Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Discussion of issues related to MOTU's Sysex Editor/Librarian program.

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Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

Unisyn 2.1.1 for OS X

a review by
M.G. (Shooshie) Roberts

(edited June 3, 2005--see below)

There was a time when MIDI synthesizer librarians were dedicated to individual synths, each one costing more than anyone wanted to spend, but the practicality and ease they brought to the programming of those old MIDI boxes made them essential to anyone who had tried programming through the awkward interfaces on the front panels. Still, in a studio with many synths, the expense piled up rather quickly, as did the key-disks and the inconvenience of dealing with so many pieces of software which essentially did the same thing, just to different MIDI boxes. So, it was only natural that someone should come along and unify these applications into one librarian that could do it all.

Mark of the Unicorn introduced Unisyn, their UNIversal SYNthesizer librarian, in the mid-1990s to high acclaim. While it did not fit any particular synth as smoothly as the dedicated apps that preceded it, the advantages of programming all of your synths in "unison" greatly outweighed the minor, mostly cosmetically exposed seams in this amazing workhorse of an application. Opcode introduced its all-in-one librarian called Galaxy around the same time. Sadly, Opcode and all its librarians are now history.

Unlike its more famous MOTU cousins, Performer and Digital Performer, Unisyn did not go through a lot of revisions. During its entire tenure in the "Classic" Macintosh era, up through OS 9, it only made it up to version 1.5. During the massive Mac-Exodus from OS 9 to OS X, Unisyn version 2.0 was first released for OS 9, as a Carbon app (cross platform), but its OS X counterpart took well over another year to be released. Happily, the wait was over in mid-February of 2004, when Unisyn for OS X began shipping with very little fanfare, 9 months after the release of Digital Performer version 4.0. With a rack of synths, I was greatly relieved to get it, and I have been using it ever since. Fully Core-MIDI compatible, Unisyn filled a gaping hole in available music applications for OS X.

Unisyn can handle hundreds of synths--theoretically an infinite number, since it has an interface framework in which an independent developer writes a "Profile" of any given synthesizer which tells Unisyn how to talk to that device. Unisyn comes with over 250 profiles, which means you can run a lot of devices with one application. Each synth's profile operates on the same principle: download banks of patches/programs/setups etc., from your synth. Store them in editable files. Edit patches in a graphic editor that makes programming your synth at least tolerable and not a hair-pulling, nail-biting experience as is so common when attempted with those tiny windows on synthesizer front panels. Unisyn stores these banks in groups organized by device. (K2600, Proteus 2000, DX-7II, etc.)

These stored banks or "snapshots" become your reference points. Create a new document, which is generic for all devices, and you can drag & drop banks from your snapshots to your new document in order to create searchable meta-libraries containing all your patches/programs/setups. Unisyn knows what they are, where they go, how to catalogue them, how to keyword them, and in cases where a program or patch has dependencies, Unisyn automatically finds those and keeps track of them, too. You can create a library of instruments for certain projects. Or make one for each instrument type (guitars, basses, brass, etc.). Or, you can just put them all in one big library and use the search command to find individual instruments as needed for upload. "Upload," meaning, send them to your device and load into an available slot. Unisyn makes it easy.

With Unisyn 2, prior experience is not necessarily an advantage. In version 2, I learned that MOTU had combined some of the windows of past versions, greatly simplifying the storage and retrieval of files. Expecting the learning curve for the new version to be steep, I found that it's really not. I kept trying to make it more complicated than it was, looking for things that were no longer there. Where did they go? Simplified & consolidated. The change really wasn't all that much, I guess, but it made Unisyn much friendlier. For example, the old version had separate filetypes for banks, libraries, patches, performances, and setups; those are just the ones I can remember. There may have been others. There seemed to be some redundancy back in those days, along with folders full of files that were hard to identify. The new Unisyn only has one filetype, and it seems to use fewer files in general. The windows are more context-sensitive, and people who know the arcane complexity of MIDI will respect all that goes on "under the hood." It's very transparent to the user, leaving you free to think about your sounds and music, rather than file management and complexities. Nevertheless, if you need to edit your patch in hexadecimal, there is a built-in hex editor in Unisyn, and you can watch your MIDI transfers through a MIDI in or MIDI out monitor window.

