Hype is a big factor in this business. Some softsynths are praised to high heavens even though they sound like utter krap, others are praised for their 'superior-analogness' even though they sound as sterile as a surgeons scalpel. Some of that stuff is so inferior its not even funny, yet everyone thinks it is cooler than a lifetime pass for free meals at mcdonalds. After all everyone else likes it, so it has to be good. The circle begins.

Unfortunately the same is true the other way around. Synths that sound absolutely great barely get a mention. Some of them are superior in almost every conceivable way, yet nobody gives a damn. After all they arent 'popular', so obviously they cant be any good. The circle closes.

Matter of taste? Perhaps. And to be honest, i dont even care. My intent is not to tell anyone what they should like and what they shouldnt, you can all make that decision for yourselves. My intent is simply to show that not everything that is said to be 'the shidz' really is as good as popular opinion would have you believe. Because nothing could be farther from the truth.


Todays topic: Geist vs. GURU

If you belong to those who believe that Geist is so much better than GURU, get ready for a surprise.

Geist may have the superior feature-set, ill give you that, but what good are features, in a MUSIC APP, if the whole thing sounds like krap?

In my opinion, nothing at all.


To hear the not-exactly-marginal difference for yourself, download this WAV.

The first 8 seconds is GURU, the second half is Geist.

Both halves were recorded from the respective standalone directly into GoldWave.

Pay special attention to the snare, the hats, and the stereo field.

Unless your sound system is utter krap, the stark difference in sound quality should be obvious immediately.

GURU: Nice overall tonal balance throughout the pattern, nice treble range, nice stereo field, nothing to complain about.

Geist: Muffled, treble gone, stereo field degraded, overall sound impression pathetic.

Keep in mind that we are talking about the same preset here, (.GRU), the same samples, the same pattern, the same everything.


This is the difference between GURU and Geist, and why GURU rocks and Geist sucks...



PS: WAV reupped - first one was the wrong copy.

 

Well... After listening to your demo I've got to say that Guru sounds better, no doubt at all.
It sounds to me that the snare on the second half has lost some initial transients and somewhat like a lowpass filter have been applied.
But maybe there's a crack issue or something, I don't know. I didn't use neither of them.
However, I don't stand for Geist, just saying.

Nothing can beat Live's Simpler for me.


Anyways, nice share, and good to notice it, maybe it helps somebody who is looking for use one of these.

 

geist is poor , no doubt about it, but its not the only offender. there's many many plugins that recieve hype and praise that are seriously out of proportion to their actual quality.


each to their own and all that but ive made a wee list of my own personal not so favourites.

nexus - the ultimate synth for people who know bugger all about synthesis.

vanguard - i think im going to be sick.

hypersonic - seriously average sounding rompler that achieved godlike status amongst certain sections of the hip hop community , you know , the ones who call people they dont actually know on the internet things like "homie" and "fam"...(ive looked into it and we're not related).

dynamic spectrum mapper - sonically more brittle and aggressive than a skinhead on cheap speed.

ozone - one stop preset mastering to be misused by the uneducated.You're hurting my ears.

stylus rmx - oh look it plays loops.

RP predator - why arent you freeware?...you deserve to be.

 

Which ones? I'am always willing to learn new stuff. *yes*

 

I wont go into this because i know that it will only lead to something that makes a holy war look like a harmless greenpeace meeting. I did it once and, well, suffice it to say that after a time i felt like Galileo, you know, the guy who tried (and miserably failed) to convey the fact that the earth is orbiting the sun to people who couldnt care less simply because these people WANTED to believe that it is the sun thats orbiting the earth.

Because you cannot win against self-inflicted self-sustaining ignorance. Its impossible. When a person sees what they want to see, and hears what they want to hear, and believes what they want to believe, it is futile to even TRY to convince them of something else. Always has been, always will be. No matter how right you are, no matter how good your arguments are, no matter how weak and illogical their arguments are. In the end you will only be frustrated and pissed off as you realize that some people cant, or worse, dont want to see the perfectly obvious. And i really dont need this, the purpose of this thread is to inform, not to fuck up my bloodpressure.


So dont take it personally, but all i can recommend is that you try out whatever you can get your hands on, do it with an open mind, discard any and all opinions you have heard from others, (i.e. make it a point not to give a fragment of a damn for any hype surrounding a plugin), and then draw your own conclusions. Do direct side-by-side comparisons, take your time and be thorough, then keep the superior one and discard the inferior one. No matter what their names are, no matter who made them, and regardless of whether they are 'popular' or not. Always keep in mind that hype, both positive and negative, is created by a snowball effect. One person says 'BEST EVAH', another agrees, the group-dynamic circle begins and before you know it everyone likes it not because it really IS the 'BEST EVAH', but simply because everyone else likes it. Same goes for negative hype. One person says 'TOTAL CRAP', another agrees, the group-dynamic circle begins and before you know it everyone hates it not because it really IS 'TOTAL CRAP', but simply because everyone else hates it. Dont walk into that trap. Think independently. Check everything out for yourself, compare it with similar stuff and then follow what your feeling tells you. In the end thats all that matters. You cant go wrong that way.

