alternative like dr rex? **FOUND** GEIST

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WOW that is one thing of reason i miss. Alot. It was flawless in my opinion.

It was just so intuitive and QUICK to audition rex loops in tempo.. instant response..

i have found nothing that comes close.. believe it or not logic's exs 24 has most of the features which is why i am not going totally nuts, but it's just not the same.
I want an AU that just feels like Dr rex or octorex.

If there is something out there i am missing, please advise.. I am ALL ears (well, ear :hihi: )
Last edited by ObsoleteAcc99 on Thu Feb 28, 2013 7:36 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Acid Loops?
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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sorry, mac :)

i meant the plug in, not the loops.

i have all my loops in rex and apple loop and acid anyway...

and i can right click in logic and "make sampler track from transients" from any apple loop and it works well

but nothing is as fast as Dr rex especially for previewing. but it's just lightning to work with in all areas (imo).

I got very used to it very quickly

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Beat Producer?

There's a Free solo Version too.

http://www.beatproducer.com/index2.html

If not, I'm out of ideas for now!!! :)
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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The closest I have found is Stylus RMX. But even it's ability to preview the loops during playback of the track isn't quite as eloquent as Dr Rex.

Someone had once mentioned a loop player plugin by basement arts (?) and had stated that it has a good preview function. I cannot confirm though, as I've never tried that one.

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hi there,

in a word, YES. 'Geist' (FXpansion) can maipulate rex files in ways DrRex/OctoRex couldn't even imagine. But don't expect it to be as easy and idiot proof as using Reason. You will have to read the manual, and there is a learning curve, but once you have it figured you'll never miss Reason again.

I cut my teeth on Cubase (v1 on the Atari) and stayed with it for a number of years. Then came a whole load of programs that made making music really easy and Reason was probably the best,.. I even stopped using Cubase for two or three years as it was quicker and easier in Reason. The only problem was it was never as good sonicly, I was always having to compromise, and I missed being able to use some of my great vst's. Plus, just about any idiot with no musical talent can knock up something in Reason/Acid/etc which to the amateur ear sounds professional.

So I stopped using Reason at v5 and went back to Cubase, but I had a load of rex files which I wanted to access. Enter 'GEIST' - 16 outputs, 8 engines (+fx), 16 pads (+fx) per engine, 8 layers (+fx) per pad, and it loads wav, aif, and rex files (16 & 24Bit),..

If the loop has markers/slices (like a rex or acidized loop) it will map these to the pads, if there are 16 slices or less then 1 slice to each pad. If there are more than 16 slices it can use 'Transients' (intelligent replacement,.. ie - if four of the slices are almost identical, like a kick, then it will map just the first one and use that in place of the other identical 'kick' slices), or it can use (velocity) 'Layering' where every slice are mapped it on the 8 layers of each of the 16 pads (so, up to 128 slices per loop).

You can then re-slice it, replace individual slice samples (change the kick in the loop for your fav kick sample, etc), and then filter, envelope, re-pitch, time-stretch, re-amp, and add effects to any slice, layer, pad, or engine. So if the first slice of a loop is a bit abrupt you can adjust the envolope of just that slice, or LP filter off just the Kick at 100hz, or add echo to just one snare. Having sliced a loop you can add layers to individual pads, so maybe layer another kick/snare sample to the existing one to beef it up,.. or even cross-fade layers so you get the attack of one snare with the tail of another.

The slices are shown on a pattern grid so you can then mess with the sequence and make new ones (up to 24 per engine) - you can also drag and drop each pattern onto a midi track in your DAW and edit it as you would any other midi track.

e.g. - drop a rex loop onto Geist, zoom in and re-adjust any slice positions, when you happy hit ok, then go edit any layer/pad. Then drag the pattern onto a track and edit the midi - that quick :)

'Geist' has 8 engines so you can load 8 loops (although with cunning use of 8-slice loops you can edit two loops per engine where feasible). I recently re-mastered one of my old Reason tracks in Cubase using just rex's loaded into 5 instances of Geist, about 32 midi tracks, and a bunch of good VSTfx - the difference is amazing, I could have never achieve this quality in Reason. Geist is so capable I don't know how I ever got by using DrRex.