The effectiveness of Unisyn's Synth Profile method varies from device to device. For my Yamaha gear the model works beautifully. I can get or send individual patches in one (or two) click(s) at any location in a Yamaha device like the TG-77. On the other hand, the developer of the Kurzweil 2600's Unisyn profile programmed it such that individual programs (patches) can only be loaded to the K2600 via Program #600. He had his reasons, due to the 2600's design, but I'd like to be able to send/receive individual programs to any slot. Other operations (sending and receiving banks, for example) work normally for the K2600, and entire banks download or upload in a short time. While every synth may have its own peculiarities, they all still work pretty much the same way. To guide you through the process, each Synthesizer has a help-file (accessible under the "Help" menu) which explains the peculiarities and procedures for that particular instrument.

Unisyn is not merely a librarian, but also a patch/program editor. You can access most or all of the programmable functions of a patch within the editor, create whole new libraries of brand-new sounds--even generate "random" patches, then upload them back to the device as banks or patches. Very handy, of course, as anyone knows who ever spent days hacking through the little window on a synth, navigating button menus and sliders or dials. A graphic interface on a computer monitor is unbeatable for editing synths!

The era of powerful processors has brought with it a new era of software sound modules, but the support for external MIDI boxes has not diminished very much at this point. If you still believe in rack-mounted instruments and large quantities of outboard sound modules, as I do, you need Unisyn. It's not just a convenience; it fulfills a MIDI studio. In addition to organizing, naming and editing your sound patches/programs, Unisyn will also help you manage your patchlists in Digital Performer, audition sounds (even play them with mouse keys), and search for patches using a powerful search feature that uses multiple criteria to find specifically what you want. Unisyn also provides keywords that greatly assist in this process, and of course you can create your own keywords.

Unisyn isn't without its flaws, though most of them are just annoying rather than seriously troubling. Its windows seem to have a propensity to get stuck underneath the menubar at the top of your screen, and there is no place from which to grab them to pull them back down again. It is very frustrating until you discover the "zoom" command under the Window menu. (First, resize the window by dragging the bottom-right corner. Then click "Command-\" and the window pops right back into place.) Windows do not respond to scroll wheels, making them only scrollable with the mouse. Even the page-up and page-down keys are not operable. It's amazing how little oversights like that can cheapen an otherwise amazing application. A useful additional feature, for future versions, would be a counter which could count the number of patches or other objects in a selection or in a window. When creating new banks, it can be tedious to count your patches. We can hope for improvements; I've asked for some, as I'm sure others have.

So far, Unisyn 2.1.1 has been completely stable in OS X. (10.3.5--Panther, as of this writing) No crashes, no freezes, just 100% reliability. THAT is a beautiful feature! Unisyn lists for $295, but the street price is closer to $195, and while that may seem steep, don't forget that it is a universal librarian, replacing what in the old days would have been dozens of individual librarians. Given the time-saving functionality, reliability, and back-up facility it adds to any MIDI studio, the price seems almost negligible. Out of five stars, I'll take one off for the niggling little details mentioned above, but I have no qualms giving Unisyn my highest recommendation.

[EDIT] It's now June of 2005, and I feel compelled to alter my review a bit. One thing I never used in Unisyn was the ability to manage patch-lists in Digital Performer. The way I work, it's not necessary. But I've been trying to help others do this, and I've learned that Unisyn simply does not do a good job of this. Hit or miss, there's no consistency to it. MOTU has only hinted that they may be aware of the problem. It is certainly not high on MOTU's priority list to fix it.

Other things also need fixing: scrolling with the scroll wheel does not work at all. There are many interface shortcomings; I won't list them now, but Unisyn could use an overhaul. One particularly annoying bug causes the windows to get stuck under the menubar. Most windows can be retrieved by resizing them, and then using the "Zoom" command in the Windows menu. But the Search window is permanently stuck on my copy. I guess I could reinstall.

I'm finding that most people who use Unisyn do so for the patch-list management feature (which doesn't work), so MOTU has acquired a group of unhappy customers. I wish to convey my apologies for recommending Unisyn without having covered that aspect of it, but having apologized, I also should add that it's just not something I use. I load "custom banks" for each type of musical work that I do. The patch choices in my Digital Performer files never change. That is, a given track will always output to the same patch number. So, when I experiment with different instruments for the same tracks, I don't change patches in Digital Performer. Instead, I load a whole new bank into my synth, with the desired patches inserted into the desired slots. Because of this method of working, I never used the Patchlist Manager. You may find this method of working satisfactory, but most people probably won't. Consequently, I encourage everyone to write or call MOTU and ask them to fix patchlist management in Unisyn.

