Question

Has anybody done a comparison Studio One 5 Show Page vs. Gig Performer?

Plugin Alliance is currently running a sale on Gig Performer, so I might get that.

Answer 1

Hello,

i testet some configurations with an Quantum FireWire and a fast McBook Pro 16 from 2020 (as Gig-Device) and an older MacBook Pro with Motu Audio Express to run the Test (corrected Sample-Offset), these are my results:

RoundTrip at 24/48 16 Samples => Show Page 7,5 ms / Gig Performer 1.1 ms

RoundTrip at 24/96 32 Samples (= double CPU Load to 48) => Show Page 3,75 ms / Gig Performer 1 ms

RoundTrip at 24/192 64 Samples (= 4 times more CPU Load to 48) => Show Page 2,3 ms / Gig Performer 0.9 ms

Show Page seems to be slower, but much easier to config and use. In S1 Show Page you also can check the Latency of any Plugin, no such Features in Gig Performer (or i could not find). Gig Performer crashes once adding and configuring Plugins (all AUs, no VST3; VST3 i will test later). I find the configuration in Gig Performer not so intuitiv and a lot of work to setup a gig, but i will buy it at sale and try it live.

Cheers,

Gregor

Answer 2

Thanks. I tested Gig Performer on Windows 10 and it never crashed on me, maybe a Mac problem?

Edit: this was meant as an answer to Gregor.

Answer 3

In real life it is not so easy...

I made some more tests with a scenario i would like to use on live performances. So i added about 50 plugins and made a 8 CH in and out complex routing. All tests at 24/48 and all choosen plugins show in S1 0ms latency. I wanted not to use plugins > 0ms, to avoid an impact due to latency in plugins.

GigPerfomer: After adding the 50 plugins i had to increase the block size to minimum 128 samples to avoid drop outs. Now i have a cpu load of 80 % (shown in GigPerformer, not the real CPU load, this is about 10 %) and it is running well, but with an overall roundtrip of 5 ms recorded on the other MacBook. Still some crashes, but i think, that is one of my plugin, unfortunately i could not figure out which one.

Studio One ShowPage: The same setup, also some crashes (the same Plugin, i think), but in ShowPage i could leave the buffer size to 16 samples and it worked fine. I don't know why, but i had now a roundtrip of 4ms. Perhaps i made a mistake measuring the first time. No drop outs at this very low buffer size ( how do they do this?). CPU load shown in S1 about 50 %, at Mac about 20 %. It seems, that S1 need more CPU power, but it is 1 ms faster.

I think 4 (5) ms roundtrip should be acceptable for a live scenario, but first i must find the one plugin causes the crashes. Otherwise i am afraid to go live with this. And i will try to minimize the amount of plugins, to save CPU power. Some plugins are nice to have, so i will proof the need of every one.

Hope someone find this helpful.

Is there someone out there, who really works with ShowPage and can report from real life scenarios?

Cheers, Gregor

Answer 4

This isn't an answer but more of an added question. Can you automate plugins in Gig Performer?

As it stands now I am disappointed with the show page because I can't simply automate plugins. I just need simple fading in and out of layers while playing keytar. Not to mention being able to gradually bring in a filter or effect without stretching for the physical faders on my keytar live.