JAX Unisonic (Audio Unit)

March 3, 2024

The product (AudioUnit AUv3) was updated for support of latest Apple technologies and frameworks (architecture: arm64). Minimal iOS target is still 12.0. It also should work on the Vision Pro (compatibility mode).

January 16, 2020

User Request Update V. 1.8 Many thanks to Paul Levis, actively supporting us with the bug report! - There was a nasty logical coding error, which prevented JAX Unisonic to behave correctly, that is fixed now. The parameter state was wrongly reset while operation with certain actions. Rendering down or freezing resulted in dry sound. - The sample rate was changed to 48000 Hz by default now. Because all latest Apples devices are fixed to this system sample rate.

January 14, 2020

Maintenance Update 1.7 (specific host problems, again) - The inbuilt MIDI Control of JAX Unisonic is now optional, an additional AU parameter and a control was added to the user interface. Background: JAX Unisonic is basically an *audio effect unit*. (We implemented direct MIDI control merely for more comfort when automating parameters.) However, some host applications do implement MIDI control to audio effect plugins in a very questionable way. The MIDI stream to insert audio effects, (which are audio effects, not MIDI effects!) should be *optionally* routed by host applications. Otherwise these audio effects most likely will not work as expected, if inserted into MIDI instrument tracks for instance (which expect MIDI only). The MIDI enabled effect audio units do not know anything about of where they are inserted. So this is a potentially undefined behavior, if inserted into MIDI instrument tracks and the host then  just forwards these MIDI messages for the instruments wrongly to the connected effects. We therefore added the option to suspend our direct MIDI control to prevent these hosts  forwarding WRONG MIDI data uncontrolled to the chained insert effects. So MIDI control is now switched off by default. If JAX Unisonic is inserted (as an audio effect) into an instrument track, for instance,  the MIDI tor the instruments should NOT be forwarded (passed thru) to the effect(s), as this results in a senseless and questionable, uncontrolled MIDI routing then and (out of) control this way... The MIDI data on such connections are thought for the instruments, but surely not for the chained insert effects! For doing that right, hosts must provide independent MIDI control channels for MIDI enabled audio effects,  as some hosts already implement correctly! Please note, that you now may ignore any direct MIDI capabilities of JAX Unisonic completely, by only using parameter automation. Some hosts will let you assign MIDI controllers to AU parameters and let you do all automation this way. We will, b.t.w continue teaching host developers for doing it right this way. ^^

January 10, 2020

Maintenance Update 1.6 - There was a problem when rendering offline with specific hosts, reported by users, that has been fixed now. Background: (Many host developers continuously try to teach audio unit developers. Now we want to teach these host developers. ^^) It is highly problematic, if hosts do a separate process for 'freezing' and exporting audio with (new instances of) audio units invoked. Some hosts even do allow to select completely different global parameters (sample rates and block sizes) for such actions. This is conceptually a bad idea, as this may lead to different rendering results and is also highly problematic for the invoked audio units, because there may be static resources and dependencies between multiple running instances and other stuff happening at runtime. A host should actually do the down rendering of the audio stream exactly the same way as it does the realtime rendering to prevent theses potentially problems. If resampling and/or format conversion are required, this should be done afterwards by the host. Only this way consistent results can be expected by the users. 'What you hear is what you get' is a logical paradigm here. If it works realtime, it should work with freezing and exporting and : exactly the same way and result.

January 1, 2020

This is the recompiled version 1.3. (now 1.4., ... 1.5.) The initially released version 1.3. was carefully tested on all our development devices and available emulators without any problem. After app store validation processing this release was no longer functional without any hint to a traceable problem. The App Store does not provide any possibility to fix apps with just a new build number.  We get errors with the Xcode archiver trying that. So we provided new builds now (with new version numbers)  and temporarily took out the obviously 'damaged' version from the distribution.  The version notes for the latest release (1.3.) apply to this version. We are sorry about all this trouble. There is another update coming soon, adding new features.

December 30, 2019

First Combi-Update 1.1 - 1.3 1.1 - Added 8 new AU parameters (panorama potentiometers 1 to 8). The panorama positions can now be adjusted and automated for each individual voice. The spread parameter remains active and adds to this. Due to the fact, that stereo spread is implemented directly inside the pitch shifter bank, the final panning results may be an accumulation with some side effects. - The activity state for the voices was not updated correctly when recalling parameters, this is fixed. - The state of the goniometer button was inverted to correctly reflect the overlay activity. - Preset format was changed. 1.2 - Added 8 new tempo delay units and corresponding AU parameters. Each generated voice can now optionally use its own tempo synced stereo delay for generation of sequenced pitch shifting. The tempo is global for all voices. This delay has no feedback parameter. The tempo is usually called up from the host application, which must support this. It also can be adjusted manually. A beat based tempo division is used for each voice, where 1/1 means one beat (quarter note). Please note, that Unisonic (as the name suggests) was initially made as a UNISON / ENSEMBLE effect generator. The implementation of the delay units goes far beyond the initial concept and was added due to user requests. - Tempo settings are currently not saved with the presets. - Preset format was changed. 1.3 - Advanced MIDI implementation The voices respond consequently on MIDI channels 1 to 8, corresponding to the voice numbers. MIDI keys are mapped to the transpose parameters (zero point is MIDI note 60), which allows to switch transpositions in realtime. Also the voice mute parameter is assigned to the MIDI Sustain controller. Pan, Volume and Tempo division have got individual MIDI controllers per voice and channel too. Please read the manual for details of MIDI implementation. - We developed a complete new approach for direct MIDI automation, to support UI updates. Please note, that direct MIDI automation occurs directly inside the Audio Unit kernel. There is usually no possibility to update the UI from within the core DSP kernel process, as the UI stuff of an Audio Unit is a completely different thread and the kernel does not have any synchronized access to this. Some tricky programming is required to update the UI with direct MIDI automation. - The manual was updated to reflect latest additions.

December 23, 2019