I am revising my rating for Unisyn, knocking it down from 4 stars to 3 stars out of 5. I'll raise it if and when MOTU releases an improved version. (Hear that huge sucking silence coming from Cambridge? That's the sound of Unisyn being ignored. ;) )
------Shooshie (June 3, 2005)

[/EDIT]

Product: Unisyn
Rating: * * * ° ° (3 out of 5 stars)
List Price: $295
Street Price: about $195
Platform: Macintosh
Operating Systems: OS 9 and OS X
Maker:
Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU)
1280 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

www.motu.com


Reviewer:
M.G. (Shooshie) Roberts
Dallas, Texas
October 21, 2004

[Feel free to quote from this review as needed, or to use it in its entirety for commercial or any other uses, under the condition that you properly credit the author (just "Shooshie" will do in most cases), including city and date. Thank you.]

<small>[ June 03, 2005, 09:14 PM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Tonio »

Shooshie, nicely written. Makes me want to purchase it just for the effort put into it.
I personally don't have many modules, so it may be
of unecessary expenditure.
Many folks still have mondo module/sythns, however
many the soft synths are being created quite rapidly. What are your thoughts on this.

T
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

Ok... you asked. ;)

Musing on the future of MIDI, VI, and Unisyn

First of all, Virtual Instruments technology is not so much a replacement for MIDI synth technology as an outgrowth of it. VI is where MIDI was always heading, but because the whole network isn't there yet, most people just don't see it that way. You might say that VI is where MIDI (or the single-keyboard paradigm) was in about 1982. Already we're seeing that VI is pushing the CPU too hard, even in the fastest of G5 or Pentium computers. In the early days of MIDI, the same thing happened: a single Synclavier or DX-7 just could not be a whole orchestra or band, and the need developed to distribute the musical instrument processing over many boxes, each of which grew capable of multi-timbral processing internally as well. MIDI was the protocol which filled the need to distribute the music to the hardware.

I think that distributed processing is always going to have an edge over centralized processing. Logic Audio's new release to version 7 has a distributed processing feature built-in. MOTU has been utilizing dual processors since version 3, and will surely continue to expand distributed processing to server farms or even just a few Macs, and probably sooner, not later.

Basically, a rack of MIDI gear is just another type of distributed processing farm, though it's just an older paradigm that was music-specific: the synth boxes came first, the method to tie them all together (MIDI) came later. By comparison to Macs and PCs, synth boxes are primitive computers, but MIDI was an effective network for them. Now, we're just looking at more sophisticated instruments, and we're recognizing that the actual instrument is in the software, not the hardware. It was always that way, but a DX-7 was just hardware built around the software. Now the box is generic (PC or Mac), and the box can run multiple software instances of instruments.

(patience... I'm getting there. ;) )

MIDI instruments like the Kurzweil 2600 are evolutionary bridges in the sense that they resemble PCs running virtual instruments. They are very programmable like a PC, and not so hard-wired like an old DX-7. This generation of MIDI instruments may represent the last of a breed. Soon, we'll go to Mac/PC-based instruments as we are already doing, but rather than try to make one beleaguered CPU do it all, we will network them together as Logic is currently doing, and as MOTU will soon follow suit.

In other words, MIDI instruments are not dead; they have just evolved into what they really should be: programmable shells (computers) which run software. It's MIDI that is going away, not the instruments. MIDI will not evolve into something new like mLAN, because that's just another MIDI protocol that is music-industry specific. Instead, future music studios will be networked using computer standards, not musical standards. Instead of a rack of MIDI Gear, the future studio will have a rack of X-serves networked by computer industry standards--possibly Firewire or Gigabit Ethernet, or even something like Bluetooth. (Wow, can you imagine? Plug & Play without the plug!) As such, a music network will run lots of virtual instruments in a rack not unlike a MIDI rack, but much faster and much more flexible.

