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October 22, 2021 5:46 pm
I am sure John is very familiar with all of the Combis in the Korg Oasys, as I believe he wrote many of them…. Back in the day, a guy wrote some software that hooked up to the Oasys (I still have it) where you could create a Combi by clicking a button and it would select a number of program at random from the huge number in the Oasys memory…. if you didn’t like the sound of the new Combi, you just click again….
Maybe you could do the same in Unify….. an enhancement would be to be able to choose the number of patches you want…. Maybe choose which libraries they should come from..and maybe the number from each library…….
October 22, 2021 6:04 pm
If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked for this or some other form of random patch-generation, I'd have... well, a few bucks.
The problem with truly random selection is that it will rarely produce pleasant or useful sounds. However, I get where you're coming from, and I agree it would be nice to be able to be able to click through an endless series of potentially interesting combinations. Implementing this inside Unify itself would be a lot of work, and it's hard to justify assigning it a high priority. In future, there may be much easier ways to do this type of thing outside of Unify.
Topic starter
October 22, 2021 6:23 pm
Thanks very much for your quick reply… it’s fair to say that the implementation of this for the Korg Oasys did not produce many useful combos, so my idea would be that the user would define each patch that he/she wanted to be considered in the random generator as an “ingredient”…. and the user could define any number of ingredients and place any patch inside any ingredient…. So for example, drums would be one ingredient, pad (s), pluck(s) , bass. Etc. Etc. Then you could be sure that the combo that was generated would at least have some kind of musical sense to it…… I can quite see why this would not be a priority for you though !!
Topic starter
February 19, 2022 11:04 am
Thanks very much for your quick reply… it’s fair to say that the implementation of this for the Korg Oasys did not produce many useful combos, so my idea would be that the user would define each patch that he/she wanted to be considered in the random generator as an “ingredient”…. and the user could define any number of ingredients and place any patch inside any ingredient…. So for example, drums would be one ingredient, pad (s), pluck(s) , bass. Etc. Etc. Then you could be sure that the combo that was generated would at least have some kind of musical sense to it…… I can quite see why this would not be a priority for you though !!
Shane - is the new “Dice” feature in Unify 1.8 pretty much exactly what I (and many others, from what you previously said) suggested here ? 🙂 I am pleased that you found the time to do it !!
This post was modified 2 years ago 3 times by milford59
February 19, 2022 3:05 pm
is the new “Dice” feature in Unify 1.8 pretty much exactly what I (and many others, from what you previously said) suggested here ? 🙂 I am pleased that you found the time to do it !!
Not really 😉 , see f.e.
https://forums.pluginguru.com/postid/8365/
I hope it’s the first step - IMHO all it would need to make it incredibly more useful would be to make the dice triggerable by a macro knob (which would allow to trigger random patches in nested Unify instances).
Anyway, thanks a lot, Shane, for 1.8 update … best regards
EDIT: Just watched John‘s 1.8 update video and I must say, the dice in combination with the „Load embedded“-function definitively goes in the right direction!! Thanks!
This post was modified 2 years ago by RobKastler
February 19, 2022 4:14 pm
The dice button in Unify v1.8 is most definitely the first step toward more flexible patch-combining options.
With the programming tools I use for Unify, developing GUI features is extremely time-consuming and error-prone, so I have tended to prioritize stability, bug fixes, and sound-production features over GUI refinements since I started working on Unify three years ago. Now that the product is finally fairly stable, I hope to focus more on GUI in 2022.
In the meantime, some users who are themselves programmers are starting to experiment with Unify's OSC support (added in v1.7) to create companion programs which work with Unify to do things like patch combinations. This work is embryonic right now, but I hope it will be the start of something much bigger. I also hope to incorporate some ideas explored in these companion programs, into Unify itself in future.
Unify has been a long journey, and there are many miles yet to go.
February 19, 2022 4:25 pm
In the meantime, some users who are themselves programmers are starting to experiment with Unify's OSC support (added in v1.7) to create companion programs which work with Unify to do things like patch combinations.
Thanks a million, Shane!
Please ignore my ignorance but does that mean that the dice button is triggerable by OSC??
February 19, 2022 4:59 pm
...does that mean that the dice button is triggerable by OSC??
No, but I'll put this on the list. I'm thinking of setting up a special user group for people who are actually developing OSC remote programs and templates, where we can test out additions to Unify's vocabulary of OSC functions without having to do a full release.
February 19, 2022 5:11 pm
I'm thinking of setting up a special user group for people who are actually developing OSC remote programs and templates
Thanks, I‘m definitely interested to participate when it‘s happening …
BTW making the dice button OSC-triggerable would equally mean making it triggerable by a macro knob, no?
February 19, 2022 5:41 pm
I'm thinking of setting up a special user group for people who are actually developing OSC remote programs and templates
Thanks, I‘m definitely interested to participate when it‘s happening …
BTW making the dice button OSC-triggerable would equally mean making it triggerable by a macro knob, no?
Yes, macro knobs can link to pretty much anything with a defined OSC path.
March 5, 2022 10:34 am
I will complete this post.I don't know if this has already been mentioned.
Indeed it would be very interesting to be able to trigger the random button by a key on the control keyboard (midi learn / key switch ).
This will allow in a patch with for example 2 or 3 layers of embedded Unify to launch a random either globally or independently for each Unify layer. In any case, this random function is really a marvel for research.
Dominique
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March 22, 2022 2:03 pm
The key to a great randomizer is parameter locking 😉
March 23, 2022 6:24 pm
The key to a great randomizer is parameter locking 😉
You're absolutely right, and this is one of the reasons I've always pushed back against requests for randomization features in Unify. As a plug-in host, Unify has no way to tell individual plug-ins to lock specific parameters.
March 23, 2022 8:40 pm
@getdunne I use Plogue Bidule for this 😉
Then I must revise my previous answer, because Plogue Bidule is also a host, like Unify. By all accounts, Bidule does a fabulous job of randomizing plug-in parameters. If it works for you, then definitely continue using it.
topaz reacted
March 23, 2022 11:06 pm
I don't know Plogue Bidule, but if the Unify macros can see available parameters, wouldn't it be possible for Unify to display a list of those parameters for a given VST and let users select which ones to randomize? Or is this about randomizing something else?
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March 24, 2022 8:00 pm
I don't know Plogue Bidule, but if the Unify macros can see available parameters, wouldn't it be possible for Unify to display a list of those parameters for a given VST and let users select which ones to randomize? Or is this about randomizing something else?
Of course it's possible. I just can't justify the effort of adding this to Unify, for the handful of users who want it.
