Anything out besides Unisyn? Virus B profile work for Vir. C

[empirepd]

New to the forum....sounds like I share the frustration that many do. I have an old version of Unisyn v1 that I never really used much. I recently decided to try a librarian again and was disappointed to find that Soundiver was dead as I heard it was decent. Called MOTU today about the current version of Unisyn and found what most of you know....not been updated in a while, not really any plans for new profiles (although the guy in tech support acted like it was being worked on....not sure). Is there anything out there for Mac OS X (besides SoundQuest...already found that one) for editor / librarian work? Is SoundQuest any good?

I actually have some fairly old synths that I would use it with (see below), but I did ask if they had a profile for the Virus C as it is my newest hardware board. He said they had one for the Virus B....will that work for a Virus C?

Thanks,
Sam

Rig:
Mac Dual 2 GHz G5 (OS X)
MOTU DP 4.61
MOTU Mach Five
Access Virus C
Roland JD-800
Roland JD-990
Roland D-50
Roland D-550
Roland M-BD1
Korg T3
Roland Club Kit (TD-6)
NI Guitar Rig 2

[abruzzi]

Aside from little single synth shareware/freeware programs out there, the three for mac were Unisyn, Sounddiver, and Midiquest. If you run Logic (or at least have an XSkey) you can download the last and unsupported version of Sounddiver from Apple. It generally has more newer synths (in my experience). Unisyn is still "supported" but is not, judging from Bob Melvin's posts, getting any new updates, so don't expect it to support anything not explicitly on the list. Midiquest is the only hope for future support. I haven't bought it yet, but it claims support of all my hardware synths (at least librarian, if not editor).

From what I've experienced Unisyn is by far the best librarian, which is 90% of what I need. The other two programs feel kind of clunky with that. For what it supported, Unisyn was always rock solid with it's communication and librarian functions.

sigh. We hardware synth users are a dying minority.

Also, unless the Virus C is nothing more than a cosmetic change from the Virus B, assume they are incompatible.

Geof

[thirdbear]

I'll tell ya, I've been reworking my studio to make more room for my kid to play and have been cleaning out old stuff. I'm down to 3 HW synths - a Roland D550 whose lcd is almost completely faded out, a GM sound module, and a Casio CZ1. Unisyn/Performer don't seem to see the patches I send so none of the names are published, so I'm tossing around the idea of just ditching them and going all software. It does seem that the push nowadays is for virtual instruments.

[slippedout]

If Unisyn does not have a profile for your specific device, then it will not work. There is no way around this. Similar device profiles are not compatible. There are no generic profiles to work with any device. MOTU will not create a profile for your device.

Sound Quest MIDI Quest is the only "living" editor/librarian out there right now. I looked into getting that one to replace Unisyn but I have read mixed reviews about it. I've heard that it crashes in OS X and to stay away from it. For $199 I dont want to take a chance. It does sound promising though.

If all you're after is to get your patch names to show in DP, and to organize banks, then you should use Cherry Picker. It works like a champ.

For saving and recalling edited patches I have gone old-school with sysex dumps for individual patches. Granted, it's not as convenient as using Unisyn (missing out on key word searching, etc.), but at least I can save the edits for later recall.

[empirepd]

Yeah, the choices kind of suck.

I am not a Logic user, but can I buy a XSKey to use with Soundiver?

I have downloaded the demo of MidiQuest and it messed up the bank I had in my JD-800 (it must have sent some garbage to it when I was setting it up)!!!! Not the point of these programs, in fact, the opposite!!!! I had some old SysEx dumps in a DP seq file, so I could get most of it back, but I think I lost a patch called "Genesis" which I really liked.

What is Cherry Picker? I am now starting to realize that I really only need a librarian. Both the JD-800 and Virus C have all of the knobs and sliders on the surface (the reason I bought them) so I can more easily do the editing on the machines themselves than in software. I just want to save all of the patches in a library for future use and backup. I am playing with the idea of buying the new Korg Legacy Collection - Digital Edition which has every T3 patch ever made along with its own librarian and editor, so that might sove that problem. Is Cherry Picker what I am looking for?

Thanks,
Sam

[abruzzi]

I am not a Logic user, but can I buy a XSKey to use with Soundiver?

<snip>

Is Cherry Picker what I am looking for?

1. You can only get it with Logic.

2. No. My understanding is Cherrypicker only deals with patch names, not the patches themselves. It's not super clear, but is seems to just build "midinam" files, the OSX/XML version of freemidi patchlists. I too would be mostly happy with just librarians. The TG77 is too complicated to program for those of us without PhDs in higher math, but there are thousands of free patches out there. Hence the need for a librarian, which Unisyn does very well.

Geof

[abruzzi]

By the way, I should also point out with regards to jumping ship to Midiquest, Sound Quest does offer a competitive upgrade if you own Unisyn, Sounddiver, Galaxy, or any other librarian. It makes Midiquest $149 and Midiquest XL $219.

I'm still considering. If I do take the plunge, I'll report back with news. My setup has a good mix of old and new synths for testing.

Geof

[slippedout]

Cherry Picker will help you create patch lists that can be used in CoreMIDI (e.g.: DP). Cherry Picker allows you to create as many lists as you like for each device. You can create a list that organizes your patches by type (Basses, Synths, Percussion, etc). You can create a list that organizes patches into banks (Bank A patches 1-128, Bank B patches 1-128, ect.). What ever you want to display in CoreMIDI (DP) for available patches for a device, you can create in Cherry Picker. It will not catalog you patches, or store patch settings, just names in lists. It basically solves the problem of the list of patches that shows up in DP as "Patch 1", "Patch 2", etc.

[welcome]

Well,
I‘m a Logic User, now using Logic 7 Pro. I edit my hardware synths, (Virus Indigo and the Proteus World) in sounddiver. Apple stopped it, what a pity, kind of company policy, there is no more support, though the 3.1 public beta runs well, even though it shouldn‘t. Never had a problem exept that sometimes directly after starting up, it crashes, but never while working. Sounddiver is a real nice program, but you just don‘t get the new hardware synth modules.
Trying to get a little glew about DP, (I have an old DP3 version and was thinking about upgrading), I thought Motu runs a different policy and still supports extern devices. But it looks like the same policy.
I thought sounddiver runs well on DP. What is this unysin 2, isn‘t it like sounddiver, only directly developed by Motu for DP. I mean there is no use of spending the money for upgrading if later I can‘t edit my synths in DP.

[kpvalentine]

There's a freeware Librarian program for OS X called "SysEx Librarian". You can send sys ex banks back and forth from your synths. It's stable.

[mhschmieder]

Yes, I use SysEx Librarian all the time, and it is currently the only universally recommended program for sending and receiving SysEx on Mac OS X.

It is very stable and fully reliable. It is not a device recogniser though, as far as I could tell, so I don't think it even comes close to being a substitute for dedicated patch librarians.

I'm just happy to have it though because I was never able to do OS upgrades to my hardware synths before since nothing else is reliable with large files as is SysEx Librarian.