I like to think that my editor and recent Unitor Driver Checker had something to do with this, but I’m sure it’s just Apple finally coming to their senses. The most recent Unitor driver for Intel, version 2.5, is now available via the Apple website for everyone to download. You can get the download here. There is no requirement to purchase Logic, or iLife, or Garageband any more!!!

Rejoice. Read More...

Tags: unitor

If you are shopping for a Unitor8 or AMT8 on ebay you really ought to be informed about which one is better.

The Unitor8 is the one with more features!

There is no reason to pay more for an AMT8 than you would for a Unitor8. The fact that people are paying $199 or more for an AMT8 when a Unitor can be purchased at the same time with a buy-it-now price of $150 is rediculous! The only features that an AMT8 has are IO patching and control of the LED brightness. The Unitor8 has all the syncing features for syncing to tapes or video, and a foot switch input that can be configured to do all kinds of cool stuff.

I know that prices are just what the market supports, but think in this case it's just ignorance and confusion about what each products features really are.

Tags: unitor, ebay

UPDATE 1: Unitor 8 Preference Pane is now 64-bit and available for 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.5 Leopard. Development might move slow, but it does move!

UPDATE 2: version 0.9.6 - Fixed a silly bug that showed up when I tested it on Snow Leopard where the device selector would dissapear.

UPDATE 3: version 0.9.7 - Fixed 10.5 built to work on all hardware platforms PPC and Intel

• There are tons of improvements to the device scanning since I now have 2 devices.
• Hover help text has been added to give you assurance that the buttons do what you think they will do.
• Added a clear patch button

Check it out now!

Tags: unitor

I've acquired an AMT8 to debug the issues with multiple chained boxes. I have it working but I'm searching for one known bug that causes a patch to get copied from one device to the other. If you'd like to test this and see if you can track down the situation that causes it, please contact me.



The AMT8 cost me $73 dollars. To date, 2 people have contributed $10 each toward this project. If you think this project is worth anything to you then please consider donating toward it.

Donate to development

Tags: unitor

So it looks like the Unitor Preference Pane is working fine in Snow Leopard. System Preferences will switch to 32-bit mode for the panel, but it does work fine. I'll update it to 64 bit compatible in the next release.

If it gets stuck (beach ball forever) the first time you run it, simply force System Preferences to close then re-open it. The pref pane will work perfectly from here on out. I'm trying to track down what causes this, but I haven't been able to recreate the situation yet.

UPDATE:

As it turns out there is very little reason to update the preference pane to 64bit. The MIDI system in OS X requires all of the drivers you have to be 64-bit, or it will not run in 64-bit mode. Only Logic Studio 9 includes a Unitor/AMT USB midi driver that is 64-bit capable, but if any midi driver on your system is 32-bit, then you'll be taking a trip back to 32-bit System Preferences. I have not been able to create a situation where System Preferences will run my pref pane in 64-bit mode yet. It's mysteriously difficult to debug 32-bit preference panes on Snow Leopard, so it may be some time before I'm able to find out what's causing this.

Tags: unitor

The end is in sight!

I’m still plugging away at the Unitor 8 preference pane. The SMPTE timing panels are very difficult to deal with. There are lots of customs bytes with lot of small pieces of data all packed together, and many values that are only valid when other values are set.

Of course, I want to make sure I don’t make any stupid mistakes and not make any rash decisions that might cost me time later. I’m estimating a day to two to completion, depending on whether I get distracted playing WoW.

Tags: unitor

What’s new:

Version 0.8.5 (current)

• Support for AMT8
• Support for 8 chained Unitor8’s or AMT8 in any order
• Improved support for the actual Unitor8 midi specification

Go check it out!

This may seem like only 3 new items, but this is really a huge deal. You can now configure up to 1024 midi channels!

16 channels per port * 8 ports on each Unitor/AMT * 8 Unitors = 1024 !!!

Tags: unitor

Thanks to a very kind gift from the gods out there, I now have pretty much all the information anyone could ever want about the midi protocol for the Unitor8 and the AMT8.

I’m in the process of updating my code to better support both devices as well as 8 of them chained together!!

The excellent news is that I haven’t found any errors with the protocol as I’ve understood it so far. So it’s pretty safe to use. Even if you have an AMT8 attached. The UI will just be all grayed out while it seeks for a Unitor.

If you have been thinking about getting one of these interfaces on eBay, and you have a newer mac with 10.5 or greater on it, now is the time to buy them. By the time it arrives, you’ll have a working configuration app, even if you buy 8 of them.

Tags: unitor

U8PP is now listed on macmusic.com.

I’ve also submitted it to be listed in the Apple Downloads section, but they say it takes up to 90 days for that to happen if it ever even does! Yowsa.
** Update: now listed on Apple.com Downloads in the Audio section .

Tags: unitor

What’s new:

Version 0.8.0 (current)

• IO patch editing works!!!
• Patches can be named (names are only stored in the preferences).
• 32 customizable IO mappings.
• Copy, paste, and initialize IO patches.
• Displays the Unitor version number when valid input and output are selected.
• Recognizes most settings dumps that are sent from the Unitor.

Go check it out!

Tags: unitor

While I continue to build midi apps that few people will use, I’m building a software architecture behind scenes that will allow me to basically piece large portions together to create new and interesting midi applications. Read More...

Tags: unitor, cocoa

This weekend I’ve made great progress with the Unitor Preference Pane. I added patch configuration. Unfortunately it’s brought my attention to the fact that I have yet to request any information from the Unitor. The latest build initializes all the patches and can copy, paste, customize, and send them to interface, but it never requests what the interface has. So if you have custom setting already stored, they’ll be overwritten. I’m not posting this build because of this. If I was certain that no one cared about their patches that are currently stored in their Unitor, I would release it, but its better if I just fix it first.

Tags: unitor

For weeks I have been working on creating a modern, functional, replacement for the Emagic Unitor8 MkII USB MIDI Interface. To accomplish this I’m reverse engineering the midi system exclusive messages that are sent to the Interface by SoundDiver and Unitor8 Control. Apple has made it clear by now that this is near abandon-ware. While they have amazingly provided Intel based drivers with Logic, the Unitor8 control and SoundDiver applications have languished in such a poor state that I consider them to be nearly unusable.

Follow along here.

Tags: unitor