Unify Changes prior to v1.7.2

Version 1.6.2 (released 11 July 2021)

This update is recommended for all Unify users. It includes minor enhancements and important bug fixes.

Important: Earlier versions of Unify turned out to have bugs in how the Guru Sampler sample-selection was saved and recalled. If you created patches and/or DAW projects using this feature, you may find that they recall with the wrong sample selected. If so, simply re-select the desired sample and re-save the patch/project, and the problem should not arise again.

• Enhancements
  • "NO" (note-on) lines in MIDI Controller files may have a numeric value at the end.
    • When the specified note-on event occurs, the parameter is set to the specified value.
    • If no value is provided, 1.0 is used. (This was the previous behavior.)
  • When Unify is used in a DAW, stopping DAW playback now clears latched notes.
• Bugs fixed
  • MIDI notes no longer start Transport in "Manual Start/Stop" mode.
  • MIDIBox: minor bugs in 1-shot mode (not "1-shot/MIDI") corrected.
  • Guru Sampler: "Paste plug-in state" operations now work as expected.
  • Guru Sampler: fix important bugs in sample-selection.

Version 1.6.1 (released 3 July 2021)

This update is recommended for all Unify users. It corrects a crash bug which was found just after v1.6.0 shipped.

Version 1.6.0 (released 3 July 2021)

This update is recommended for all Unify users. It includes some new features as well as bug fixes.

• New features in Layer-stack view
  • You can now enable/disable MIDI to both INST and MIDI layers by clicking on the green MIDI-indicator dots at the left side of the layer. Layers go dark when disabled, and won't play new notes, but any already-played notes will continue to sound.
  • You may now double-click the title stripe of the Master Effects layer to add your own title text, just as you can for all other layer types. The title will be saved to, and restored from, layer presets and patches. This feature is TEMPORARY. Double-clicking will be replaced with a new button at the left side of the layer.
  • The "ops menu" for the Master layer now includes Copy/Paste functions (per user request).
• Custom macro-parameter names are now exported to host
  • The macro parameter names you define by double-clicking the names below the macro knobs are now dynamically exported to the enclosing host. This may not work with all hosts.
  • This is particularly useful with embedded Unify instances. You can customize the names of the macro knobs in the embedded Unify, then refer directly to those custom names in parameter-link paths in the enclosing Unify.
  • Old patches which use the original names e.g. "Macro1", etc. in linked paths to embedded Unify instances are automatically converted to use the customized names, as the patch is loaded.
• Parameter paths
  • Parameter paths (in both macro parameter links and MIDI controller files) are now case-insensitive. (Capital and lower-case letters are treated the same.)
  • New parameter paths midi/<layer#>/midiEnable and midi/<layer#>/midiToggle are now available in parameter menus, AND you can also use them in MIDI-controller files.
  • "Top level" parameter paths have been redefined; for details see this page in Unify manual.
  • All of the above new parameter paths can now be selected from the parameter-path menus.
  • Note the older unify/... paths still work, for backward compatibility with older patches, but as before, these do not appear in parameter-path menus.
• Patch variations display
  • Linking parameters to macro knobs allows creating variations of a patch.
  • In Unify 1.6, you can define a list of "variation names" to appear in white, beside the patch name at the top of the GUI.
  • This is a somewhat experimental feature, which can be a bit challenging to set up. See this page in the Unify manual.
• Transport
  • Transport triggering logic has been extensively reworked.
  • Only notes within the specified note-range should start/stop/latch the Transport. Notes outside the range, and where applicable, the MIDI sustain pedal, should function normally but have no effect on the Transport.
• Known Plug-Ins view
  • All "remove all" Operations menu items now preset an "are you sure" pop-up with option to cancel.
  • The Operations menu for the Known Plug-Ins view now offers a new Remove "redundant" plug-ins option.
    • This will attempt to remove VST3 versions of every plug-in for which a plain VST version exists.
    • On a Mac, it will first remove Audio-Unit versions of any plug-in for which a VST or VST3 version exists.
    • Selecting the menu item will pop up an "are you sure" dialog with explanation of what will happen.
• Faster patch-library rebuild after applying .guru file
  • After you use a .guru file to install a new library/libraries, Unify now compiles a list of the libraries affected (usually just one), and will then perform an optimized patch-library rebuild where it looks only at the corresponding library folder(s). You should find this noticeably faster.
• MIDI Monitor
  • The built-in MIDI Monitor plug-in is now much more efficient and should no longer bog down with heavy input.
  • "CC" checkbox now default to un-checked; check it if you want to monitor MIDI CC messages.
• Guru Sampler
  • Single-samples (or full map) selection can now be automated with new osc1SampleSelect parameter.
  • Fixed bug which could cause clicking in certain looped samples.
• KlangFalter (updated for Mac only)
  • The Mac version of KlangFalter had a problem with patches created on a PC (It would fail to load the IR files), because the IR file-paths embedded in the plug-in state data contained backslashes instead of forward slashes.
  • The revised version corrects this.
• Smaller changes
  • The green MIDI-indicator dots at the left side of INST and MIDI layers no longer go completely black when off, so you can still see to click on them to toggle layer MIDI-enable.
  • One-shot and MIDI-gated modes in MIDIBox in should now work better.
  • Built-in and bundled plug-ins will no longer be saved in the PluginList.xml. This avoids certain problems (but not yet all) where entries in the Known Plug-Ins list might not get updated as expected.
  • Plug-in matching rules have been updated. This should eliminate cases where the wrong plug-in is loaded (due to similarity of names).
  • A MIDI-controller file specifying "ALL CONTROLLERS" as the controller name, will be triggered by all controllers.
  • In embedded Unify instances, the patch browser now automatically selects the library corresponding to the currently-loaded patch, whenever possible.
  • You can now drag MIDI files (.mid extension) directly into the MIDIBox GUI from Explorer (Windows) or Finder (MacOS).
• Bugs fixed
  • Fix MIDI triggering in Audio File Player.
  • Fix rare crash bug which could occur when loading malformed patch files.
  • Fix rare crashes on shutdown, triggered by incoming real-time data from a MIDI controller.
  • The horizontal green scrollbar should no longer appear when the GUI of an embedded Unify instance is opened.
  • Text brightness of Author/Library labels has been reduced to match other items.
  • Fix crashing when a RecentlyCrashedPlugins file is present (following a plug-in scan).
  • ComboBox instances can now be nested to any depth without crashing.
  • Guru Sampler: several small bug fixes.
  • Occasional cases where patches loaded without BPM data (e.g. reference BPM number, etc.) should now load correctly.

