GEIST Available Now....

[delicioso]

So I just checked out the Geist demo to see if all the hype is justified and it just reminded me why I never liked Guru in the first place: too limited and clunky. Not that I would ever use this as I have Maschine. The sequencer is still too limited and is missing some basic no-brainer features. It's all just step mode and you can't just set a number of bars to record freely with no quantization. There's no piano roll and you can't sequence melodic and keyboard parts with MIDI. There's not even tap tempo or count in. Not sure what they were thinking but not sure why anyone would need this.

[CR78]

GEIST = FAIL.

Wow, the most thorough elaboration yet...

[Machinesworking]

It's all just step mode and you can't just set a number of bars to record freely with no quantization.

Yes you can record freely without quantization, unless Geist took away that ability which I doubt.

[icedsushi]

There's no piano roll and you can't sequence melodic and keyboard parts with MIDI.

You can make melodic "notes" in Guru quickly by painting in the pitch automation on the Graphs page which essentially does the same thing as a piano roll but is presented differently. Should be the same with Geist? Did you check out the graphs page?

There's not even tap tempo or count in. Not sure what they were thinking but not sure why anyone would need this.

No need for a specific "count in" the way it's implemented. When you have "Click On Record" activated in Guru press the record button & the specified pattern length cycles around indefinitely with the click on until you play something & overdub whatever is there. It's always waiting to record with the click on, so there is as little or as much "count in" as you want this way.

[kb420]

GEIST = FAIL.

Wow, the most thorough elaboration yet...

Thank you.

[necho]

For what its worth - probably not much given that this is the Ableton forum - I think Geist is great.

I've demo'd it thoroughly - and I really like the sequencer, the layout/workflow and the FX (which sound pretty awesome to me).

I've owned Maschine - loved it but sold it because I had to pay the rent. I don't think there is any reason to own both Geist and Maschine, but Geist has a lot to commend it and is a lot cheaper (if you have an MPD or padKontrol, Geist makes financial sense)

As with ALL software or hardware, YMMV. But to dismiss Geist as a "FAIL" (btw the FAIL meme has become reflexive: to use FAIL is to fail) is pretty short-sighted.

I like to make loops in other apps, then dump them into Live for mangling and arrangement - so Geist seems like the perfect tool for me, since I'm pretty mobile, don't want to cart around loads of kit, and don't have 500 quid to spare.

[Goran@Irrupt]

i'm a long time Guru user and i make all my beats with it. tried Mashine and (of course) Drum racks, but i found Guru to be much faster and more fun to work with. love the grooves and envelops. love the sequencer. love the way that you can just drag and drop pattern to midi channel in Live. 8 engines! great kits, patterns, randomization... i don't need much more to make a beat. all i can ask for is improved workflow and synthetised percussion sounds. i got the better workflow in Geist, sound engine and effects are much improved, and (as they say) synthesis is coming in future updates. not to mention ALL other things that are coming with it.
so, for me 100 euros upgrade is no brainer.

p.s. LoL at haters.

[leggzter]

I have had a great time with Geist, I realise that it may not be what everyone in this forum wants, but for the way that I work, it's almost perfect. Once full GURU kit import is sorted,
and the much wanted drum synth has been implemented, all my needs would be met. Well done all at Fxpansion, truly great work!

[icedsushi]

Once full GURU kit import is sorted,

Where have you heard that this would happen any more effectively than it does now?

From what I've read on the forum & gathered from the FXpansion website, Geist already has the ability to import Guru programs & kits in general with certain minor limitations based on it being a new program rewrite. According to what I've read, Geist doesn't have the exact same modules & effects as Guru so there's no way all Guru programs will ever sound exactly the same when loaded into Geist.

[leggzter]

Where have you heard that this would happen any more effectively than it does now?

From Angus in the Geist forum

The plan is for us to either:-
* reformat the GURU factory content for Geist & re release it free to everyone that already owns both
or
* build an export tool so that you can do it automatically

.. we just need to figure out which approach will be most time-efficient. Bear with us on this!

