Spitfire Originals Epic Choir

[lawajava]

@John Maar you haven’t already been using Unify?  Where have you been?

By the way, Epic Choir is Unified and will be one of the subjects on today’s PluginGuru livestream.

Edited July 23, 2022 by lawajava

[Niky Serrano]

Just now, lawajava said:

John you haven’t already been using Unify?  Where have you been?

I haven't used Unify too... because I don't understand what it offers me really
Some explanation to understand why Unify is useful or why I should consider buy it?

[Tim Smith]

I see UNIFY as mainly a plug in that shows off one of the best sound programmers out there. It's really pretty amazing what he does. If you look at the individual building blocks he uses to make his sounds, the efx aren't really anything special.

UNIFY allows you to do anything he can do, however we ain't him, so your results might vary.

I still highly recommend buying the program if you're looking for sound inspiration and/or don't have the time to do what Skippy does.

Yes, you could similarly stack tracks in a DAW and get very similar results. Skippy's program has some advantages though because it is very file friendly whereas many DAWs are more specific.

UNIFY reminds me of Cantabile in some ways since you can  mix and match plugins and instruments within it. In a nutshell it's a very versatile plugin shell.

[abacab]

1 hour ago, Tim Smith said:

I see UNIFY as mainly a plug in that shows off one of the best sound programmers out there.

Quite true!!!

But just for the record, Unify is also a host, so you can use it live as a synth rack. The macros allow you to control nearly any parameter on any layer in a Unify patch.

But since it is also a plugin, it can be used as a host within a host! So as a plugin, it can even host cross-platform plugin formats that your native host does not support.

Edited July 25, 2022 by abacab

[John Maar]

OK, after buying and installing Epic Choir, I bought Epic Strings (installed), Epic Brass & Woodwinds (installed) and Intimate Strings (downloading and installing now). I tried to purchase Unify, but it didn't switch to € from $ after I updated my address to France. Plugin Guru still wants $. I have two PayPal accounts, one for euros for my French bank and one for dollars for my U.S. bank. Plugin Guru's payment page insists on loading the euro PayPal account. Phooey. I'll have to try again and see if one of my old U.S. credit cards still works.

[abacab]

1 hour ago, Tim Smith said:

Yes, you could similarly stack tracks in a DAW and get very similar results. Skippy's program has some advantages though because it is very file friendly whereas many DAWs are more specific.

The advantage to stacking/layering your sounds as a Unify preset, is that you can instantly recall that stack as a Unify preset in any host, on any platform, as long as Unify is installed there.

If you build that stack within a DAW, you will be stuck with using that DAW project to recall your stack...

[pseudopop]

44 minutes ago, John Maar said:

OK, after buying and installing Epic Choir, I bought Epic Strings (installed), Epic Brass & Woodwinds (installed) and Intimate Strings (downloading and installing now). I tried to purchase Unify, but it didn't switch to € from $ after I updated my address to France. Plugin Guru still wants $. I have two PayPal accounts, one for euros for my French bank and one for dollars for my U.S. bank. Plugin Guru's payment page insists on loading the euro PayPal account. Phooey. I'll have to try again and see if one of my old U.S. credit cards still works.

Why do you need to use different PayPal accounts for different currencies, if I may ask?

Edited July 25, 2022 by pseudopop

[Tim Smith]

1 hour ago, abacab said:

The advantage to stacking/layering your sounds as a Unify preset, is that you can instantly recall that stack as a Unify preset in any host, on any platform, as long as Unify is installed there.

If you build that stack within a DAW, you will be stuck with using that DAW project to recall your stack...

Yes but........this is all dependent on the same plugins still being available. So the same thing can happen due to lack of updated or discontinued plugins. And if I build a DAW stack as a template it's really quite similar.

[lawajava]

Here's an analogy that comes to my mind when thinking of some comparative points raised on Unify so far.