Once this gets closer to a final, standard format that focuses on maturity rather than innovation, there will still be a need for a product like Unisyn to keep track of the thousands of instruments at a musician's disposal. Current incarnations of such products include CDXtract, which is basically a Sample Librarian, but with a little work could become a full-fledged VI Librarian.

So, MIDI will eventually be going away, at least in serious studios. Distributed Processing Networks (or server farms, to be more accurate) will be replacing them. And Unisyn will have to evolve from a MIDI-based librarian to a disk/server based librarian. Meanwhile, the billions of dollars worth of MIDI technology is not going to vanish overnight, but in 10 years MIDI in general may very well be relegated to the scrap heap of musical technology, where now rest the bones of Moog, Synclavier, and the old Fairlight boxes. Or, I may be sounding the death knell of MIDI a little bit prematurely. It may always be with us as a low-tech networking protocol for tough, road-seasoned touring instruments and club installations for keyboards, sound modules, machine control and lighting. After all, it has the advantage of already being there, and it's not really broken. MIDI works, and it is robust. It just doesn't address the new face of instruments that are too generic to be limited to a music protocol. Perhaps there will be a two-tiered approach that will keep MIDI with us for a long time to come.

No matter which way it goes, you can be sure that our desperate need for librarians to organize and manage all these instruments will always provide a market for products like Unisyn and CDXtract, which take our unmanageable messes and turn them into powerful networks of useful instruments and information, all instantly available ready for use.

For me, personally, and for thousands of people in the same situation as myself, I am not at all discontent with MIDI and racks of MIDI gear. It is powerful and sophisticated, and there is no need for anyone to feel out-of-the-loop for staying with the older MIDI paradigm. The new VI paradigm is still fraught with difficulties that MIDI ironed out over a decade ago, so people using MIDI are working with a mature paradigm which enables them to focus more on music than on technology. Once the early adopters have finished pulling out their hair and getting the tricks of VI distributing ironed out, the rest of us will follow. But for now I have to spend what time I have left in this world working on what brought me here to begin with: music. It's not about instruments, networks and paradigms. It's about being comfortable with your tools so that music can flow with the least effort possible in this Brave New World of music production. And as long as I'm working with MIDI, you can be sure that Unisyn is going to be right here beside me, making my job easier, leaving more time for music.

M.G. (Shooshie) Roberts
10/21/2004
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Terra303 »

I think you hit the nail on the head... I've had Unisyn since 1.5 and I've had problems getting 2.1.1 to work, but I think I've just been making it harder to learn than it really was. Tonight I went back to it and it's actually getting easier. I just had to pay attention to where everything has been relocated... Great program... Great review... Great Sandwich... :)
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by trombone17 »

Here is a review of Unisyn 2.11 I wrote back in June on harmony-central. I found that the OS 9 version was more dependable. Additions to my original review are in square brakets.

Price Paid: School Purchase

Ease of Use: 6
As an instructor, I have had to learn to program to teach it. I praise MOTU for the feature set, but there are some very nasty bugs. One which has always struck me as unusual is the need to store a patch. I cannot tell you the number of times a student will work on a patch, forget to store it, and because there is no warning before closing the window, they lose their work. Unisyn is a lot easier to use then the 10 or so buttons on most hardware devices for tweaking sounds, but in relation to its potential, it is not the top of the line. The hardest part for me is getting all the settings on the hardware right to talk with Unisyn. As you can imagine, most hardware is picky about how it recieves SysEx, so initial setup for a complex studio will take an afternoon, if you have a good knowledge of MIDI and the user manual for your hardware. [addition: another nasty bug is the ability to move the title bar of a window behind the top menu bar. if you happen to do this, the window is stuck.]

Features: 8
It does what it says...when it does not crash. There is a curious restriction out of the box of install admin only [addition: meaning any admin that did not install the program cannot use it, let along restricted users]. (This can be over-ridden by using terminal to adjust the permissions).

Expressiveness/Sounds: N/A
It really depends on your hardware and how well you know it.

Reliability: 4
Very prone to crashing. I push it hard, and it does not crash too often for students, but ver 1.5 never crashed on me.

