User guide
Configuration.

This panel gives you the ability to tweak hardware parameters as well as operational modes, through six different tabs: Audio, MIDI, Behaviors, Plugins, Key Bindings and Misc.

Audio

• System — The audio framework to choose from. It may vary from OS to OS.
• Buffer size — (in frames): a low value means low latency but high CPU work, while an high value means high latency with low CPU work. The latter is useful if you have a slow machine or you don't need 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.
• 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: can be enabled by clicking on the checkbox button on the right.
• Resampling — The algorithm used for resampling, i.e. when you load a sample whose sample rate differs from the system's rate and when you change the pitch of a sample channel. 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

• System — The MIDI framework to choose from. It may vary from OS to OS;

• Output port — The MIDI output connection;

• Input port — The MIDI input connection;

• Output midimap — midimap file in use. Please refer to MIDI output management for more information about the MIDI lightning feature;

• Sync — How to sync with another device via MIDI. Giada currently supports synchronization via MIDI clock. Possible choices:

  1. (disabled) — don't sync anything;

  2. MIDI Clock (master) — send MIDI clock data. Giada acts as a master device;

  3. MIDI Clock (slave) — receive MIDI clock data. Giada acts as a slave device.

Behaviors

Define how Giada should handle loops, timing and channels.

• Dynamic channels stop immediately when the sequencer is halted — What should happen when you pull up the performance (by pressing the spacebar or the stop button)? If the option is enabled, any sample in loop mode and any sample with recorded actions will stop abruptly; otherwise it will play until the end.

• Treat one shot channels with actions as loops — By default, clicking the button (or pressing the shift + (key) combination) on a channel that is reading actions stops it immediately. When this option is enabled, any playing channel whose actions are suspended will be set to ending mode first, as a channel in loop mode would do, and then it will stop at the next first beat.

• New samples channels have input monitor on by default — If enabled, new sample channels will have the Input protection flag checked by default;

• New samples channels have overdub protection on by default — If enabled, new sample channels will have the Overdub protection flag checked by default. Useful when live recording audio.

Plug-ins

This tab contains the plug-in scanner. It's used to search for available audio plug-ins in your system. Insert the path to your plug-in folder in the input field and press the scan button. More than one path can be added, both manually or by clicking the "+" button (a directory browser will pop up). Paths are separated by the ; character.

Once finished, the scan button will report the number of available plug-ins found. You should do a complete scan every time you add/install a new plug-in, to make it available for use.

Key Bindings

This tab allows you to change the default keyboard bindings for global actions such as start/stop sequencer, record audio, record actions and so on. Choose the key you want to remap, click the Bind button and press a key on your keyboard. The Clear button deletes the binding.

Misc

Miscellaneous options.

• Debug messages — How Giada prints information on its internal state:

  1. (disabled) — don't print anything anywhere;

  2. To standard output — print messages on the command line, only if you run Giada from the terminal. This mode might not work on Windows;

  3. To file — save messages to giada.log file, located in the same place of the configuration file as described in the Introduction chapter.

• Tooltips — Toggles little pop-up messages that appear when hovering the mouse over UI components.

• Language file — The current language file in use for localization. Giada stores localized text in special JSON files called langmaps that reside in your configuration directory, or more precisely:

  1. Linux — /home/(your_user)/.config/giada/langmaps/;

  2. Mac — /Users/(your_user)/Library/Application Support/Giada/langmaps/;

  3. Windows — C:\Users\(your_user)\AppData\Giada\langmaps\.

  Langmap files can be downloaded from the official repository of Giada langmap files on GitHub. New translations are welcome! Plese take a look at the README.md file if you want to contribute.