action Editor (/documentation/show/action-

editor);

Clear actions — delete s recorded actions from the channel: all is the only option by now

;

Setup MIDI output — opens the MIDI output setup window (see below);

Setup MIDI inp ut — binds MIDI e vents to channel, see MIDI input management

(/documentation/show /midi-input-management);

Delete channel — removes the channel from the stack. All MIDI actions w ill be deleted as well.

Channel statuses

Off — the channel is stopped;

Wait/ending (blinking) — the channel is waiting for the first beat or is about to stop;

Play (fixed) — the channel is active and playing;

Keyboard interactions
















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This type of channels are somewhat simplier: they just behave like sample channels in loop basic mode (quiz:

can you figure out why?).

event result

click on the key box wait, then start/stop on next beat 1

shift + click on the key box immediate stop

click on mute button mute

MIDI output setup

This panel enables or disables the MIDI output. If you check

enable MIDI output , MIDI messages will be sent outside Giada

whenever an action occurs, through the channel specified with

the drop-down menu on the right. With this technique you will be

able to control external MIDI hardware or other software as well.























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FEATU RES (/FEATURES ) SCREENSHOTS (/SCREENSHOTS) DOWNLOAD (/DOWNLOAD)




Recording actions

You know that an action is basically something you do on a channel. Before doing anything, Giada must be put

in record mode . You can do this by clicking on the action rec button or by pressing the enter key:

all the recordable channels will turn red. When you're done, disable the record mode: you will notice that all the

channels with something recorded show a "R" button : this one enables or disables the recordings. If you

need to erase the actions of a channel, click on the sample button and select clear recordings , or tweak them

more thoroughly in the action editor (/documentation/show/action-editor).

What type s of acti on can I record?

For the time being , on a sample ch annel you can record th e following types:

key press;

key release;

sample kill;

channel mute.

On a MIDI channel you can't do anything live, for now .

June 201 4, version 0.8.4



















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Live sampling

Giada gives you the ability to record anything coming in from your soundcard thanks to its live sampler and

master input channel. Configure your device in the Configuration panel (/documentation/show/configuration) first,

then turn up the knob of the input volume in the main window.

The button between the input and the output meter is the stream linker : enable it and you will be able

to hear what you're playing. Finally you can process the incoming signal by adding some effects on the input

side, with the FX button : more informations in the section The FX stack (/documentation/show/fx-stack).

How to use t he live sampler

Click on the input re c button or press end to enable the sampler; the new sample will be placed in the

first available sample channe l , and the corresponding status will turn blue. The master play will start

automatically, since recording a sound doesn't make sense with the master play turned off. The sampler works inoverdub mode by default: the messages coming from the soundcard are being continuously summed to the

existing data until the sampler is halted.












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The Action Editor

The action editor is a tool to operate on actions. Here

you can alter and modify the existing ones, as well as

add them from scratch. It represents the actions of a

channel and it's composed of several horizontal

widgets, each of them containing a specific action type.

General interactions

All the widgets work the sam e way: you manage them with the mouse and you a dd, remove or shift the actions by

clicking on them.

action effect

left click on empty area add an action

right click on action remove an action

left click + drag on action move the action or resize it

right click + drag on empty area vertical scroll, if the widget has scrollable content





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The zoom buttons in the upper right corner of the window allow to magnify or reduce the view of all

the widgets. The grid tool shows a visual grid over the beat cells; the small check button on the right

enables snapping.

Available actions At the moment the action editor allows to manage the following action types:

key press, key release, sample kill — through the start/stop widget;

mute — through the mute widget;

volume — through the volume envelope widget.

MIDI events — through the piano roll widget.

Start/stop widget

The start/stop widget works only for those channels set in oneshot mode (

); if you open the editor for a channel set in loop

mode , the widget will be disabled. Actions are represented in different ways:

Key press — a single key pressure, usually recorded live with [key] ;

Key release — a single key release;

Kill chan — a sample break, usually recorded live with shift+[key] ;

Composite action — it represents the combination of a key press + key release and it's

available only for channels set to oneshot press mode . It shows the duration of the key pressure

and you can resize it by dragging the edges.

The action type selector changes the action drawn by the cursor.

Mute widget




The mute widget works for any mode set for channels. The squared dots can be dragged around and they

represent a change of status. Mute is active when the line is at the top.

Volume Envelope widget

The volume envelope widget handles volume changes. It ranges from 0

(bottom, silence) to 1 (top, full amplitude). Click on the first or last point to erase

the envelope completely.

Piano roll widget

Available only for MIDI channels , the piano roll widget handles MIDI notes. It

represents the full set of 128 notes (0-127) with 11 octaves ranging from C-1

(or C0) to G9 (or G10).