Customer Support: 4
This would be higher if they would have sent me the developer kit. They are not known for their customer support, but it is not the worst in the world. When you do talk to a person and not get the dreaded busy signal, they are pretty helpful.
[Since the I authored this, they sent an email saying that *if* they write a developers' kit, they'll send it. Which does no one any good if there are sound modules that i have, i have the SysEx codes for, but not the tools i need to build the profile, for instance, the Roland JV-1010]

Overall Rating: 7
the market for patch editor/librarian programs is quite barren for OS X. MOTU fills that gap. I personally hope they fix the bugs in an update and come out with more profiles, but overall, for a first revision of a OS 9 port, I can live witht he bugs if it means my students do not have to edit patches and banks on a two line LCD screen with only 10 buttons. For those curious, in the studio I have had either full or mixed success with Alesis D4 (does not update patch lists though [as it does in OS 9]), Korg X5, X5D, X5DR, X2, Yamaha SY-77, Roland D-50, E-mu Proteus/1. Had issues with Alesis HR-16B and an Oberhiem Matrix 12. Not tested with a Kawai K5 or Korg M1 yet.
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

"Ease of Use: 6
As an instructor, I have had to learn to program to teach it. I praise MOTU for the feature set, but there are some very nasty bugs. One which has always struck me as unusual is the need to store a patch. I cannot tell you the number of times a student will work on a patch, forget to store it, and because there is no warning before closing the window, they lose their work."


This is not a bug. Unisyn operates directly on the device's buffer. You're not modifying your patch in Unisyn. You're modifying the device. The "bug" would be in the device, not Unisyn. That's just the way it works. Some devices actually ask you if you want to save before you move on. Others don't. I'll grant you that Unisyn should ask if you want to save your changes. That would be a good feature to request, and logically, it should bring the rating down a little, but when you're familiar with the routine, it's not something that would ever be a problem. I never noticed it, because I've used Unisyn for all these years, and just did not think of testing to see if there was a "Do you want to save?" dialogue.

"The hardest part for me is getting all the settings on the hardware right to talk with Unisyn. As you can imagine, most hardware is picky about how it recieves SysEx, so initial setup for a complex studio will take an afternoon, if you have a good knowledge of MIDI and the user manual for your hardware."
Again, this isn't a Unisyn problem. I guess my experience in MIDI makes me amazed in the opposite way: that you can make it work at all! That's the amazing thing about Unisyn; it works, and it works for all those devices to some extent. (not all devices are 100% supported, because some devices do not allow MIDI editing of their contents beyond a certain point.)

"another nasty bug is the ability to move the title bar of a window behind the top menu bar. if you happen to do this, the window is stuck."
They should fix this. I took some points off for this, but if you read my review, you may have found the fix for it. There is a "zoom window" command (Command-\) which will fix it IF (and only if) you resize the window manually first.

"Features: 8
It does what it says...when it does not crash. There is a curious restriction out of the box of install admin only [addition: meaning any admin that did not install the program cannot use it, let along restricted users]. (This can be over-ridden by using terminal to adjust the permissions).

Reliability: 4
Very prone to crashing. I push it hard, and it does not crash too often for students, but ver 1.5 never crashed on me.
"


I can't comment on this. I've been using it for 9 months, and it has not crashed one time. I sometimes forget and leave it open for a few days, then come back to it after having restarted my MIDI setup, and continue using it. It's actually not supposed to work this way, and even says so in the profiles, but it hasn't caused me any problems. And never one single crash--ever.

I'm interested in the admin thing. Since I'm the only one using mine, it's never a problem. But if it ever is a problem for me, I'd like to know the terminal procedure you use. Any chance you could copy that from Terminal and paste it in for us?

"Customer Support: 4
This would be higher if they would have sent me the developer kit. They are not known for their customer support, but it is not the worst in the world. When you do talk to a person and not get the dreaded busy signal, they are pretty helpful...


MOTU's customer support was always mid-range. Hit-or-miss. The dreaded busy signal taught most of us to read the F-ing manual. "RFTM" is the answer to a lot of questions in the forums, it seems. ;) But I've noticed that lately the customer support has improved. I get responses in email, in these forums, and when I call, I usually get a person, not a busy signal. The people are usually pretty informed, and they are willing to attempt to recreate your problem and see if they can solve it. You can't ask for too much more. The thing about developers kits for Unisyn is another issue. I'm sure someone there can help you with that. They have to, because there are dozens of people writing profiles for Unisyn already. You just haven't gotten the right person yet.

