At the 2020 NAMM Show, we talked with John ‘Skippy’ Lehmkuhl, who gave us a quick demo of Plugin Guru‘s new Unify plugin.
Unify is a plugin that acts as a host for your MIDI effects, instruments and audio effects. Because it’s a plugin that’s also acts as a host, it lets all your plugins work together and lets you do new things with them.
For example, you can create presets that combine multiple plugins, you can use plugin formats that your host doesn’t support and you can use a unified interface for performing with them.
Unify also comes with 400 patches and over 2.5GB of samples from PlugInGuru’s 12 sample-based sound libraries.
Here’s a collection of audio demos, using the built-in sound library:
Pricing and Availability
Unify is available now with an intro price of $59 USD (normally $79).
Kore is back!
Worth buying just for the induced patches/samples!
Didn’t Blue Cat do something like this 5+ years ago…?
As did Energy XT further back than that. And NI More too.
… NI Kore even 🙂
Ni Kore was very expensive, and has been discontinued.
Actually, Kore wasn’t that expensive when it came out. I bought it way back in 2005 for about $399, and it came with a nice solid metal interface / controller. Sadly that’s just a doorstop now.
Once the Maschine line came out, NI pretty much abandoned the Kore concept and moved over to Maschine. In hindsight, they probably made the right decision…
Aha, I see that the 999 price was for the kontact bundle. Shame they didn’t treat their customers right.
Do you have info on how Energy XT did this? When I google I see some sort of memory stick DAW, and I see that the DAW is still for sale.
I tried Googling, but I don’t see info on a “Blue Cat” as plug-in middleware. Got anything on it?
It’s called PatchWork by Blue Cat plug-ins.
Thanks, James. How’s stability on PatchWork?
Sorry Aaron, I can’t recall exatcly. I haven’t used it for possibly 8+ years. I know that it did crash a little, but becasue you are relying on not just the stability of the BC plugin, but also the other 3rd party plugins in any one chain and, also the DAW stability, there are always going to be stability risks. Perhaps the last 8 years has brought more stable coding for this type of set up. Maybe Unify is the best modern interpretation of this type of tool – even if it does look a little basic, graphically 😉
Plug in hosts have been around about as long as VST has.
There is endless confusion about why this is different than any plugin patcher out there, or
even any DAW.
To clarify: unify is a fairly traditionally architected multi-timbral/layer software synthesizer capable of generating
its sounds from scratch and/or from samples.
Everything that it does is designed to support synthesis and being a musical instrument
hence it is different than DAWs or patchers that satisfy many non-synthesis goals.
Unify has an open architecture that operates at the levels of raw synthesis, sample-based synthesis
and combining individual whole synthesizers in stacked layers with sophisticated midi generation/mapping.
Think of it as Omnisphere (or any post-90s hw workstation for that matter)
BUT with an Open Architecture that allows incorporating any sound source, or fx.
The unify presets are also transferable/interoperable across OSs and DAWs.
I wish Omni had this open architecture, but since they have been so pro-closed architecture,
I am very glad pluginguru stepped up to fill this huge void.
BTW, given that the included preset sound library is as good as it gets, the price is the bargain of the century.
it’s just ableton rack as a vst.
That you can also use in Logic, Cubase, etc. to maintain functionality between programs/environments. When I play live, I can generate a Unify patch and then have it work the same on another computer–even though I don’t use Logic or Cubase. All computers must have the same plug-ins.
I use Freestyle by New Sonic Arts, and it works just fine. I can make pretty elaborate setups with multiple synths and effects. These guys either having something amazingly better, or they are late to the game
I loved using AudioMulch, but it has been abandoned and never even updated to support 64-bit. I will take a closer look Unify.
Any format? Does it support DirectX? I have some old DX-plugins that I really miss… Stuff that got abandoned years ago i.e. No VST available..
And… While I’m at it… Will it wrap 32bit plugins into my 64bit host? ( not that I really need it – Jbridger is still doing it’s job just fine).
As a man who has been know for wearing a lab coat, I have to say- iron that lab coat man!
Have some standards!
: ), etc.
Bought this even though I use instrument racks in Ableton – Purely for the quality of the sounds and its compatibility with other hosts – John has developed samples and patches for some of the most famous synths out there and it shows – Watching his live streams (which are great for impromptu sound demos and rapid patch development tips) , there’s also a drive towards customer responsiveness and a rapid release profile of synth improvements / patches.