UniWire™ is a new way to connect one or more Receptors to a computer-based digital audio workstation using only Ethernet cables—no audio or MIDI cables are needed. In addition, UniWire instrument and effects plugins are installed on your host computer, which allow your digital audio workstation to communicate with Receptor as if it were both a virtual instrument and a virtual effect plugins. This means that, unlike 'old school' external sound and effects modules, Receptor integrates with your digital audio workstation exactly like a locally hosted plugin — but without using your host computer's precious CPU cycles.
Muse Research requires that your computer have, at least, 100Base-T Ethernet and that any switcher (or switched router) in your network also be certified for at least 100Base-T. If you plan to communicate with multiple Receptors using UniWire, Muse Research strongly recommends that your computer has Gigabit Ethernet and that you use a Gigabit Ethernet switcher, as this combination will give you more simultaneous tracks over UniWire. UniWire does not support 10Base-T or wireless (802.11b or g), as these protocols are too slow to insure reliable, low-latency audio and MIDI communication.
The UniWire effect and UniWire instrument plugins are currently available for Windows 2000/XP and Macintosh OS X 10.3 or higher. Audio Units (AU) and RTAS versions will be released shortly, as will Intel Mac support. UniWire requires Receptor version 1.5 or higher. You can see which version of Receptor you have by pressing the SETUP button on Receptor's front panel, then rotating the top display knob until you see the "System Version" parameter. If the version displays 1.5.x or higher, your Receptor is UniWire compatible. If it shows 1.0.x, 1.1.x, 1.2.x, 1.3.x, or 1.4.x you will need to update your Receptor to v1.5 (or higher), which you can download here.
MIDI data doesn't care what type of wire it's sent on. Nor, for that matter, does audio. UniWire uses a single Ethernet wire to carry all the MIDI and audio data between your host computer and Receptor. This has two advantages. First, it makes your studio wiring and setup much easier, since you only need to connect a single Ethernet cable between Receptor and your host computer (or your host computer's Ethernet switcher). Second, it allows you to interface with Receptor exactly as if the hardware were a plugin running natively on your host computer. Normally, when using external hardware, you have to design complex sequencer configurations in which you create a MIDI track to send MIDI data to the external sound module, and a second sequencer track to receive audio back from that sound module. Coupled with the hassle of configuring your MIDI interface, your audio interface, and the audio/MIDI port assignments in your sequencer, this can be quite a nightmare. With UniWire, you simply instantiate the plugin and use Receptor exactly like any other instrument or effects plugin. The UniWire plugin handles all the audio and MIDI data transmission for you—sending everything back and forth over the Ethernet cable. In fact, this is how UniWire got its name—one wire (an Ethernet wire) carries all audio, MIDI, and control data back and forth between your computer and Receptor.
With each Receptor, you have access to 92 Virtual MIDI ports. With 16 channels per port, that means you can access up to 1472 MIDI channels per Receptor using UniWire! Compare that with the physical MIDI port on Receptor's back panel, which allows you to send only 16 MIDI channels to Receptor. Of course, you can configure UniWire to emulate that one physical MIDI port, but doesn't the mad scientist in you delight in knowing that, with UniWire, you can send 1472 MIDI tracks to a single Receptor? And, if you're extra mad, you can buy up to 10 Receptors, connect them to a gigabit ethernet switcher, and transmit of 14,000 MIDI tracks to your Receptors.
With UniWire you can transmit 32 audio tracks (16 stereo tracks) between Receptor and your host computer. Each time you add a Receptor to your gigabit Ethernet network, you get 32 more tracks. So a maxed out UniWire system consisting of 10 Receptors would give you 320 additional audio tracks with which to work your sonic magic.
Because Receptor, itself, can function as both an instrument and an effect. If there's an instrument running on Receptor that you wish to use in your sequence, you instantiate the UniWire Instrument plugin in your sequencer's virtual instrument track. The UniWire plugin sends the MIDI data over the Ethernet cable to Receptor, which plays the instrument, then sends the audio data back over Ethernet to that same UniWire plugin — making it work exactly the same as if you used an internal instrument plugin. If you wish to use a Receptor patch to, instead, process some audio that's running in your host sequencer, then you instantiate the UniWire FX plugin on that audio track. The UniWire plugin routes the audio to Receptor, where it's processed and returned to that same audio track—exactly as if you were doing the processing using an internal effects plugin.
UniWire's minimum latency is two times your host computer's latency. So, for example, if your host computer has its audio buffer set to 64 samples, the total latency of UniWire would be 128 samples (2 x 64). As with any computer based gear, there is a trade-off between latency and track count. The lower the latency, the fewer tracks you can send over UniWire. The higher the latency, the more tracks you can send over UniWire. Because most major host sequencers feature automatic latency compensation, latency is really only a factor when you're playing an instrument live and monitoring it simultaneously. If, when using UniWire, you want to keep your tracking latency low and your track count high, here's a little tip: Monitor Receptor's own audio output when tracking! This cuts the latency in half, since you don't have to wait for Receptor's audio to transmit back over UniWire to your host computer.
Absolutely. MIDI is MIDI, whether it's transmitted over a MIDI cable or an Ethernet cable. Receptor is a unit with deep MIDI control possibilities, all of which are fully accessible via UniWire.
Yes. UniWire can operate in two modes: one that shuts off Receptor's built-in audio ports and one that enables them. When you turn off Receptor's built-in audio (the default mode), Receptor's operations are totally slaved to your host computer. All audio and MIDI I/O is sent through your host computer's audio and MIDI interfaces, and your sequencer controls their routing. In this mode, Receptor acts like an extension of your computer system. If, however, you turn on Receptor's built-in audio, then you can use Receptor as an audio interface for your computer. There's one important caveat to remember, should you decide to turn on Receptor's audio I/O and use it with UniWire—and that caveat is this: for perfect digital synchronization, you should connect a S/PDIF cable between Receptor and your host computer, then slave either Receptor or your host computer to the S/PDIF clock. This might, at first glance, seem strange—but there's method to our madness: Computer audio is digital, which means it requires a master timing clock to which the audio is synchronized. In a normal studio, you have one audio interface and, thus, one digital clock. If however, you have two audio interfaces, you then have two clocks (one for each audio interface). Since no two clocks are going to run in perfect synchronization, you need to actually synchronize the clocks. Thus, if you try to use Receptor's audio I/O at the same time as your computer's audio I/O, you have two clocks. Connecting a S/PDIF cable between the two allows you to slave one device's clock to the other device's. You can use the two devices without connecting a S/PDIF cable but you might, occasionally, hear a minor glitch as the two clocks go out of sync.
Muse Research has an excellent series of UniWire instructional videos, which are available here. You can also download and read the UniWire manual supplement, which is available here.