Version 1.5.3 (released 9 July 2021)

This maintenance update is recommended for all Unify users, but is particularly important for Windows users. It fixes some serious issues with VST3 plug-in hosting which arose with Unify v1.5.0 for Windows.

• VST3 hosting should now be fixed on Windows
  • Unify v1.5.0 for Windows turned out to have serious problems when hosting third-party VST3 plug-ins. This release should fix all of them.
• Dexed updated to latest version 0.9.6
  • This release updates the bundled Dexed VST from version "0.9.4hf1" with "0.9.6", the very latest from the open-source Dexed repository.
  • After updating, you will probably still see "1.0.0" in Unify's Known Plug-Ins view; this is a separate issue which will be addressed in a future update.
  • When you actually load an instance of Dexed, it should say "DEXED 0.9.6" in the information box at bottom left.
• Known Plug-Ins view
  • Add "are you sure" pop-up for all "remove all" Operations menu items.
• MIDI Monitor
  • The built-in MIDI Monitor plug-in is now much more efficient and should no longer bog down with heavy input.
  • "CC" checkbox now default to un-checked; check it if you want to monitor MIDI CC messages.
• Guru Sampler
  • Single-samples (or full map) selection can now be automated with new osc1SampleSelect parameter.
  • Fixed bug which could cause clicking in certain looped samples.
• Bugs fixed
  • Fix rare crash bug which could occur when loading malformed patch files.
  • ComboBox instances can now be nested to any depth without crashing.
  • Guru Sampler: several small bug fixes.

Version 1.5.0 (released 29 April 2021)

This update is recommended for all Unify users.

  High-level changes

• "Auto-Open Browser" option (default ON)
  • Ensures that the patch browser opens automatically, whenever the layer-stack is shown.
  • When checked, windows size does not change. The browser either is, or is not present at the right-hand side of the window.
  • When NOT checked, the old behavior (including window-resizing) persists.
  • You will probably want to resize the window to make it wider, then use the ops menu icon at the very bottom center of the GUI and choose "Save preferred window size".
• "Are you sure?" option (default OFF)
  • Unify will now present an "are you sure?" dialog when attempting any operation (INIT, load new patch) that would replace it completely, if the patch appears to have changed.
  • Note there will be many apparent "false alarms":
    • Even something as simple as changing a macro knob position will trigger it.
    • Some plug-ins will trigger it every time they are loaded; I have no control over this.
    • ComboBox triggers it every time, even if nothing has changed in contained plug-ins. (I plan to try to fix this.)
  • This feature is OFF by default, but can be switched on with a new checkbox in Settings.
• Auto-save option (default ON)
  • In all cases where the "are you sure?" dialog would appear (even if disabled), Unify will automatically save the current patch to a new Auto-Saved Patches sub-folder under the main Unify data folder.
  • When this feature is active (see below), clicking the revert button will display a pop-up menu of choices, including loading any of the auto-saved patches, listed in reverse time order, so the most-recent is always at the top.
  • The maximum number of auto-saves is 5 by default, and can be changed to between 0 and 10 with a new popup menu in Settings.
  • Setting the auto-save count to 0 disables this feature entirely.

  Smaller changes

• Minor GUI changes
  • Settings and other display-mode icons are now disabled for embedded Unify instances.
  • Ops-button menu for individual linked parameters now includes new "duplicate" item.
• Bugs fixed
  • All right-click patch load options AND key shortcuts should now work as expected.
  • Several issues fixed in MIDIBox.
  • PhaseMod now saves/restores correctly.
  • Plug-ins by Softube should now work correctly on Mac.

Older change-log entries