It can be vertically resizable by dragging the lower edge up and down. Left-click

on an empty space and drag it to move the grid up and down



















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The Sample Editor

Giada 0.3.0 introduced this useful tool for fine

manipulations of your samples. While the main window

provides a fast and basic interaction, inside the editor

you may tweak several parameters such as start points,

end points, fine volume, boost and more.

The editor also provides some basic tools for cutting,

trimming or silencing your sample. Those are

destructive actions; if you damage the sample you have

to reload it from disk. Don't worry, the damage will occur

only in memory; the original file won't be touched!

St art/end points

Start/end points are used to set the play range of the sample and are represented by two vertical lines labeled

"S" ( start ) and "E" ( end ) : click on each label and drag it around to set the points quickly, or use the

boxes below for a precise, numeric setup. The Reset button restore the default configuration.

Volume and boost



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The Volume knob reflects the one located on the main window, running from -inf to 0.0

dB. The Boost slider is used to rise the signal level of a quiet sample; its range goes from

0.0 to 20.0 dB.

NormalizeThe Normalize button parses the entire sample and brings its highest peak to 0.0 dB, setting the

boost level accordingly. If the highest peak is greater than 0.0 dB (it could happen with a floating point sample),

the function brings it down to 0.0 dB. If the sample is silent, it does nothing.

Panning

The Pan knob sets the position of the sampled sound into the stereo field. "L" stands for

Left, "R" for Right and "C" for center.

Pitch

The Pitch knob streches or compresses the sample, making it sound faster or slower. It works

exactly as a turntable pitch control slider. At the moment it's based on a really gross algorithm

which introduces sound artifacts and distorsions. We are working on it!

Cut, trim, silence, ...

Select a portion of the waveform with the mouse and click on it with the right button : a menu will appear, giving you some editing tools:

Cut — removes a portion from the sample;

Trim — removes all but the selected portion;

Silence — mutes the selected portion (set the amplitude to 0);

Set start/end he re — sets the start / end points to the selection boundaries.

Did you mess with the sample? You can reload it from disk by clicking on the Reload button .




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The FX stack

Giada provides VST plugin host functionalities since version 0.4.8; both VST and VSTi (instrument) plugins are

supported. The implementation of the VST protocol goes on steadily, but your plugin could malfunction or not

work at all! Please report any irregularity into our forum (//forum) or via GitHub

(https://github.com/monocasual/giada) (for developers).

The VST window

The magic button shown on the left opens the list of the VST plugins. This is the window in which you load

new plugins, dele te the unwanted ones, mute them and tweak the parameters. Wherever it is placed, when

clicked it opens the VST win dow.

Each li ne corresponds to a plug in. Click on the name of the

effect to open the plugin window (see below). The menu on the

right lists the presets (also known as programs ). The check

button enables or disables the plugin while the

up/down buttons shift the plugin inside the stack.

Finally the remove button takes away the plugin from the stack. Add a new plugin by clicking on the

button at the end of the stack ( add new plugin ).

You can load an unlimited number of VST plugins inside Giada; just be aware that they can stress your CPU,

compromising the live performance.

The plugin window








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By default Giada will try to display the graphical interface of the plugin. In case the plugin doesn't provide an

editor , another window will show a list of the parameters, tweakable

through the horizontal sliders.

VST compatibility

VST plugins must be hosted in compatible environments which means, for example, that an OSX plugin cannot be

loaded in the Windows version of Giada and vice versa.





























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MIDI input management

Since version 0.8.0 Giada is able to read MIDI messages from the external world. A physical device can be

attached to control channels, volumes, properties and so on. Actually any "thing" that sends out MIDI messages

can be used to drive Giada, so the choice can be expanded to softwares and scripts as well.

What can you control with MIDI

There are two main classes of elements that can be controlled via MIDI:

Global element s — sequencer, metronome, main volumes and so on. They are stored inside the

configuration file and you set them once;

Per-channel e lem e nts — channel on/off, mute, volume, solo and so on. They are stored inside the patch

and you set them wh enever you create a new son g.

How to assign MIDI messages to elements

First of all make sure you have properly configured your sound card to receive MIDI messages: you can do that

in the configuration (/documentation/show/configuration) panel. To configure global elements , open edit ->

setup global MIDI input... and a new window will appear, containing all assignable elements.

From left to right, the first box cointains the name of the

parameter. The button ("(not set)" in the picture) shows the

hexadecimal value assigned to the parameter: click on it with















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the right button to reset it to none. Finally the "learn" button enables the so-called MIDI learn : click on it, then

move a knob or press any key and Giada will assign it to the parameter you have chosen.

