While Guru was an extremely powerful and versatile sample based drum sequencer - it was still only that. A drum sequencer. The new Geist is still a drum sequencer, but takes the concept a few steps further, streamlines it and the result is something that is starting to touch pattern-based sequencers. While the acronym DAW is not appropriate - it's most definitely getting closer with Geist.

Just to be clear. Altough this text focus on Geist, I'll be throwing in references and comparisons to Guru and also to native Instruments Maschine as I see fit.

 

 

GURU AND GEIST?
If you're a Fxpansion fan-boy you'll probably already own Geist and love it as much as you love any product coming from Fxpansion. Normal shoppers will probably see a new programmable drum machine and wonders how it stands against the competition and what the relationship is with Guru.
Firstly, the competition in the drum machine market is fierce in these days. The wealth of software drum machines we have today are nothing compared with what we had when Guru first made its appearance five-six years ago. At that time - Guru went down like a bomb and set a new standard. Since then the competition have shaped up and while Guru still holds some ground, it's no longer the natural choice. Some people point at MOTU BPM as a competitor and maybe even Sonivox with their Pulse, but those people have probably never touched or worked with Guru nor Geist. No, from where I see it there is only one real competitor and that's Native Instruments Maschine, but not even NIs hardware-software can be compared rightly with Geist, nor Guru.

I won't go into detail on what separates Guru from Geist, but I'll give you some of the highlights. But before we go any further, understand this:

Guru is Guru.
Geist is Geist.

But Geist is also Guru.

Let me put it in another way to illustrate the relationship. I'm pretty sure most musician at some point have written a really really good song, just to see it vanish in front of your panicking eyes when the hard drive crashed, you erased the wrong usb-stick, the floppy fails to load etc. All gone, but still in your head. You start off from scratch because you know it's damn good  - you know the melodies, you know the bass, the drums - everything. You recreate it, but in the process you improve it in areas that bothered you before.

The result is the same song, but different.

This is what Geist is. A total rewrite of Guru. The collaboration of Fxpansion and Divine machine is no more. And although my cataclysmic, paranoid mind projects inner images of darkness, broken bottles and screams as they meet up in a dark alley with rusty chains and sharp knives - I am painfully aware the world rarely lives up to my imagination. I don't know why Divine Machine and Fxpansion didn't continue their collaboration, but I am sure they are having tea with buttered scones every sunday talking about cricket and discussing their favourite scenes in Red Dwarf (which for the record is this one).

(Just for the record, Divine Machine actually is french, not british).

Just like when Steinberg did their total rewrite of Cubase which resulted in Cubase SX - there are a few omissions that are worth talking about. Randomize is gone. Although many users have expressed their sadness of the loss of this function - I can't say I do. The randomization in Guru was from an interesting perspective alright and did generate some sort of useful results, but for me it was never good enough.
Angus of Fxpansion have left the door open for a possible future addition, so if you are a huge randomization fan - make sure you bump Fxpansion and let them know what you think. I got the impression Fxpansion actually listens to their customers. Personally I'm all up for randomization - as long as it got some logic and/or based on a set of rules - and that's not an easy task. So I'm with Fxpansion here. Do it damn good or don't do it at all.

WHAT GEIST IS
The easiest way to understand what Geist is, is if you start thinking about Geist as a drum machine or even better, a drum sampler such as the Akai MPC. Naturally, Geist can be used for more than just drums, but for now, think of it as a virtual MPC inside your computer with instant access to all your samples and syncs to the tempo of your sequencer. One of the things people with MPC:s always were doing was sampling breaks and riffs from scratchy vinyls chopping them up into smaller segments. You can do that with Geist. Yes, Gesit is a drum machine that can actually sample. And while it's easy to manually chop up your loops - there is an automatic function for this that is - to put it mildly - the big badaboom. When you finished placing the samples on the 16 available pads, you can start making music. Either by clicking in the drum pattern with the mouse, or by recording it directly into Geist. The MPC is famous for it's swing - and you have that in Geist, plus a truckload of alternative swing patterns. Productionwise, you'll probably want to add some effects and while newer MPCs have two separate effects - Geist overloaded in this respect with up to six separate effects for each layer, pad, kit and whole Geist instances. Finally, take the whole lot and multiply it eight times, and you've pretty much got Geist. It's pretty big alright.

IMPRESSIONS
My first impression was that the interface felt a bit squeezed. I haven't been doing any calculations, but I would say compared with the old Guru there are many more functions per available pixel in the interface. One of the things I liked about the interface in Guru was the air and calmness. I wouldn't go so far to say the interface of Geist is bad. I just like the feeling of Guru one sweet notch better. The interface feels particularly squeezed in the browser. You can create more space by turning off some information columns in the browser - but I found myself time and time again in the lower right corner trying to resize the window and make it larger. While the petite interface of Guru was one of the things users complained most about, I must say that I was surprised not to see anything larger than this. Again - the interface is not bad. Although it sits perfectly on a laptop with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels, and I honestly can't propose a better way of doing it, I join the group of ignorant complainers. I just expected something better.

