MOTU Unisyn 2

Unisyn 2.1.1 on a Tiger G5 2.7
Several years passed between verison 1.5 and 2.0(the significant update). I was expecting major changes but didnt find any.MOTU sent me a Beta testing contract which I signed and returned but they never sent me a version to test for them. When I called them back they claimed they had no idea what I was talking about (I still have the contract BTW).
The look and feel of this app takes me back to the old days of OMS. Its visually boring,needlessly difficult to use with confusing language.
Folks, MIDI is 25 years old- its not brain surgery. If MOTU had given momentary priority to Unisyn they could have done MUCH better, but as it stands with the little advances implemented it should be an included core app within DP. I feel like a total sucker paying for this.

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 mosy 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.

It does what it says...when it does not crash. There is a curious restriction out of the box of install admin only. (This can be over-ridden by using terminal to adjust the permissions).

It really depends on your hardware and how well you know it.

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.

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.

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), 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

I'm using Unisyn 2.1.1 on OSX 10.3.3. Setup was fairly straightforward (really just a matter of making sure the Sysex ID configed on the synths matched the ID in Audio/MIDI Setup. Unisyn was able to grab all patches, banks, performances, global settings, kits, etc from a Roland XV3080, Korg Triton Rack, Emu Procussion, Emu Proteus1/XR with Protologic board.

I'm just now starting to use the Patch generator, but it's come up with some interesting variations on existing patches. It's a joy to use when auditioning patches in realtime while a sequence is running. Multiple patch windows can be open simultaneously, so you can easily change patches in multiple synths at the same time.

Not applicable.

Hasn't crashed yet (only had it a few days though).

I've always had decent email response from MOTU. Can't figure out why they have such a bad rap.

Unisyn is not glamorous software. It does what it's supposed to, and stays out of the way otherwise. It's enabled me to actually start using my hardware-based synths again (which pretty much became paper weights when plugins invaded the DAW space). I'm considering buying additional synths now that Unisyn provides an efficient way to work with them.

very easy - editors laid out very logically, has same interface as Digital Performer 3. if your synth is supported, it works quite well. doesn't have as extensive a support list as SoundDiver, but integration with Digital Performer is the big plus - it will automagically update DP patch lists with what it has downloaded/uploaded to the synths in your library.

Virtuoso 2000 profile IS there (contrary to previous review) and all of th Proteus 2000-based editors work fine (I have an XL-1 Xtreme Lead Turbo - excellent editor!). Roland XV-5050 has its own editor from Roland - why complain about Unisyn missing it? Doesn't have a huge list of synths but most of the major synths from 1995 and earlier, with a smattering of the more popular recent synths (Triton, MOTIF (albeit librarian only - Yammy has its own editor so no great loss there), XV-5080, etc.) random patch generator is excellent. seamless integration with Digital Performer.

no sounds produced, except as patches for external synths.

never had it crash on me.

never had to deal with MOTU. their support is reportedly inconsistent.

great stuff - editor/librarians make life easier in a MIDI studio.

Version 2. The editing works fine on all of my synths, both at the patch and bank levels. I've used it with: emu carnaval, orbit, proteus 1 and 3, oberhem matrix 1000, alesis D4, and yamaha tx81z. Patches transferred from unisyn 1 without problem.

This is a patch editor librarian so it doesn't make sound or have a keyboard. It's fairly straightforward to set up and use.

Indispensible if you have a large number of synths...makes managing them all a lot easier. I don't know what the problem is with the previous reviewer, but it's been a pretty smooth upgrade for me.

I?ve used Unisyn for many years. But that was Unisyn 1 and while MOTU?s non-sequencer programs like Unisyn, PatchList Manager, and FreeMIDI weren?t always the easiest to get a handle on, once you did, they worked as advertised.

Unisyn 2 does not work as advertised. MOTU claims it recognizes and can be used with far more synths than U1. It didn?t have actual profiles for most of the synths it claims it supports. Thus, my Virtuoso 2000 is not supported as such, but I could try and use a Proteus 2000 profile in its place. Should work (in theory) as they both use the same exact synth engine. Ah, theories. Never worked. Same story with my XV-5050.

Well, it?s supposed to be able to send and receive patch data from my synths. It can?t. It?s supposed to be able to store said patch data. It can?t. It?s supposed to be able to edit the individual patches. It can?t. Wow, that?s some feature set.

It?s quite. Too quite.

Well if it doesn't work right out of the box...I tried reinstalling the software a few times, increasing memory, zapping the pram, rebuilding the desktop, pleading, scolding, cajoling, nothing helped.

I carefully wrote out everything I was having trouble with and what my system was. I e-mailed this from MOTU's own site and directly. After weeks of no response, I tried this again. After weeks of still no response, I suggested they fax me. After weeks of no response I gave up. Their phone support is barbaric. Listening to the current crop of nind Democratic presidential wannabes is more plesant.

I have used Digital Performer for a long time and they actually used to answer questions, but DP actually worked, so my questions were few. This does NOT work. You can visit Unicornation.com and see that the majority of users are not too happy. Perhaps it?s telling that MOTU doesn?t advertise this brick. Come to think of it, they?re not advertising that much for any of their software (except MachFIVE which is similar to Unisyn in that it is total junk)!

Please don't buy this piece of junk. Yes, you have been warned.

NOTE: I?m also writing a review of MachFIVE today. Another horror story.