[icedsushi]

Got a link for that on the forum? Here's the response I got from support:

"We are only planning to convert some older .GRU files over to Geist format. The importing will not be changed. Importing presets is always going to result in differences, because the two use very different audio engines and gain structuring. Just the way it is I'm afraid."

[db120]

I like the ability to randomize parameters and have happy accidents a lot better in Guru, but the browser is easier for me to see in Geist. Hopefully, Maschine gets lock unlock patterns / lock unlock pads button so I can browse kits, while keeping certain things locked. If that happens I don't think I'll be using an FXpansion drum product again.

If anyone needs a boxed version of Guru to use or crossgrade to Geist my brother in law is selling his version here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... RK:MESE:IT

[deva]

Had Guru for a few years. Loving the new Geist. Bit odd the sort of negativity about it. It is very very good.

The sampler is excellent. With Geist it is so easy to record synth hits to pads. I will make a synth sound and it is very fast to play a note 3 times, each slightly different and round robin them on 1 pad. The sampler options, takes, slicer, song mode, better effects including D-CAM filters, much better browser and more... This is an amazing piece of software.

Way worth the upgrade price.

[starving student]

yes this is one of the things that sucks about Maschine but is no way a deal breaker, I need the same type of layering and ease, encouragement of a layering feature that you're looking for outside of an mpc
Maschine won't do it yet but the folks over at ni are not hard headed and I believe that the padlink feature
they are implementing will be great for simoult functions but I don't think they are gonna stop there with the layering

Pad layering with different edit/FX settings per layer is the #1 reason I've gone to use Guru over the years and I this as it's most important feature. Regardless it's regarded as an old skool MPC technique or not, with this you can come up with completely new sounds from the same original sounds. It's something I might have taken for granted but now that I think about it, there's not much in software that quite does it like this. The way it's implemented in Guru, not only is is able to do this but it's quick & efficient to do, which is really important! If being able to do this quick & efficiently weren't important you could just mix the samples using Simpler or Impulse & render the mix & drag that back onto a pad. But it would take a heck of a lot longer & would require building up & managing a new sample library. With Guru, you don't need to render each hit or take extra time doing workarounds & you retain the flexibility to go back & tweak the mix of the layers later on.

If it weren't for this, I could get 90% of everything done just as quickly in Impulse or Drum Racks. Pad layering is a big thing for me that I use a lot. Workarounds with multiple pads & pad link don't seem anywhere near as elegant to me, so I agree that so far I don't see it as a substitute. As I continue to use Maschine more & more, I'm really hoping to see an efficient layers concept fully implemented in a future update to Maschine. Until then, this will probably continue to be the sole reason Maschine won't fully replace Guru (Geist) for me.

A secondary reason I have used Guru is for the quality of the built in effects which I think is quite good. So far I think Maschine has some nice effects too which are good in their own way, but the Guru effects (like the compressor settings for example) seem more tailored for drums or sounds with an attack to them.

YEP YEP AND MORE YEP

[Peevy]

Had Guru for a few years. Loving the new Geist. Bit odd the sort of negativity about it. It is very very good.

The sampler is excellent. With Geist it is so easy to record synth hits to pads. I will make a synth sound and it is very fast to play a note 3 times, each slightly different and round robin them on 1 pad. The sampler options, takes, slicer, song mode, better effects including D-CAM filters, much better browser and more... This is an amazing piece of software.

Way worth the upgrade price.

I couldn't agree with you more. I have Guru & love it, Geist is a big step up in features over Guru although there's still a few more functions from Guru to port over to Geist. Slicing is a lot better in Geist & a lot easier to work with. The FX are really good & the sampler is a great feature to have just to top it all of.
You could very easily create a whole track in Geist which is ideal for travelling Laptop use. My girlfriend's getting me the crossgrade for Christmas