"It's the same thing statement": In my DAW I have chairs.  They are nice to sit in.  But, if I use Unify, which is a car.  It has nice seats.  I like the seats in Unify, they are comfortable, but they are pretty much the same use as the seats in my DAW.

What is missing in that statement is that the seats in Unify are in a car.  Meaning you can go  places and into other dimensions - fast.   Unify often has multiple knobs pre-wired so that you can jump to automating all sorts of sounds and filters in one knob motion.  And there are lots of knobs - and they are labeled as to what they do!  So you can really take a combination of patches and presets and get them to come alive.  It has Jitter Box, Midi Box, BlueArp, the list goes on and on.  You can assign keys in the lower range to certain sounds, a key range in the middle to other sounds/layers, and keys in a higher to still other sounds - all saved in an instantly recallable preset. Unify splits each VST into separate cores so performance can be much better than putting the VST straight in the DAW.  When you stack a combination of VSTs in layers this performance aspect really becomes a win.

So it's not so much apples to apples.  "I can do the same thing in my DAW" misses the other dimensions of where the song can go when using Unify.  And, actually, of course, you can have multiple Unify  tracks in a song, so that's something to stack!

Edited July 25, 2022 by lawajava

[abacab]

1 hour ago, Tim Smith said:

Yes but........this is all dependent on the same plugins still being available. So the same thing can happen due to lack of updated or discontinued plugins. And if I build a DAW stack as a template it's really quite similar.

Assume that your plugins are installed and available for any host running on your PC. The same plugins will be available to Unify anywhere on your PC, in any DAW you wish.

Of course if you wanted to move projects over to another PC, regardless of whether or not you're using Unify, you would still need all of the plugins present.

You can't open that DAW template in a different brand DAW. But you can open that Unify preset in a different brand DAW and be up and running!

[John Maar]

14 hours ago, pseudopop said:

Why do you need to use different PayPal accounts for different currencies, if I may ask?

A PayPal account is linked to a bank account. I couldn't find any way to link two different banks (one in the U.S. and one in France) to one account. Also, you can only have one PayPal account per email address. Good thing I regularly use two different email accounts. It may be possible to have a PayPal account that is not linked to a bank account, but only to credit/debit cards, but I didn't try that.

I am open to suggestions from someone more knowledgeable/experienced with PayPal than I am. I would love to be able to consolidate the two accounts.

[John Maar]

12 hours ago, lawajava said:

Here's an analogy that comes to my mind when thinking of some comparative points raised on Unify so far.

"It's the same thing statement": In my DAW I have chairs.  They are nice to sit in.  But, if I use Unify, which is a car.  It has nice seats.  I like the seats in Unify, they are comfortable, but they are pretty much the same use as the seats in my DAW.

What is missing in that statement is that the seats in Unify are in a car.  Meaning you can go  places and into other dimensions - fast.   Unify often has multiple knobs pre-wired so that you can jump to automating all sorts of sounds and filters in one knob motion.  And there are lots of knobs - and they are labeled as to what they do!  So you can really take a combination of patches and presets and get them to come alive.  It has Jitter Box, Midi Box, BlueArp, the list goes on and on.  You can assign keys in the lower range to certain sounds, a key range in the middle to other sounds/layers, and keys in a higher to still other sounds - all saved in an instantly recallable preset. Unify splits each VST into separate cores so performance can be much better than putting the VST straight in the DAW.  When you stack a combination of VSTs in layers this performance aspect really becomes a win.

So it's not so much apples to apples.  "I can do the same thing in my DAW" misses the other dimensions of where the song can go when using Unify.  And, actually, of course, you can have multiple Unify  tracks in a song, so that's something to stack!

I'm still in the process of acquiring Unify, but one feature mentioned in the videos and reviews that I've checked is that I can route different MIDI channels to different VSTs in Unify. If that means what I think it means, that I can route different MIDI streams to different VSTs, then that eliminates my biggest concern (that all VSTs have to play the same MIDI stream).