As most of us are part of the f*ck-the-manual-generation, Geist can initially come across as a bit confusing. You load up a demo track, and while you try to figure out what is going on how and where, new patterns automatically flips by and you feel a bit overwhelmed, or you double-click on a kit and absolutely nothing happens. That sort of stuff.
The good news is that getting into Geist isn't actually a big deal. But it has its own modus operandi and it takes one or two cups of tea before you both are on the same wavelength.

The quickest way to get started with Geist is to start on their home page and spend a half an hour with a cup of nice brew watching the videos. Since the release of DCAM Synth Squad, it's obvious Fxpansion takes their tutorial videos very seriously and I would say they are among the best in the business, if not the best. They are informative and fun, and are so wonderfully free of slick marketing talk and hype. They have a very personal vibe that make me very comfortable.

The Browser - your central for sounds
The browser in Geist is very clever and quickly becomes your central for finding sounds. It might not rival the sheer power of sound librarians such as Kore, Zen or mapped up samples in Audio Finder - but it's dead simple, extremely usable and it's integrated. There are many ways you can find your sounds, apart from the obvious browsing and searching, my favourites are 1) saved searches and 2) short lists. Saved searches lets you save the results from a search inside the browser. But the Short lists are even better, which basically can be described as personally complied lists where you put your favourite sounds. These are very handy especially when you are want to speed up production, and already before creation have selected a handful of samples that will be used in the project.
...and of course, the fact that the functions of the browser is midi learnable - which means you can jump in and out of folders, loading sounds directly from you midi keyboard or controller, scores delightfully high on my nerd-o-meter.

 

Slice it baby. Slice it
The slicing function that made Guru famous is still there and has got quite some improvement in the transition to Geist. As you might or might not know, Guru/Geist has a built-in engine for identifying drum sounds from each other in a drum loop, and it can separate kicks, snares, hihats and percussion.
In Geist the slicer automatically slices up your loops. Adding own slices, adjusting existing and erasing bad slices is basically a matter of clicking. Geist also supports rex-files, which naturally overrides the Geist slicing.
When the slicing is done, the sounds are then identified either as kick, snare, hat or percussion. The cool thing here is a function that forces Geist to reuse slices - which means that if a beat have four kicks, two snares and four percussion sounds, the result will be that Geist uses the first kick sound for all kicks - the same with snares and percussion. While this might sound like the old days when memory and you stored things on floppies, it's actually more of an experimental function that let's you create alternative versions of the sliced drum loop (or any loop for that matter). While this is not a replacement for a good randomizer, this certainly is one of the most playful and playful functions in Geist and can create very interesting and and sometimes mindbending variations from existing loops. Try analogify an acoustic drum loop - you'll have a good time, I promise.

The sliced loop not only consists of the sliced sounds, but also corresponding map on how the sounds are played (just like a normal midi file). Changing the location of these triggers, changes the placement of the sounds, thus creating a new pattern with the same sounds.

Effects overload
The effect section is another pleasant surprise in Geist. While the effects themselves are of high quality and can be used to create anything from the subtle to the over-processed - what impressed me is the amount of layers you can process.
There are four levels of effects: 1) a layer in a pad (there can be several layers in each pad), 2) the entire pad, 3) the engine and 4) global. Creating an effect chain with distortion on pad 1 and filter on pad 2, to have both of them drowned in reverb, to end the whole package with a limiter is a matter of few clicks. And every level can contain up to six separate effects - and yes, you can save entire chains for later use. Extremely powerful.

Sampler and resampler
Sampling with Geist is a matter of setting which inputs you want to sample from and then hit record. If you're in a plug, it's slightly more complex - but not much. You practically insert a 'listening'-plug on the track in your sequencer you want to record from. That track can be anything from recorded material or an empty track monitoring the inputs of your sound card.
One very cool feature is that you can resample what you made in Geist. Let's say you've programmed up a drum sequence with special pattern tweaks and multilayered effects. By resampling you can create a whole new loop from this pattern. This can be partly be a solution to free up cpu resources, but can be used to further process the loop, by slicing it up, shifting the beats around and add new filters and effects.

Creating patterns is as easy with any pattern-based drum sequencer, but the real strength lies within the modulation of the sound. Just as with Guru, Geist allows you to trim loads of parameters for individual hits, such as pitch, filter cutoff, shifts in timing, extra repeats etc, and it's here where one of the major strengths of Geist lies. Just by adding a few modulation changes to sounds you can turn even the most boring/done/static house/techno loop into a club-banger. I am not joking. Just drag out a whole line of 16th sleeping-pill-closed-hihat hits, randomize the cutoff as well as the filter drive - add a small amount of reverb, and you got something interesting and highly useful. Add some swing and you'll notice your feet jamming along.
As I said, Giest doesn't contain any randomizer from creating new material, but there are many preset shapes on how the modulation should be carried out - and random is one of them, and in this context, it's working very well.