Of course you can just use Geist as a drum sampler too, and drop loops, fx, bass, etc, samples onto individual layers/pads for 1-shot triggering.

If you want to try out Geist, and get a bargain deal, order yourself a copy of Computer Music magazine (UK). They have a cut down version (only has one engine) for free on the cover dvd, and then a 50% off upgrade - worked for me :)

Hope this helps - sarah
ALL 64Bit Alchemy, Geist, Kontakt, Miroslav
Cubase10, Wavelab7

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I appreciate the in depth on geist, but owned it and sold it because for previewing, unless it has changed, it couldn't do it at the actual slice points of the original rex loop as was sampled by the supplier. It just did it at a preset slice amount or told to slice by transients but it OFTEN didn't get it right.

I buy rex loops from suppliers who have pre sliced them FLAWLESSLY.. almost zero artefacts.. and the geist i had could not work with those pre chosen slices.,. otherwise i would be buying it now.. but i do not like the 50$ transfer fee (see my sig, that's what i consider when i say "some" high transfer fees, for example the small fee of camel audio or fabfilter is very fair).


Dr Rex in reason reads the original slice points as intended.

Thanks Aloysius will look into your suggestion now.

Logic can't do the sampler trick with rex files only with apple loops, as if you are creating your own rex files with EXS24.. it does an amazing job.. logic's slicing is the best integrated in any host i ever used bar reason.. but the sampler is a little clunky, that's all.

I wanted to keep reason and rewire it into logic for just this feature.. it would be a no brainer, when it's rex loop time, launch reason, even control transport from there.. and when i have the result i simply offline render it in logic through rewire, literally almost instantaneously.. but unfortunately i can not use reason anymore (i can't go into it, but the deal i made with props was all or nothing)

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ahh i see beat creator is not 64 bit but i don't mind for this one task.. i'll just check if it plays nicely with logic's bridge and doesn't steal transport controls from spacebar (if it does that like a few 32 bit plugins it will be unusable), and see if it can sync preview in tempo during playback. If so it might be cool.

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@ SarahBellum: One question, considering you use both Cubase and Geist: Isn't there enough onboard tools in Cubase which already could replace Dr. Rex? I know it has a beat slicer, and a tool to playback loops and stuff like that, i'm not totally familiar with the bigger versions of Cubase though (using the smallest version, Elements here). And if i remember right, there wasn't too much stuff in Dr. Rex either, a slice tool, a filter, envelope stuff like that, and i could imagine you can already replace that with the stuff implemented in Cubase?

Of course not relevant for this thread, just asking out of interest.

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Cubase's loop slicing is major suckage.. honest.. as of version 6 was still poor.

Now, Aloysius, thanks, but that was BAD..

not only does it not sync to preview, you have to HOLD the preview button down to play the loop you are browsing, the entire length of the loop.

No syncing, no auto preview. Useless.. And it doesn't even do that with it's own library, which is all the demo can use.

So i hope i have alerted AMG to make it less useless.

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chk071 wrote:@ SarahBellum: One question, considering you use both Cubase and Geist: Isn't there enough onboard tools in Cubase which already could replace Dr. Rex? I know it has a beat slicer, and a tool to playback loops and stuff like that, i'm not totally familiar with the bigger versions of Cubase though (using the smallest version, Elements here). And if i remember right, there wasn't too much stuff in Dr. Rex either, a slice tool, a filter, envelope stuff like that, and i could imagine you can already replace that with the stuff implemented in Cubase?

