KVR Audio

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:51 pm

[DELETED]

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:54 pm

Acid Loops?

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:57 pm

[DELETED]

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:12 pm

Beat Producer?

There's a Free solo Version too.

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

If not, I'm out of ideas for now!!!

JDI Project · Post by **JDI Project** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:12 pm

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.

SarahBellum · Post by **SarahBellum** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:32 pm

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

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:57 pm

[DELETED]

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:59 pm

[DELETED]

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:00 pm

@ 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.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:12 pm

[DELETED]

SarahBellum · Post by **SarahBellum** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 4:44 pm

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' ?

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:01 pm

[DELETED]

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:11 pm

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.

SarahBellum · Post by **SarahBellum** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:13 pm

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

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 6:39 pm

[DELETED]

alternative like dr rex? **FOUND** GEIST

alternative like dr rex? FOUND GEIST