To configure per-channel elements , click on a channel's button and select setup MIDI input... from the popup

menu. The window with assignable elements is similar to the previous one but with different parameters, of

course.



































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Save, Load, Export

Giada is able to produce three kinds of files: patches , projects and samples .

Patch

A patch is a text-based .gptc file in which vol umes, samples, statuses and configurations are stored. Use this one

if you are using samples from your collection (i.e. no takes or any destructive editing done) and you are sure of

opening the patch in the same system you saved it. Path: file -> save patch...

Pr oject

Any take from the out side world and/or any destructive editing on the samples must be stored somewhere inord er to be used the next time you load your patch. This function creates a .gprj folder in your filesystem, then

copies all of your samples inside the folder and creates the .gptc file in which all sample paths are made relative

to that folder. Path: file -> save project...

Samples

This function exports the sample to file. At the moment only WAV format is supported. Path:

[sample button] -> export sample to file...







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Other interesting options

The edit button in the main window offers some other useful options for

your work:

Clear all samples — unloads all channels. Modes, volumes and FXs remain untouched;

Clear all actions — removes any type of action from all the channels;

Reset to init state — resets Giada to the default blank patch;

Setup global MIDI input — binds MIDI events to global parameters, see MIDI input management

(/documentation/show/midi-input-management).






























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Configuration

This panel gives you the ability to tweak hardware parameters as well as operational modes, through three

different tabs: Sound System , MIDI and Behaviors .

Sound System

Configure your sound system, input/output channels and the buffer size.

System — This is the audio framework to choose from. It may vary from

OS to OS.

Buffer size — (in frames): a low valu e means low latency but high cpu

work, while an high value means high la tency with low cpu work (useful if

you have a slo w machine or you don't n eed to play channels in live

mode).

Sample rate — (in Hz): the sample rate at which your soundcard works. If you load a set of samples

recorded at different sample rates, they will be converted to that rate (see resampling below).

Output device — The device used for playing. The question mark on the right pops up some informations

about it.

Limit output — If enabled, the output signal will be truncated if greater than ± 1.0 (floating point values).

Input device — The device used for recording. Disabled by default. The question mark on the right pops

up some informations about it.

Rec delay comp — Too much latency can make it difficult to record a live performance: the record delay

compensation (in frames) helps you to align the incoming audio to the rest of your existing beats.








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Resampling — The algorithm used for resampling, i.e. when you load a sample whose sample rate differs

from the system's rate. At the moment you can choose between five algorithms:

1. Linear — very fast, low quality;

2. Zero Order Hold — fast, low quality;

3. Sinc basic quality — not so fast, medium quality;

4. Sinc medium quality — not fast, good quality;

5. Sinc best quality — slow, super quality.

MIDI

Configure here the global MIDI parameters.

System — This is the MIDI framework to choose from. It may vary from OS to OS;

Output port — The MIDI output connection.

Behaviors

Define how Giada should handle loops, timing and channels.

When a channel with recorde d action is halted — This options

defines the behavior when you stop of a channel with some actions

recorded with by cliking on the "R" button (or the shift +

[key] combination). If you check stop it immediately , the sample will

stop abruptly; otherwise with play it until finished the sample will play

until it reaches its end.

When the sequencer is halted — What should happen when you pull up the performance (by pressing

the spacebar or the stop button)? If you choose stop immediately all dynamic channels any sample in

loop mode and any sample with recorded actions will stop abruptly; otherwise with play all dynamic

channels until finished , those samples will play until the end.

Treat recorded channels as loops — By default a click on the "R" button (or the shift +

[key] combination) stops immediately any recorded action. When this option is enabled any channel

whose actions are suspended puts itself in ending mode, as the loop mode would do, and stops at the next

first beat.

Bring channels to full volume on sample load — a useful time saver.






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Development: GIT setup

Our development version is hosted and mantained on GitHub (https://github.com). The official page can be found

at

https://github.com/monocasual/giada (https://github.com/monocasual/giada)

and the repository with the master branch at

https://github.com/monocasu al/giad a.gitgit://github.com/monocasual/giada.git

Please refer to the GitHub documentation (https://help.github.com/) on how to fork , pull , push and so on. If you're

new to GitHub, we woul d suggest a very nice tutorial (http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/getting-the-hang-of-

gith ub/) for beginners .

Compilin g the source in the local repositoryThe source in the repository follows the same rules of the .tar package you download from this website. In the

chapter Compiling from source (/documentation/show/compiling-from-source) you will find all the informations

needed.

The configure and/or the make scripts may complain about something, especially if you alter, add or

remove the files in the repository. In that case use the included autogen.sh script (available only in the

repository):

./autogen.shconfigure [...]make








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giada audio software - documentation

Documents