Tim Dale's "Worship Layers" patch revised with MIDI control

On the PlugInGuru Unify Power Users Facebook group page, Unify power user @timdale (Tim Dale) shared a lovely 7-layer Unify patch designed for live performance in church, for which he used a KORG nanoKontrol2 MIDI controller to set levels of each of the 7 layers independently.

I noticed the CPU usage was very high, because all 7 layers are kept active all the time, so I made the attached revised version, where the layer levels are controlled by macro knobs, and each knob is also configured to disable MIDI input to the layer when the level is brought all the way down to zero. This requires a slightly change of playing technique, because you cannot play and hold a chord with only one layer active, then raise the level of another layer to "swell" it in. (You can do this if you don't bring the 2nd layer level all the way down to zero.) However, it reduces the overall CPU usage, because only layers which are enabled will receive MIDI and thus trigger notes.

To use the patch, drag/drop the Worship Layers.unify file into the Unify GUI to load it, then click Save to save it into your own Unify patch database. By default, it will save to the User Library folder, but you can select a different library in the Save dialog if you wish.

The attached zip archive also includes an example MIDI Controller File for use with a KORG nanoKontrol2. The eight sliders of the nanoKontrol2 are connected directly to the first eight macro knobs, which has the helpful effect of filtering out the MIDI CC messages they generate, which by default include e.g. CC#0 (bank select) and CC#7 (volume), which might otherwise confuse Unify itself or some plug-ins. Since there are only 7 layers, I connected slider #8 to the master volume, which might prove useful at times.

Tim's original patch reserved the first macro knob to control filter cutoff across all layers, assuming it would have been assigned to CC#1 (mod wheel). This is a common trick, allowing the actual mod-wheel messages to be sent to the layers (where plug-ins might typically be programmed to respond to these CC#1 messages in specific ways), while at the same time, some additional parameter links also track the knob's motion. I have left this in place, so note you should assign CC#1 to control the first macro knob (using the knob menu or MIDI-learn), if you want the patch to respond exactly as Tim intended.