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PluginGuru releases UNIFY with intro price of $59


Reid Rosefelt

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8 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

Tried again this morning with some monitoring, the plugins that were causing it to restart in an endless loop turned out to be the Focusrite Midnight plugins,

Midnight EQ 64.dll
Midnight Compressor 64.dll

Which were right after MidSidePlugin.dll.  I don't think Unify is force updating the progress bar text so you can't see what is failing accurately by the text it shows.

After removing them it did finally make it through my VST2 list.  Didn't seem to like VST2 Amplitube 4.dll and a few Plugin Alliance plugins (fiedler audio stage) but it's restart on crash handler worked for them (unlike the Midnight stuff where it just got stuck).  Not sure how to get it to retry those.  Only option is to remove them from the list.  Wish it had a bit more control.  The right click menu's that list plugins are really kind of bad for my collection to.  Needs more search oriented UI to be useful.

Rescanning seems to look at the same plugins that it should already know about and not need to rescan (so it's not very fast).  Doesn't seem to like the iZotope DLL organization very much either (iZotope uses a wrapper system where the plugin is one file and the actual code is a separate DLL that isn't a normal VST)  A good plugin scanner will report the iZXXXX.dll files as not being plugins (or ignore them completely) but Unify reports them as being VSTs but that don't work.

To be honest I'm not sure this result is all that bad really.  I have 20+ years of plugins.  It's common for VST scanners to fail.  Really doesn't seem to like Waves plugins very much.  I have Mercury plus but the list of Waves plugins that made it though is pretty small:

jfsaC5.jpg

Despite what the manual says, I loaded HALion 6, Falcon and Vacuum Pro in Unify without any issues. 

It got stuck in a loop with me on the Waves VST3s.  I took the VST3 files out and it scanned everything else.  Then I put the Waves stuff back. 

Edited by Reid Rosefelt
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Looks like they have updated that help page with more plugins.  Some of the posts they have made on VI kind of rub me the wrong way.  Their Innosetup installer handling of the VC runtime is almost criminal .  They run it in quiet mode without the no restart flag so it actually will log your account out of windows without asking.  But rather than own up to it and fix it they try to make it sound like it is awesome.

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/pluginguru-releases-first-plugin-unify-for-intro-price-of-59.88913/post-4493067

 

 

Edited by Matthew Sorrels
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I'm really torn on this one. On one hand, I think I can accomplish the same thing within my current DAWs now that I see the concept. On the other hand, I have FOMO about what it might become and how early adopters might be rewarded. Oh well, just broadcasting my personal issues I guess.

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I have FOBASS (fear of buying another shelf sitter).
No offense to Skippy, I like his stuff and have a number of his libraries.  I really hope this works out great for him and everyone who buys into it.
I'm just not sure it's for me.  I'm hearing some great sounds but if I'm honest with myself I know that I don't build songs with this kind of stuff, it's just not my style; no offense meant if it's yours. 
I'll probably rewatch the videos and maybe at some point either get convinced or get infected with enough FOMO toxens that I succumb...

Peace out...

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 I do think it is worth it for the presets that come with it alone.   Of course, if you already own a lot of PluginGuru libraries, maybe not so much.  But it is an excellent introduction to the wide variety of sounds that can be found on his site.

I think the installation issues will be fixed soon and I think the value of Unify will increase in time as they add features. 

 

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I asked them about the difference between the initial and the upcoming "pro" version, raising my concerns about buying an inferior version and likely availability of upgrade to the "full" one. This is from the horse's (Mr. Lehmkuhl) mouth:

Quote

We are 2 dudes that have been working on this for 1.5 years. So it's not watered down in any way. It's something I'm very proud of and is super fun to use as it is. Getting to the Pro version will take at least 12 - 18 months and along the way we have some HUGE upgrades that will be free we plan to provide to Unify customers. I mean like new effects, new instruments - new functionality and a revamped interface for Unify will all be free updates along with a lot of awesome libraries to purchase.

