Unisyn not displaying patch lists

[Jim]

P. 970 of the DP45 manual:

When you are running Digital Performer, Unisyn automatically supplies Digital Performer with acccurate, up-too-date patch lists in Digital Performer's patch selection menus.

I have found this not to be true in my case. I can set up banks in Unisyn, but when I look at the patch list in DP, I can see 127 instances of "default patch".

This seems to me to be a core function of Unisyn.
This is the ONLY reason I bought Unisyn... to be able to manage patch names with DP, as a substitute to Patch List Manager in OS9.

I have six or so MIDI devices. Only a few of the patch lists show up in DP. Some patch lists show up, but don't call up the correct patch when I use the patch selector in DP.

Am I doing anything obviously wrong?

And why do we need a third party hack like Cherry Picker to get patch lists to work or get converted correctly? Seems to me that this should be MOTU's job, since they market their products as being able to do this.

[Shooshie]

Jim, I've racked my brain trying to find rhyme or reason for the behavior of Unisyn and DP as blood brothers, but they still act as though they are from different families, occasionally sending each other a post card. No idea why. Sometimes I have an up-to-date patch list, and sometimes I don't. I do nothing to precipitate this. When and if it happens, it does so on its own without any direction from me.

If anyone else can make this work, please chime in here, but for now, I don't see DP taking snapshots from Unisyn, and I don't see any way to be certain you're up-to-date with your latest uploads into your rack.

I've said elsewhere in this forum that I don't use that method, and I don't. For a given song, I'll set up tracks somewhat like this:

Channel 1: Lead
Channel 2: Rhythm
Channel 3: instrumental solo
Channel 4: keyboards
Channel 5: bass
Channel 5: drums
Channel 7: wildcard extra something-or-other

On another song, it may go like this:

Channel 1: Flute
Channel 2: Violin
Channel 3: Strings
Channel 4: Piano
Channel 5: Brass
Channel 5: Harp
Channel 7: Clarinet
etc.

Once I've set up these tracks, I go to Unisyn to create a bank of patches and/or Setups (Kurzweil version of multi-timbral "Programs" in Yamaha-ese) in which the specific instruments appear in the appointed channels. This is usually a several-step process:
1) create a Setup (or Yamaha "Program") for the channel layout, with specific patches named in each MIDI channel.
2) create the patch bank which holds the patches I want to use in that Setup.
3) Name that Setup similarly to the song with which it will be used.
4) Store that Setup in Unisyn, in my library files, rather than the actual Bank windows.

Now, when I load my song in Digital Performer, I also go to Unisyn and find its Setup. Then I upload that Setup and any associated Banks into my Kurzweil and rack gear.

This is where the fun starts. Now, if I want to play around with sounds, rather than selecting patches in DP and having it apply those patches to the tracks themselves, I just go over to Unisyn and upload different patches directly to that bank, or, I may have a number of banks prepared for different songs using the same setup, or even different orchestrations for the same song. Unisyn makes it quick and easy to upload these and completely change the orchestration without having to change the tracks themselves.

I do not like patch changes imbedded in my tracks, because 1) patches do not always stay the same within a given instrument, and 2) I change my mind a lot. When I do, then I have to go and physically remove or replace the patch changes. I'd much rather do it my way, using Unisyn instead. It's easy to do, and in the case of the Kurzweil, I don't even use Unisyn that much. I'll just go from channel to channel and change patches using the K 2600's interface, since I'm sitting there in front of it, anyway. It's got a scroll-wheel, and I can try out a lot of patches in a short time while the sequence rolls.

Just because this default patch stuff is there in the Tracks Window doesn't mean you have to use it. It's not always the most reliable way to go, as we already know, and it certainly isn't the only preferred workflow. My way, for me, gives me much more freedom to experiment without changing the sequence file. I like that.

Shooshie

Note: the terminology is confusing from MIDI instrument to MIDI instrument. Below is the translation between Kurzweil and Yamaha terminology. It's probably different for certain other brands:

Yahaha | Kurzweil
patch = program
program = setup

<small>[ January 27, 2005, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>

[trombone17]

Jim,

What are your 6 Devices, and what MIDI interface are you using?

There are a few things that could be wrong, at first glance. One is that Unisyn in is not generating the appropriate .midnam file for DP to use (which I know is an issue for some devices). The second possibility is that your AMS configuration could be incorrect for some of your instruments. The third possibility is DP doesn't knwo hwo to handle a particular device because of the .middev file for the manufacturer. My first reaction is that it is one of the latter two, but without knowing more about your setup, I am taking a shot in the dark.

-jtp-

[Jim]

Thanks for the reply, folks. Shooshie has kindly and painstakingly described a workflow that I may be forced to adopt, as it's something that works.

However, that approach requires a paradigm shift in my way of working to which I'm not quite ready to commit, as I already have massive quantities of files which require program changes on my specific devices, and I want and need the backward compatiblity.