One of the things I always hated about Guru was the way to trigger patterns from a sequencer. While I personally cannot think of any better way of doing it - it was still the dealbreaker for me that kept me from leaving my sweet Drum Racks in Ableton Live in my productions.
While it's fundamentally the same working method with Geist, things are better now. For example, there is an overview mode that let's you see the programming piano roll, style. From start to end. Another feature that makes Geist way more user-friendly than Guru is the possibility to zoom in and out of patterns. No more changing pages of a pattern that you can't see - just zoom out and you'll see it all. It's amazing how such a small feature can make such a drastic effect.

Better coded
I don't want to throw any dirt on Divine Machine (the original coders of Guru) but you can feel that Geist is a more solid work. For example - I've always had a nasty time when exporting loops created with Guru and Live. By some odd reason the first beat always chopped off the initial transients - something I gladly can report is not a problem with Geist.

The library
To put it short. The library that comes with Geist is excellent, short of being genial. In the sampling library world, many consider Native Instruments libraries to be good, and well... I can't argue with that. They are good. But in my opinion & taste they're too much in the middle of the road so to speak. It's like political parties these days - nothing really stands out. Nothing really makes a statement. Nothing really tickles your imagination. Usually the library is the first thing that goes in the bin when I install a new Native Instruments sampler-type of instrument.
I remember when I first played with their Synthetic Drums library - and I was totally blown away. The attitude - the lust for experimentation and the willingness to push genres. I was amazed and I still think Synthetic Instruments 1 and 2 are two of the finest synthetic drum libraries ever made.

This was exactly the same feeling I got when listening to the library that comes with Geist. Apart from all famous people making sounds and patterns - I was pleased to see Rozzer of Fxpansion (that man entered my eternal hall of fame for his excellent ABL Pro presets) with some cheesy drum machines such as the Ace Rhythm. Lovely work. Goldbaby is also well known for his taped recordings of old drum machines and the sounds included in Geist is not an exception - and when adding filters and effects to them, they really lift off. Crunchy and punchy. Very good collection of analogue classics.
Although the library is mainly focused on electronic sounds, there are a couple of acoustic kits as well.
Let me just repeat this for the record. The library of Geist is nothing short of exceptional. It's fresh, inspiring and of highest quality. Top marks. The only negative thing I could find is that the structure of the library sometimes can get a little confusing in the beginning. There are different formats for everything - individual pads, kits, whole engines, whole Geist (with multiple engines) and patterns. You get used to it, but in the beginning it can be a bit overwhelming.

Geist vs Maschine
The question that's on everybody's lips is - how does Geist stand against Native Instruments Maschine? The answer is surprisingly well. Everybody is drawn to different features, due to personal ways of working and traumas in early childhood. Personally I was highly suspicious of Maschine until I saw how incredibly easy it was to record automation directly into patterns. That function alone is responsible for the Maschine sitting on my desk. While Geist mostly appeals to my needs by its slicing engine which is the best in the business (the only other product that comes near is actually Guru), it's a beast when it comes to automation as well. Quick and inspirational.

Conclusion
In all honesty I must say I am sad to see Guru enter retirement. I do like the feeling of the UI better than Geist. I think Guru is a way better name for a product. As I understand it, Divine Machine owns the right to the product name Guru - so a change was probably inevitable. I would have been more happy if it would have been called Geyser, Gretchen, Goon - but Geist? Hm. I heard a rumor that the Geist project, initially was called Ghost. A better name if you ask me - but all that is essentially pointless.

Geist is what we have, it's better than Guru, and best of all it's also the future.

I wish I could end this review by saying something catchy such as The New King of Beats is here, but I can't. In shoot-out between Maschine and Geist, Maschine would shoot the last bullet. But that's only because it's so tightly integrated with a dedicated hardware controller, and in my book anything that expands from the usual software-mouse-clicking gets a huge bonus score. But feature-wise Geist scores incredibly high and if it wouldn't be for that damned controller Geist would have crushed the Maschine. In terms of functions - it actually does.
I'll end this review by being so honest as I possibly can be. Although I have way too many plugins, and these days I'm pretty hard with what stays on my hard drive - Geist is one of those plugins you simply cannot ignore. Even if you have a Maschine. If you miss out on it, you miss a wonderful way of making music.

Fxpansion Geist
Web: www.fxpansion.com.
Price: 189 euro. Upgrade for existing owners of Guru: 114 euro.
Good: Workflow, features and library, all is well thought out and sounds excellent.
Bad: Not much. It takes a while before you grasp the whole concept of Geist.

Review copy: big thanks to Fxpansion for NFR review copy.