For a comparison, consider how Band In A Box lets you mute various instruments with .dot commands and pushes in the chord chart. For example, drums first, then bring in the bass, then the guitar and finally the backing instruments.

In Unify, I might want to feed the Choir different MIDI than the strings or wind instruments or a synth like Pigments or Chromaphone.

[pseudopop]

I just make payments with PayPal, so my needs are simple, but...

1 hour ago, John Maar said:

It may be possible to have a PayPal account that is not linked to a bank account, but only to credit/debit cards, but I didn't try that.

That is how I have it set up (though my primary card is a debit card, to be precise). I have also chosen not to use PayPal's currency conversion, because the exchange rate PayPal uses is worse than the one my bank uses.

If you have multiple credit cards you can use them with a single PayPal account, if you want/need to use different cards for different purchases.

[John Maar]

8 minutes ago, pseudopop said:

I just make payments with PayPal, so my needs are simple, but...

That is how I have it set up (though my primary card is a debit card, to be precise). I have also chosen not to use PayPal's currency conversion, because the exchange rate PayPal uses is worse than the one my bank uses.

If you have multiple credit cards you can use them with a single PayPal account, if you want/need to use different cards for different purchases.

My French bank (CIC) is great. I have US$ and EU€ accounts. I transfer my pensions that are direct deposited to my U.S. bank to my CIC dollar account, only paying the $40 wire transfer fee (I aggregate a few months income, so the $40 is very small compared to the size of the transfer). CIC converts dollars to euros at the current full rate, only charging me a couple of euros for the transaction. I wind up with way more euros than if I used Chase or PayPal or one of the currency transfer websites like OFX.

[Fleer]

And an interesting exchange rate to boot. 

[Nick Blanc]

Not to spur on any controversy, but isn't crypto supposed to fix this? Send your € funds from account A to wallet X, convert to crypto Z (make sure it doesn't crash in the meantime 😝), transfer crypto Z to wallet Y, convert to $ and cash out to account B. Takes 2 minutes of your time and will cost you next to nothing. Just a mild heart attack everytime you don't see the funds within a couple of seconds and you fervently start checking your wallet adresses to doublecheck you didn't mess it up.

Ontopic: I really like al lot of those Originals and this one is no exception. I think it is really great value.

[John Maar]

Unify bought and paid for. Downloading now. Getting closer!

[John Maar]

1 hour ago, Nick Blanc said:

Not to spur on any controversy, but isn't crypto supposed to fix this? Send your € funds from account A to wallet X, convert to crypto Z (make sure it doesn't crash in the meantime 😝), transfer crypto Z to wallet Y, convert to $ and cash out to account B. Takes 2 minutes of your time and will cost you next to nothing. Just a mild heart attack everytime you don't see the funds within a couple of seconds and you fervently start checking your wallet adresses to doublecheck you didn't mess it up.

Ontopic: I really like al lot of those Originals and this one is no exception. I think it is really great value.

I'm staying as far away as possible from crypto and day trading. And the casino just down the street. I worked too hard for my money.

[abacab]

8 hours ago, John Maar said:

I'm still in the process of acquiring Unify, but one feature mentioned in the videos and reviews that I've checked is that I can route different MIDI channels to different VSTs in Unify. If that means what I think it means, that I can route different MIDI streams to different VSTs, then that eliminates my biggest concern (that all VSTs have to play the same MIDI stream).

Better buckle up >>>

https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual-1.7/doku.php?id=layer-stack-view

https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual-1.7/doku.php?id=midi-details

Edited July 26, 2022 by abacab

[John Maar]

Unify purchased and installed, along with the presets for all of the 3rd party instruments that I own. Playing with it will have to wait until tomorrow morning. Time for a walk along the ocean with my 3 puppers and then watch the England vs. Sweden semifinal in the Women's 2022 Euros at 21h00. France vs. Germany semifinal tomorrow night! Go Blues!

EDIT:  The online manual has been updated for v1.8.

Unify v1.8 Online Manual

Edited July 27, 2022 by John Maar