Of course not relevant for this thread, just asking out of interest.
hi, I'm using Cubase 6.5 but I've never really used any of Steiny's plugins, ever. I tried Loopmash,.. it was pants. That said, Roomworks and REVerence are actually really good, and all their fx are good 'bread & butter' and will certainly do the job unless you have something better. 'Prologue' is a great moogish clone, 'Padshop' is interesting, and Halion is very reasonable (but I have Zeta2, Alchemy, and Knotakt, which makes them redundant to me). You can just drop a rex file on the audio track but Geist is way better as you can edit/treat/effect every slice individually.

@TheoM - I did have similar problems, but I soon learnt to quickly zoom in and edit the slices s/e points at the audition stage to ensure accuracy,.. got used to it after several days of frustration (learning curve) but it's not a problem for me anymore, plus the scope of what can be done in Geist outways the initial hassles (imho). There was PhatmaticPro (and the free Phatmatic which I never got to work), but I don't know of anything else that even comes close to DrRex, except Geist (or Guru, geists predecessor), which is a lot more versatile but not as 'instant' as DrRex.

Here's a quote from an FXP admin (http://www.fxpansion.com/forum/viewtopi ... =rex#73171)

"Geist opens rx2 files with all slices where they should be. It's possible that you did some additional slicing on that loop, which Geist will 'remember' by writing a small file in the same directory. You can reset this by right clicking on the recycle file in Geist's browser and selecting 'Delete all slice information in this folder'."

BTW - what is 'transfer fees' ?

:)
Last edited by SarahBellum on Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ALL 64Bit Alchemy, Geist, Kontakt, Miroslav
Cubase10, Wavelab7

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Hi Sarah.. when a developer asks for fees for a customer who wants to sell his plugin.

Also, re geist.. i hear ya, but the initial preview is almost 80% of the importance to me.

I want to highlight a file, slice points are all their perfectly, and instant playback..

Unless i am misunderstanding you, please explain a way to me that geist can read 100% correctly the initial rex slices as set by the developer.. for example as if recylce would read them when opening.. the actual SLICE points that are already there.

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SarahBellum wrote:
hi, I'm using Cubase 6.5 but I've never really used any of Steiny's plugins, ever. I tried Loopmash,.. it was pants. That said, Roomworks and REVerence are actually really good, and all their fx are good 'bread & butter' and will certainly do the job unless you have something better. 'Prologue' is a great moogish clone, 'Padshop' is interesting, and Halion is very reasonable (but I have Zeta2, Alchemy, and Knotakt, which makes them redundant to me). You can just drop a rex file on the audio track but Geist is way better as you can edit/treat/effect every slice individually.

Alright. I thought they might do the job, when Cubase 6 came out, those midi and loop tools were announced as the new big feature in Cubase, so i figured they could be useful for stuff like this.

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here's another response from an FXP admin on their forums in asnwer to a question someone had about it not loading the rex files slices accurately,..

from http://www.fxpansion.com/forum/viewtopi ... =rex#72025 -

Q - I have Jungle Warfare VOL 1-3 in rex format and from what I can see the slicer has them way off tempo. A 165bpm file is reporting 122bpm. Strangely the wav versions are fine.

A - The tempo is being computed as being 122 on the file, because of the way the REX was saved / constructed. Because when slicing we cant overlap the slices (which is what recycle effectively does), the audio file becomes elongated...
In the long run, by recomputing the tempo, we can more accurately position notes in the sequencer when extracting sounds...


.. I had this problem myself with some rex files when played at a different bppm. It was a headache trying to fiddle about, but eventually when this occurs I just re-slice it.

I didn't know about 'transfer fees', good job I don't want to sell any of mine :)
ALL 64Bit Alchemy, Geist, Kontakt, Miroslav
Cubase10, Wavelab7

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ok.. geist isn't for me.. i can already do a better job for my particular needs by previewing the apple loop in perfect sync, then right click and turn it into a logic sliced sampler file with the doctor rex functions.. it's like turning it into logic's own type of rex file..

it's just more steps, that's all, i just wanted the convenience of using perfectly sliced rex files as are with no changes.

Dr Rex did this. every time.

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