Drum/sample sequencing - Maschine / Geist / Akai Ren / etc

xtedmanzie

Does anyone here use any of these drum sequencing samplers? I've got (but don't now use very much) a hardware MPC 4000 so that's my reference for what a decent sequencing sampler should do.

I don't know what it is with Maschine (I bought a Mk1) but I just don't get on with it, if Maschine was as good as Battery it could be different (I know you can kind of use Battery as a plugin but I don't like the workaround in order to do that).

Logic X has made some decent improvements to drum sequencing in the piano roll but it's still not like having an MPC. Ultrabeat is interesting but has the weirdest least intuitive interface known to mankind!

MOTU BPM could have been great but it seems to have been left to die. Maybe UVI will resurrect it.

Geist was the king imo, best sequencer , sample manipulation and almost MPC style workflow. Disappointing it seems to have been left out in the cold somewhat, it seems badly in need of some love from FX. I know Drew-fx is on here so maybe he could update re. Geist 2?!

Anyone use an Akai Ren? I keep reading the pdf manual whenever they update it but still seems someway off what a 4000 could do?

Suggestions welcome! 

xtedmanzie

Arturia Spark was another one I was curious about.

Drew_TNBD

tedmanzie said:

Geist was the king imo, best sequencer , sample manipulation and almost MPC style workflow. Disappointing it seems to have been left out in the cold somewhat, it seems badly in need of some love from FX. I know Drew-fx is on here so maybe he could update re. Geist 2?!

Geist has never been left out in the cold. We've had this claim put to us several times, but we've released many many updates since it's release. Geist 2... well we're working on it right now! Made no secret about it on KvR and the FXpansion forums, even got a few people here on the beta team too. If you're interested in that, send me a PM.

xtedmanzie

Hi Drew

Thanks for chipping in, I would definitely be happy to beta test v2, thanks for the offer.

5 years is a long time in software and in that time we've had mostly bug fixes and tweaks, which are appreciated of course but they have certainly got less frequent and the tiny interface and old-skool design is well overdue for a refresh. It may be true that FX don't think it's been left out in the cold but it is the perception amongst a lot of users, so maybe something for FX to think about for v2 going forward. 

Maschine may well have a larger team/user base/budget but they have been on it when it comes to bug fixes and major feature updates, can't fault them there although I still think Geist would be a better software if it had some updates so I'm hopeful for v2.

Drew_TNBD

I think you're radically under-estimating just how much bigger Native Instruments are, and how much resources they have! We've got four developers. That's your lot. That's to support BFD3, Synth Squad, Geist, Tremor, Etch, Maul, Bloom, and all our other plugins. We've got two and a half QA people to ensure quality, and I'm one of them. Although I spend the vast majority of my time dealing with support issues and expansion packs, the amount of QA I get to do is not as much as it once was.

In short: we can't churn out products the same way NI can. It's just not financially or logistically possible for us. People have this idea that FXpansion is a huge company - you should see the support tickets! Demands for phone support, condemnation that we haven't replied to a ticket that was opened only 2 hours prior, and the expectation that we'll do support on a weekend when most people are actually busy juggling family life and what not. The nerve of some people! But that aside... I think there are about 15 people in the company - total. Annnyyywwaaayyyy... sorry, not having a go or anything, just giving some perspective. But it's a bit OT to your thread so I'll stop ranting!

I think you'll like the direction we're heading in with Geist 2 - I'll be in touch!

xtedmanzie

Thanks, I thought that might be the case of the difficulties of running a smaller company. I think if you keep your communication up in a clear way - eg, expected turnarounds for support, known issues, and 'we hope to be launching Geist 2 in xxx..' etc then most people will be onboard with that and probably even prefer to deal with a small committed company with fewer products, as opposed to the giant that NI is becoming. Knowing that FX are in it for the long haul with fixes and updates etc is reassuring, personally I'd happily pay for smaller more regular updates, but seems like a lot of people expect something for nothing thanks to Akai/Apple/NI etc hooking people into their hardware with cheap software and free updates.

Have to say Geist is my absolute favourite software sample sequencer - I'd like to see a geist hardware/software but I  know that's not the direction you're going so I'll be happy with Geist 2 (driven by Maschine as a controller as much as I can make it work!). 

Keep up the good work, pm me about beta testing v2, i'd love to be involved.

wave100

I have the Spark plug in, which I got as part of the V collection 4. I've not used it extensively yet, but I like it so far. I haven't felt the need to peruse the manual, which I suppose means that it's fairly user friendly!

hugbot

I feel like I say this every time someone asks a question but ableton live! The drum rack instrument is great, working with midi is great ad chopping up samples is great. Shitty stock samples though so you gotta get your own.

xtedmanzie

Looks very nice but I don't really want to use Ableton. Maybe I could give it another go... 

xtedmanzie

I'm going to download the demo and give it another go, haven't used it for years, sold it ages ago as i didn't really get on with it. New features look good though.