The Pro version will have a much more fully functional sampler with the ability for all sorts of modern sampling abilities plus some things I want that are not availble in today's sampler plug-ins. We also have many other added abilities that will make the Pro version something you will want to upgrade to and if you own Unify, there will be a very far and appealing upgrade offered to you. I reward my customers for being my customers. I've been this way since I started this in 2009 while still working full time with Korg. 

 

Goes without saying this is marketing talk, but his enthusiasm seems candid and I believe he really wants to work on this thing. I also think that best tools are developed by tool users, and given his background he's right where he should be in this project.

I didn't jump in yet but his response did reel me in a length. I do layering a lot and while I manage to get by it's always a chore and habitually an anti-pattern sort of thing. Investigating whether this might alleviate the pain.

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I already own the Kontakt versions of Megamagic Guitars and Megamagic Bells and Winds. I noticed from the demo that Unify includes samples that are already in MM Guitars. So that got me wondering how many of the samples/patches in Unify are shared with MM Guitars or MM Bells and Winds? Would I end up with lots of duplicates of what I already own within that 2.5Gb sample set?

I emailed John about it and this was the reply I received...

Quote

There is maybe 30% of each of the full libraries samples inside of Unify. I went thru and picked my favorite samples because this is the core set of samples for all future sound libraries. Unify Pro in 12 - 18 months will include all 11GB of samples from all of my libraries. But having them in Omnisphere is totally different than having them in Unify since they are all able to live together in 1 plugin to make patches - something I have never done before. I did that a little in the 400 patches but will be doing a lot more of that in free patch banks and other libraries I produce. It's a nice new world that I'm thrilled to be able to work in without having to support just one plug-in at a time like the last 80 libraries I've released.

I still haven't jumped in but I might do yet if the FOMO or FOBASS don't get me first! 

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The latest Unify livestream from John (some good stuff on Cthulu and Audio Damage Continua). It's nearly 2 hours but John's enthusiasm makes the time fly by :) 

Enjoyed the bit where he controls the Cthulu pattern using a knob

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To do this on most DAWs would be a lot more work...and you can use only one midi channel. Originally I thought this was merely some kind of shell. While it is a shell it's also a lot more. I don't like the half backed feel of the whole thing...almost seems like they rushed it out a bit too soon. The JUICE scanner seems to be giving them fits.  Sure you can drag the VSTs into the folder and bypass JUICE. John says they will work on that after NAMM.

I don't mind a few initial issues for something like this if they are fixed in short order, but I can't afford to be playing with work arounds and fixes. I would feel better if this was a more "UNIFIED" thing.  The fact that there are Korg Wavestate samples in it makes it a little more appealing. If I use something like this I need the ability to pull the synths in and work fast. His track record with the older Korg keyboards and in Omnishpere is testament to his abilities. 

I'm sorta ion the fence and I really hate being on the fence.....I like the idea of future rewards for early adopters. When I'm on the fence I usually fall off on the GAS side.

Edited by Starise
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I actually don't care about presets for other purposes than learning about the context they're in, i.e. the environment to which they belong. I got this thing to put it to use, and to be frank the price was steep for my simple needs but I decided to pay the "extra" as investment into Unify's potential as a sampler, MIDI router, organizer of my stuff and streamliner in using the stuff. Perhaps a modular sequencer with which you could construct something like a guitar strumming MIDI machinery. Honestly I think most of this functionality should be enabled by the DAW but since it's mostly a shitfest all over this is the next best thing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I watched this last evening. I think I'm going to wait until Mar 29th to buy it. Better yet, wait a year and pay 20 more dollars. Maybe they will have more of the issues figured out by then. I don't make the kinds of mixes that would use a lot of this.

So far he is having issues with a few of my go to synth programs. I don't wanna hear, it works with this and that but doesn't work with these. Presently a useful program for a few who have enough in that toolkit already. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

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