Unisyn is a cruel joke

[coug64]

Whoever designed this had his head up his a**. I thought a program that was 10 years old would be way simple, like the Microkorg editor. The instruction manual might as well have been written in Chinese. There's all this talk about OMS and Free MIDI which seemingly may or may not apply according to the manual. A fifth grader could write better instructions. "Do this". "You will see this". "If you don't see this, try this". Unexplained channels which can be colored white or blue. A profile selection that has to match another selection for some reason. Windows which don't appear probably because of that. I set up my Microkorg editor in less than 5 minutes with two keystrokes and it's 3 years older than Unisyn. That says it all.

[James Steele]

Whoever designed this had his head up his a**. I thought a program that was 10 years old would be way simple, like the Microkorg editor. The instruction manual might as well have been written in Chinese. There's all this talk about OMS and Free MIDI which seemingly may or may not apply according to the manual. A fifth grader could write better instructions. "Do this". "You will see this". "If you don't see this, try this". Unexplained channels which can be colored white or blue. A profile selection that has to match another selection for some reason. Windows which don't appear probably because of that. I set up my Microkorg editor in less than 5 minutes with two keystrokes and it's 3 years older than Unisyn. That says it all.

Feel better now? I generally like the forums to be used for useful discussion, but if venting/therapy helps, go for it. You are aware that it's a very old app that won't run on anything newer than Snow Leopard (and even then you need to be sure Rosetta is installed), right? I'm not sure what documentation you're talking about, but obviously OMS and FreeMIDI is from another era. Not sure if that's what came with it or where you got UniSyn and how recently. It's pretty much a dead product, unless you can dedicate a partition to run it with an old enough version of Mac OS.

[mikehalloran]

but obviously OMS and FreeMIDI is from another era.

To OS 9 and Backwards!?!?!?

[stubbsonic]

The package comes with an OS X installer and an OS 9 installer. Obviously, the FreeMIDI stuff is related to OS 9 to address some missing functionality with that system.

For your 10.4 system (the last officially support OS for Unisyn), it is important to make sure all the proper drivers are installed for the interface hardware-- which might be tricky as you'd need to make sure you have a driver compatible with OS 10.4 (or whatever your OS version is).

Next, making sure you have AudioMIDI setup configured correctly so that both your interface and your MIDI hardware (Ensoniq) are added to the configuration and connected with virtual MIDI cables (both to and from) on the config screen. Also, making sure you have actual physical MIDI cables TO and FROM the device (your Ensoniq) to the interface, so the device & Unisyn can talk to each other.

Then when you have all that set up, you open Unisyn, and probably find the Devices pane and if necessary, add the device to the list. If the profiles are missing, you might need to see where those are supposed to go. MOTU support should be willing to help you if that is not working correctly.

Then, once you've got the device loaded in Unisyn, you should be able to avail yourself of all of Unisyn's features.

In response to the dismissive posts above, while Unisyn is old, it is still being sold by MOTU for the full price of $195, and there isn't (to my knowledge) any mention that it is not supported by MOTU.

We've all been where you are, spending hours on something that is not clearly laid out, and getting nowhere.

The best way to get help is to keep very careful track of everything you've done. When you say something isn't working, the people in a position to help you, need plenty of information about the steps you've taken, what screens you are seeing, etc. You can even take screen shots to show what different things look like and what you are seeing or not seeing.

The last update for Unisyn was in 2004 (11 years ago), I don't know when it was first released, mid 90's I'd guess. At some point, the demand for this type of software dropped. It was an expensive product to support as the profiles took lots of hours to configure, but they were always released as free additions to the software.

[James Steele]

For your 10.4 system (the last officially support OS for Unisyn), it is important to make sure all the proper drivers are installed for the interface hardware-- which might be tricky as you'd need to make sure you have a driver compatible with OS 10.4 (or whatever your OS version is).

I would mention though, that it IS possible to run it on 10.6.8 so long as Rosetta is installed. The trick though comes with authorizing it. If you have a disk that was already authorized and you upgrade to 10.6.8, you'll be fine. If you have to authorize a new Unisyn installation under 10.6.8, it can be tricky. There's a workaround to do this that I believe is posted in MOTU's tech database.

In response to the dismissive posts above, while Unisyn is old, it is still being sold by MOTU for the full price of $195, and there isn't (to my knowledge) any mention that it is not supported by MOTU.

Fair enough. And I thought I had mentioned this, but I hadn't. I agree... MOTU should either stop selling it, or sell it at a reduce price with a very LARGE disclaimer about compatibility with new systems. Frankly, I wish they'd just sell or GIVE the source code to a small developer or individual who might want to modernize it. Unfortunately, given the rise of VIs, sysex editors for hardware modules aren't a very lucrative pursuit these days.

Additionally, there are two sorts of posts. One seeking help that gives some specifics as to the hardware, OS, etc and the symptoms with some useful detail, and others that seem to be just venting and therapeutic release. One doesn't need to look past the header "Unisyn is a cruel joke" to get an idea which type this will be. I'm sure there's some value in venting to the poster, but if they really want help, they need to give more detail.

When you say something isn't working, the people in a position to help you, need plenty of information about the steps you've taken, what screens you are seeing, etc. You can even take screen shots to show what different things look like and what you are seeing or not seeing.

Exactly what I was said just above this quote.

[cuttime]

I guess I was speaking Chinese to the OP in the other thread...

[coug64]

I asked for help. I was willing to PAY someone. Didn't you guys read my other posts? No one gave a hint that they had a clue as to what I was asking. No one at tech support with Motu either. True, I don't know •••• about how to post screenshots but I described in detail that THE PROGRAM WASN'T RECOGNIZING THE ESQ-1 PROFILE. PROFILE. PROFILE. One important person mentioned that there was a generic profile available, but after repeated private messages asking how/where I got NO ANSWER. That's typical of what I was facing. But, I got smart. I bought MIDI Quest Essentials. Less expensive than a new Unisyn. True, it does 15,000 things I don't need the program to do(that'sthe reason I went for Unisyn---it's "simplicity"). Sound Quest is amazing. They let me download installs for both a PC and Mac. Support is endless.

[cuttime]

I asked for help. I was willing to PAY someone. Didn't you guys read my other posts? No one gave a hint that they had a clue as to what I was asking. No one at tech support with Motu either. True, I don't know •••• about how to post screenshots but I described in detail that THE PROGRAM WASN'T RECOGNIZING THE ESQ-1 PROFILE. PROFILE. PROFILE. One important person mentioned that there was a generic profile available, but after repeated private messages asking how/where I got NO ANSWER. That's typical of what I was facing. But, I got smart. I bought MIDI Quest Essentials. Less expensive than a new Unisyn. True, it does 15,000 things I don't need the program to do(that'sthe reason I went for Unisyn---it's "simplicity"). Sound Quest is amazing. They let me download installs for both a PC and Mac. Support is endless.

Glad you got it worked out.

[monkey man]

Yeah, that'll do your blood pressure no end of good!