I just want this stuff to work the way MOTU says it will in their printed documentation and marketing materials.

Trombone, here are the answers to your questions: my setup: MOTU MIDI Express 128 interface. These are my devices which are working with Unisyn: EMU Proteus/1, and Korg TR-Rack.

These are my devices that are NOT working with Unisyn: Yamaha TF1 modules, Nord Lead Rack, Alesis Quadrasynth S4.

Unisyn does not Get Banks from the Nord Lead Rack. I always get "There was no reply from the device."

I have been able to Get Banks and Send Banks to the Yamaha TF modules, but the patch lists do not show up in DP, and further more, I get 127 Default Patches in DP, when the TF modules only have 32 patch locations. So, apparently something is wrong with the yamaha.middev file. As I understand the Cherry Picker documentation, this is the file which describes all Yamaha hardware.

I can Get Banks from the Alesis S4, but the correct Patch Map does not show up in DP.

I can browse the .middeve and .midnam files, and although there is some plain English in there, I don't understand the code, and am limited in my ability to figure out what may be wrong with them. It seems to me that this is some functionality that MOTU should put into the software.

If you can shed any light, it would be deeply appreciated.

BTW. all this stuff works great in OS9. Even though the Nord Rack was not supported, I was able to make patch lists in Patch List Manager, and there is no such ability to do that in the OSX versions. I have two other older unsupported devices, and it appears I'm SOL as far as getting patch lists into DP4. That stinks.

.

<small>[ January 29, 2005, 09:37 AM: Message edited by: Jim ]</small>

[Shooshie]

As Jim knows, my method is simply based on the way I work, which is fortunate since DP and Unisyn do not seem to handle the patch lists as they are supposed to. Nevertheless, I truly hope someone comes up with the answer Jim is seeking, because I'd like to try it myself, and because it always bothers me when something in my "chosen" software does not quite function as advertised. I think it's time we approach MOTU en-masse and make a formal request that they fix this. I really don't think it's our problem, and I don't think anyone should have to go through what Jim and others have gone through to try to get it to work. This is simply broken, and must be fixed.

Shooshie

[Jim]

I thought I'd post one little success story. I have an old Yamaha TX-81z that I thought was dead. But it turns out just the battery is dead, losing my RAM patches and showing garbage in the LED on power-up.

I re-initialized it, and loaded a RAM Bank I'd saved from my OS8 & 9 version of Unisyn. And what do you know, the patches showed up properly in DP4.52!!!!!!

So, this is one device out of six or so that works with Unisyn. Not a victory, but a hope. I still suspect Shooshie is correct, and Unisyn is broken. I'm hoping somebody from MOTU will chime in, and address this issue.

.

[Shooshie]

Great! I haven't powered up my TX81Z in a long time. If I find that my battery is also dead, I may pester you for the banks, as I don't remember whether or not I saved them. On second thought, I'm almost sure I did. They're just buried somewhere in that mountain of old Unisyn files on an old drive. That little unit had its uses, occasionally.

I hope you can figure out why it loaded into DP 4.52 when your others did not.

Shooshie

[trombone17]

MOTU MIDI Express 128 interface. These are my devices which are working with Unisyn: EMU Proteus/1, and Korg TR-Rack.

At the school I used to teach at, the Proteus/1 was the device that usually worked well. The Korg was we had was the X5D, which was finicky, but usually a restart of Unisyn helped.

These are my devices that are NOT working with Unisyn: Yamaha TF1 modules, Nord Lead Rack, Alesis Quadrasynth S4.

Unisyn does not Get Banks from the Nord Lead Rack. I always get "There was no reply from the device."

This could be caused by several things. First Check what the SysEx channel is on the Nord. Then name sure that the SysEx channel matches is AudioMIDI setup. On some devices, you might need to add a 1 to the SysEx ID (AMS seems to use the 1-128 scheme while many devices use the more proper 0-127). If the device IDs match, and you were able to use a previous version of Unisyn with the Nord, then the new profile might be bad.

I have been able to Get Banks and Send Banks to the Yamaha TF modules, but the patch lists do not show up in DP, and further more, I get 127 Default Patches in DP, when the TF modules only have 32 patch locations. So, apparently something is wrong with the yamaha.middev file. As I understand the Cherry Picker documentation, this is the file which describes all Yamaha hardware.

Something might not be wrong with the file, per se, but rather your device might not be in it (Now, that is not to say the Unisyn Profile is bad, which is a highly likely case). To add your device, do the following:

Try at your own peril.

1) MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE!
2) MAKE A BAKCUP OF THE FILE! This in case things don't work out, and you need to restore what you had before.
3) Maximize the window. This will help you see the nesting of the code. the .middev are XML, which if you can underderstand basic HTML, you can follow this.
4) Find the last <MIDIDeviceType line. Copy that through the </MIDIDeviceType>. hit Return, and Paste the duplicate in.
5) Now Modify the settings to match the TF1, So I am guessing it might look like this:

<MIDIDeviceType Manufacturer="Yamaha" Model="TF1" SupportsGeneralMIDI="false" SupportsMMC="false" IsSampler="false" IsDrumMachine="false" IsMixer="false" IsEffectUnit="false" >
<DeviceID Min="1" Max="16" Default="1" Base="1" />
<Receives MaxChannels="1" MTC="false" Clock="false" Notes="true" ProgramChanges="true" BankSelectMSB="false" BankSelectLSB="false" PanDisruptsStereo="false" />
<Transmits MaxChannels="1" MTC="false" Clock="false" Notes="true" ProgramChanges="true" BankSelectMSB="false" BankSelectLSB="false" />
</MIDIDeviceType>

6) Save
7) Now make sure you have the file tf1.midnam in the Yamaha folder.

If something goes wrong, trash the file you modified, and restore the setup by taking the one of the backups and renaming it yahama.middev and putting it into the yamaha folder.

I can Get Banks from the Alesis S4, but the correct Patch Map does not show up in DP.

I had issues with the Alesis D4. The new patch names did not appear in OSX but worked fine in v1.5. I think this is a profile error (I know that the D4 does not publish an updated patch list to the folder unisyn keeps its patch lists).

I can browse the .middeve and .midnam files, and although there is some plain English in there, I don't understand the code, and am limited in my ability to figure out what may be wrong with them. It seems to me that this is some functionality that MOTU should put into the software.

Try the above at your own risk. I happen to have coded in raw html before, so looking at XML files is second nature to me.

If you can shed any light, it would be deeply appreciated.

BTW. all this stuff works great in OS9. Even though the Nord Rack was not supported, I was able to make patch lists in Patch List Manager, and there is no such ability to do that in the OSX versions. I have two other older unsupported devices, and it appears I'm SOL as far as getting patch lists into DP4. That stinks.

While i don't miss the crashes, I did like Unisyn and Finale better in OS9. They worked the way I expected.

Hope this was some help. Appologies for grammer and spelling. Insomnia sucks, but at least I can get my good deed of the day done early

-jtp-

[Jim]

Thanks so much for the tips, and the time it took you took to write all of them. I went down the list and double checked all my settings. Now, Unisyn is getting Banks from all my devices. That's a major hurdle.

The next, and prominent issue is getting the patches to show up in DP4.x. I received a reply from MOTU on this same query, and it shed some light: In order for patches to show up in DP, Unisyn needs to publish a patch list in the User/Preferences/Unisyn/MIDIname documents folder.

This is curious, because apparently Core Audio needs to have a patch list in an entirely different location (the root/Library/Audio/MIDIDevices/MOTU folder)

What we need to figure out now is how to get Unisyn to publish the patch lists as it should. As I stated previously, it is doing it for my Yamaha TX81z device, and no others. This tells me that there is a problem with Unisyn, as Shooshie suggests, and not with the way we've been configuring it.

[Jim]

I wrote MOTU a week ago, and haven't gotten a reply, but here's what I've learned: Unisyn is supposed to publish a patch list (midnam) in the Library/Unisyn Preferences folder whenever you do a Get Items or Send Items from Unisyn. DP is supposed to see that list, and display the names.

This is not happening as it should on six of my seven devices.

Unisyn only publishes the patch lists in DP for one of my devices (the Yamaha TX81z). I can trash the device list from the Prefs folder, so a Get Bank, and then it re-appears.

One out of seven isn't very impressive.

.

[Jim]

Still no word from MOTU about why Unisyn doesn't publish the patch lists it gets and sends from supported devices. Perhaps they're embarrassed about not being able to live up to the claims they've made.

.

[Shooshie]

More likely, it got passed down the chain of command, losing momentum with each step.

Well, I've been on hiatus for a while, Jim. I haven't touched DP or Unisyn in about two weeks, and all my musicmaking has been on a real live piano. Just a phase...

Shooshie

[Jim]

A real piano? What's that?

I was figuring that if I taunted MOTU tech support here, I'd get some kind of reply. But, so far, they haven't taken the bait.

I got by making my own patch lists back in the eighties, and I'm starting to think that's what I'm going to have to return to, but I sure don't like the idea much. I'm not happy with MOTU's silence on this issue, but not so much that it prevented me from picking up a Traveler. I wish their loyalty to me was proportional to my loyalty to them. I guess I'm just another sucker.

[AgainsttheWall]

I just noticed that I can run patchlist manager in classic mode while DP4 is running in OS X And my patches show up in DP4 just like they did in DP3 under OS9.
I don't even need to be running Unisyn for them to show up. I'm not sure classic in the background is going to slow things down too bad but it works for now.
BTW
OS 10.2.8 700mhz G4 imac

[Jim]

Hmmm. Can you please give more details on how you got that to work? I tried it, and it's a no-go for me. I'm wondering if using Free-MIDI with OS9 and OSX are having some kind of conflict.

.