Still, I don't consider this a failing of Unisyn. This is one program I've never made a call about. There's nothing to ask. It's about as simple as a program can get that deals with so many complicated devices. I have to say it again. Unisyn amazes me! Also, in support of MOTU's customer support, I've sent lists of literally dozens of features and fixes to MOTU for Digital Performer. Wtih one or two exceptions, every one of them have made it to DP. They do listen.

"Overall Rating: 7
the market for patch editor/librarian programs is quite barren for OS X. MOTU fills that gap...."


You gave it a 7/10. I gave it an 8/10, possibly modified to 7/10 for the lack of a 'do you want to save your work' dialogue. We end up giving it the same rating! I don't know how many editors you used in the past, or how far back your MIDI experience goes, but for me Unisyn is amazing because it does so much with so little fanfare. Looking at those blank windows when you begin, you might never guess that so much capability was lurking in there, ready for the context in which you might use it. I'm the first to admit that Unisyn needs work. But most of it's cosmetic. There is nothing in it that prevents you from doing what you need to do, and it is such a time-saver.

Thanks for the additional review of DP! Our experiences differ a lot, but we do agree on the rating. And the big thing is that we DO have a tool with which to edit these arcane devices that were designed by sadists to torture masochistic musicians. ;)

Cheers,

Shooshie
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

List of Supported Instruments in Unisyn as of February, 2004. (others may have been added since then; contact MOTU if you need one not listed, and they probably won't help, but if they get enough requests, they might. )

360 Systems
360 Systems MIDI Patcher
AdrenaLinn
AdrenaLinn II
Akai
Akai MB-76
Alesis
Alesis D-4
Alesis DM5
Alesis HR-16
Alesis MIDIVerb III
Alesis MIDIVerb IV
Alesis NanoBass
Alesis NanoPiano
Alesis NanoSynth
Alesis QS Plus
Alesis QS/S4 v1.06
Alesis QS6.0
Alesis QS6.1 et al
Alesis QS6.1/7/8/R
Alesis QuadraVerb
Alesis QuadraVerb 2
Alesis QuadraVerb GT
Alesis QuadraVerb Plus
Alesis S4 Plus
Alesis SR-16
ART
ART MultiVerb
ART MultiVerb 2
AX2
AxSys 212
Bass POD
Behringer
Casio
Casio CZ-1
Casio CZ-101/1000/3000/5000
Casio VZ-1
Casio VZ-10m
Casio VZ-8m
Clavia
CyberDeluxe
Dave Smith
Digitech
Digitech DHP-55
Digitech DSP-128
Digitech DSP-128 Plus
Digitech PMC 10
DMC
DMC MX-8
DX and TX Profile Info
E-mu
E-Mu Audity 2000 rev 2
E-Mu Audity 2000 v1.0
E-Mu B-3
E-Mu B-3 Turbo
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|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
trombone17
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by trombone17 »

The key is to do two things. One is change the Authorizaion file, The other is to change Unisyn itself and all support fules.

cd ../..
chmod a+rw Auth-Unisyn\ 2.1
cd ../..
cd Applications
sudo chown -R admin1:admin1 Unisyn\ 2.1\ Folder/
chmod -R u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rx Unisyn\ 2.1\ Folder/

where admin1:admin1 = username of main admin/group for admins.
trombone17
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by trombone17 »

"Ease of Use: 6
As an instructor, I have had to learn to program to teach it. I praise MOTU for the feature set, but there are some very nasty bugs. One which has always struck me as unusual is the need to store a patch. I cannot tell you the number of times a student will work on a patch, forget to store it, and because there is no warning before closing the window, they lose their work."

This is not a bug. Unisyn operates directly on the device's buffer. You're not modifying your patch in Unisyn. You're modifying the device. The "bug" would be in the device, not Unisyn. That's just the way it works. Some devices actually ask you if you want to save before you move on. Others don't. I'll grant you that Unisyn should ask if you want to save your changes. That would be a good feature to request, and logically, it should bring the rating down a little, but when you're familiar with the routine, it's not something that would ever be a problem. I never noticed it, because I've used Unisyn for all these years, and just did not think of testing to see if there was a "Do you want to save?" dialogue.
Perhaps it is not a bug, as it behaves as written, but I do think that anytime I close a window in SOFTWARE (Unisyn in this case) it should ask if I want to save my work if any modifications have been made, no mater what. I know the sound editing is performed device specific, but the data is stored in a Unisyn specific file-format on the hard drive. Basically, all it needs is a window saying "you are closing this window and will lose all work. would you like to continue?'

