GURU + Live?

anonymouse · Post by **anonymouse** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:40 am

Any GURU users? I already have Devine Machine, which is fantastic but due a little bit of upgrading.

I was wondering what GURU is like and how it fits with Live? Perhaps it is inspiration for Live 6?

SkeptikTank · Post by **SkeptikTank** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:45 pm

After checking it out, I ordered it right away from fxpansion. It is the most fun drum-machine I ever tried. It's workflow it great, made with the same kind of artist-friendly usability in mind as is Live. Check the videos at fxpansion.com. I'll let you know how live friendly it is when I recieve it. (I heard the the au version has some sync problems with live, but that the vst works just fine on a mac)

underhill · Post by **underhill** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:13 pm

Any luck with this yet? It looks great. I have some v-drums Tfinger and other triggers and this looks like a great front end for it to use with Live. This or Battery? What do you think?

SkeptikTank · Post by **SkeptikTank** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:26 am

I've got it now. And it works wonderfully. It has the same sense of being an instrument and not an app. that live has. Both the vst and au works, even though angus of fx recommends the vst for live

anonymouse · Post by **anonymouse** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:05 pm

I need to tidy up a hard drive full of wav drum loops. I was thinking of slicing them up and databasing them in Kontakt, or Stylus RMX ... do you think Guru is better?

I basically want to rejuvenate a pretty good loops collection using one piece of software and be happy ever after to have chosen, for example, Guru as that drum loop toolshop/on-stop-shop and not need to bother fiddling around with any other formats/loop managers ... what do you reckon?

On its own Live 5 doesn't seem to be quite there yet. I had been thinking of Stylus RMX and using its midi slice control as Live clips... but it seems to involve a lot of process steps & donkeywork with Recycle etc to transform a huge volume of files .

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:15 pm

Yes. I too thinkt that it is a "workaround too much" to create Rex2 files first only to be able to run drum loops in RMX. With Guru this is much faster. A cool thing with Guru is its auto-slicing funciton. It automatically detects the slice to (frequency-wise) match for "kick drum", "snare", "hat" or whatever. This also works with loops that are not drum loops. The slice with the deepest bottom gets mapped to the kick drum note etc. Very cool!

But Guru does not have the wonderful chaos function (musically intelligent random scripting) that you get with RMX. But Live has some goodies to offer in the random derpartment, so I think Guru make a good partner with Live. With Live you easily get into gathering a library of midi files and this is cool for driving on-the-fly made up Guru kits (autoslicing some drum loop). It's a very creative combo IMHO.

anonymouse · Post by **anonymouse** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:18 pm

thanks Per - that's just the 'kick' in the right direction I was looking for. cheers

zekrab · Post by **zekrab** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:49 pm

I must admit GURU is a fantastic drum machine, very inspiring!!!! Much straighter than Stylus RMX...

I've experienced a few crash in Live though, not too often though... Previewing Live clips made with GURU doesn't work very well too.
I totally drop Battery since i use GURU.... i think that says all!!!

Think of it as a mix between stylus rmx, battery, drumagog, impulse (

)

I don't have triggerfinger but i imagine it's the perfect soft running along.

It's a must have!

starving student · Post by **starving student** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:58 pm

if i'm not mistaken though guru doesn't allow you to export the slices as wavs, you have to continue to use them within the guru shell, I don't really like that if it's the case, its like turning yur samples into a proprietary guru soundbank

zekrab · Post by **zekrab** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:59 pm

Use it with Live and no problem with resampling!!!

SkeptikTank · Post by **SkeptikTank** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 8:41 pm

Guru doesn't slice files, it uses the regular wav file and slices on the spot. Resampling in live is a much better way. Or record a file with one pad sound following one another, with some silence in between, and then use audiofinder (if you are on a mac) to chop it up automatically into small files. Guru is quite open since it uses regular wavs, and regular midi. you can, for example drag and drop patters from guru into live session clips. (to get the grooved patterns into live)

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:52 pm

good people, could you tell me how good guru is, if you disregard the sample-pack that comes with it? I dig the fact that it does the whole chopping thing pretty much on the fly, and I do own a TriggerFinger, so the 16-pads-paradigm would suit me, but I'm honestly not keen on getting (more) mass-produced samples.

So, aside from the samples, is it worth it? 200€ for a beatbox *is* a little rich...

SkeptikTank · Post by **SkeptikTank** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:04 pm

What I like about guru is not so much the sound-bank; although it is great. It is the play-ability of guru that grabs me. the simplicity of mangling sounds, good effects, the ease of shifting beats for grooves, repetitions, filters. Also the ease of improvising with it. It is not only a drum sound thing like battery, it is a drum-MACHINE to be played. It is, for me, even better that the lovely beatboxes in Reaktor5. I find it replacing BOTH battery2 and the reaktor beatboxes. The only thing I'd love to add, is something like the chaos engine in stylus rmx.

anonymouse · Post by **anonymouse** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:20 pm

Before paying for Guru I am rediscovering PhatMatik Pro which I bought a few years ago. I'm having second thoughts as to whether I need Guru at all. I much prefer the idea of using Live as much as possible.

Given that you can drag n drop the midi directly from the VST into Live clips, plus the actual wav slices can be drag n dropped into impulse!!! It might be all I need to rejuventate my loops collection.

If only Ableton's next Operator was a Phatmatik-type thingie, would be v cool!

mosca · Post by **mosca** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:37 pm

if only live had a .rex player i wouldn't need guru