I can tell you that much though: There is freeware out there which puts a LOT of the overhyped commercial stuff to shame. And its no wonder, either, because after all the fact that somebody is giving their work away for free says absolutely nothing about the quality of the object. To really understand this in this context, you have to realize that software is not like physical objects, where you have to deal with material quality and the costs thereof. Software is always and only calculations of numbers, which means there is never a qualitative difference as far as the basic 'ingredients' are concerned, regardless of what developer you are talking about. For instance a car manufacturer can choose to use cheap or expensive metal for the chassis. Software developers all work with the same 'material', namely numbers, which obviously dont have any quality properties themselves. Therefore the fact that somebody is taking money for their plugin does not necessarily hint at superior quality, just like the fact that somebody is giving their plugin away for free does not at all hint at inferior quality. In both cases the object itself is made of the exact same basic material, in other words its not like the dev that sells their plugin has to compensate for the investment in more expensive 'resources', if you will. In the end it all comes down to efforts spent on the code, which means worktime. And how that worktime is priced, or whether it is priced at all, is completely arbitrary. Therefore thinking that freeware is inferior only because the dev is nice enough to give their work away for free is a fallacy. Think of it this way: If KORG had released their excellent Legacy Collection for free rather than making it a commercial product, would that have in any way lessened the quality of the plugins? Likewise, if some SynthEdit dev who used to give a total junk plugin away for free started to sell it for $250 a pop, would that make the plugin any better? I think you get the picture. Thus test everything, be sceptical of popular opinion, draw your own conclusions based on your own observations and your own experience with the object. Its the best you can do...

 

I hope so too.

It would be a shame if a talented musician ended up with a real good piece that would have sounded infinitely better if they hadnt been using Geist.

So true.

Thats usually one of the first candidates that spring to mind when i think of 'overhyped'.

This thing sounds so bland and boring - i wouldnt use it even if RP gave me a license for free.

Seriously. I just wouldnt use it.

 

Why would two plugs by the same Co. sound dramatically different.

 

Well thanks for the informative statement. Normally I base my synth decisions on my hearing experience, the cpu footprint and my musical taste, not if a synth is used by Lady Gaga's producer or some hot shot wannabe. But of course I do not know every single soft synth around.

And call my shallow, but I like synths with huge loads of presets, because my sound design time is very limited. That's why I like e.g. Rob Papen's products, he delivers so many nice presets to play around with.

But I know, discussing synths is like discussing the pro's and con's of Mp3s vs. lossless audio: there's always at least some superior dude around who has golden ears and therefore who knows better than the stupid rest. But that's human after all, we want to be better than others right?

One thing I would discuss though:

"And how that worktime is priced, or whether it is priced at all, is completely arbitrary."

Well, that maybe true in communism, but in normally in capitalism your work is priced higher if your capabilities are higher, at least where I live. Because in capitalism everything has a price. ;)

Sorry for my humble English, not a native speaker.

But I agree with you: If Lennard would give away the Sylenth for free and would ask for a small donation, he would make much more mony in the end, surely. And the Sylenth would be the Sylenth.

 

ford mustang

ford fiesta.

hope that helps. *yes*

 

I have to agree about the sound quality of Geist.....I had a wav of a break on one track, and the same break
sliced and simply playing back through Geist. The top end was totaly gone, muffled as someone already said.
As to why two products from the same company sound so, so different???, Fxxk knows, but they defo do!!!. Shame really
as it seems pretty good feature and workflow wise....Oh well back to drum racks and Kontakt *yes*

 

Hi all,
I like Geist, before Guru, after reading this topic I decided to do some test myself, because I like Geist.

I selected several samples and created a base.

ONLY I PUT SAMPLES, NO VOLUMEN MODIFICATION, PAN OR OTHERS MODS.

I have loaded in guru, geist, battery and directly to cubase (various tracks).

The result is the wav file attachment.

I don't know why your audio Captain_Future has much difference from GURU and GESIT....




Only I modified the volume faders from CUBASE for get the same volumen as GURU or BATTERY.

GEIST -5.50
CUBASE -5.70

TEST WAV - GURU GEIST BATTERY CUBASE

Anybody can hear any difference?

 

Not really... thats a bit apples and oranges mate.

two completely different products.. but in this case.. Geist was the successor to Guru.. so... what gives?

 

Another test with loops.

I put 3 loops in GURU, GEIST , BATTERY and CUBASE.

NO MODIFICATIONS, NO USE OF TIMESTRETCH.



TEST LOOPS

Anybody can hear any difference?

After these, i think I will continue using Gesit.

 

Its certainly colorful.. *yes*

 

only slightly true, as theyve stated at fx pansion previously geist may be their succsesor to guru but it in no way is a guru v2 or anything like that. Geist is a completely new product , coded from the ground up with no legacy code from guru.This is where my ford mustang/fiesta copmparison comes into play . i.e that the same company can produce 2 very different products that perform in a very different manner.

 

Fair enough.

 

At the moment there is 'no' other alternative (one plugin) which lets you directly sample (record) form anychannel of the host DAW.

Something close is to use Devine Machine OSR2(discontinued) and Battery.

Machine did not do the job as nice as Gesit since you always need 2 Instances of Machine and drag-and-drop either, and it only have a small amount of filters etc...

The Biggest Flaw of Geist is its imo User interface. The Fonts are so tiny(8 or even smaller) and the Waveform view and tempo sync could be solved better :/
But at least Gesit has better Envelopes than Guru.

Using Kontakt as a Drum sample is just tedious, since you have to create manual zones for each sample (creative workflow killer, for systematic work its ok but not on the fly...)

I am curious about the Akai Renaissance, how good the managed the workflow

 

MAudio
In any case I told that Geist make sound better sounds or loops.
Read carefully the previous post above...

I don't understand why Captain_Future make same groove with GURU and GEIST and sound different.

After, I only tested GURU, GEIST , BATTERY and CUBASE showing that sound identically the same.

Test Hits
Test Loops

You can hear the difference ?

My gui is a cubase capture. simple colors to understand what are in the test loops.

I make music, i'm not a graphic designer.

 

Sorry, mediafire fuck up the files.

test hits - rs.com
test loops - rs.com

test loops - ys

 

test hits - ys