Nothing will teach a person about user interfaces more than trying to teach any piece of professional software to college freshmen. :cool:
michael77
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by michael77 »

I'm a long time DP user and never took the time to integrate
a librarian into my rig, but I decided to buy it along with my DP4.5 upgrade.

I've gone thru the process of getting all the info for the korg
triton rack and the audity 2000 into unisyn and have started playing around with it. I'm having MIDI header errors on the
triton whatever they are and in the audity 2000 only certain parameters are effected.

Other than slowly plowing thru a non user friendly manual,
is there any other help source out there for unisyn?
User avatar
Shooshie
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

Michael, I honestly don't know of any good source of commentary or help for Unisyn. You're pretty much on your own, unless you use the manual or call MOTU. The manual discusses MIDI Header Errors on page 19:
"...it is usually because the device has Echo, software MIDI Thru or Overflow (as it's called in the Roland D-110) turned on. This could (and often does) cause a MIDI loop where Unisyn receives its own request message.

The Device could also be replying on a different channel (for example, omni mode is enabled), so the unit replies even though the device ID is not set properly in FreeMIDI. The only other probably cause is that the Profile is not compatible with your device.
[note: if you're in OSX, substitute "Audio/MIDI Setup" for "FreeMIDI." ]

Does that help? Do you have Omni mode enabled? Echo?

I hope you get to the bottom of it, because Uniysn can be pretty wonderful for managing your patches once you get used to it.

By the way, what version of Unisyn did you get? The manual that came with version 2 was quite good. The online profiles, on the other hand, can be frustrating as can be, because they were written by the people who programmed them (3rd parties, not MOTU), and some of them really do suck. They usually assume you know all their lingo, but if you can get past that, they usually are pretty informative.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
ElGato
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:01 pm
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by ElGato »

Great comments folks. I'm one of those that has a bunch of Galaxy files and I'd love to port them over to Unisyn. Is this possible? If not, any ideas for a workaround (and this may be a nice feature for a future release).

Cheers,
Felix
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Shooshie
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by Shooshie »

My guess is no, but I may be wrong. There's nothing either way about it in the manual. As far as I can tell, the two are so dissimilar that there would be little overlap in the way the files are stored. Maybe someone out there has made a converter, but given the very tiny market for Unisyn, I'd say it's not likely. I did a Google search, and found nothing.

Unisyn, by the way, is a carbon app. It will run in OS9 as well as OSX. You COULD load your patches into your synths from Galaxy, then download them into Unisyn. That wouldn't take terribly long to do. If you had both Galaxy and Unisyn running together, you could do your entire library in a short time. The question is whether Galaxy will run in OS9, and whether you can make it work with FreeMIDI.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
ElGato
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Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:01 pm
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by ElGato »

Thanks Shooshie, yeah, my Galaxy (and the venerable) Studio Vision Pro still work under OS 9, although it's been quite a while since I've used 'em. I have a Quicksilver DP G4, so I can still boot in 9 and do what you're suggesting without too much trouble.

Thanks,
F
User avatar
midiw
Posts: 498
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:01 pm
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Re: Unisyn: a Great MIDI Librarian for OS X

Post by midiw »

Shooshie ,

Your posting has inspired my interest in updating/upgrading to Unisyn 2.1.1 for OS X.

However,

I note that the profiles for Unisyn 2.1.1 for OS X still do not have the following profiles for my gear,

Boss SE50
Roland VS1680
Yamaha PSR2000
Yamaha PSR3000
Yamaha Tyros

Now unless I missed seeing the profiles in the listing at this topic is it easy or hard to sysex data transfer from my gear into Unisyn 2.1.1 for OS X?

I found that sysex data transfer in Unisyn 1.5 was a huge pain in the studio for the gear I had then that was not profiled by Unisyn. I ended up having to use GalaxyPLUS or MidiQuest and then bouncing the data into DigitalPerformer as a MIDI file.
Mac OS: Mojave
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