Is imitation a form of flattery? Ask MOTU and NI

[bluseky]

MOTU BPM and NI MASCHINE

[Madness]

Wow....these things are pretty amazing....as much as I am a GURU fanboy...you have to be impressed with the editors and layout on both those beauties.....

Looks like things have heated up since I was tossing up Phrazor or Guru as my sequencer.

I think there will be some peeps on this Forum who wont be around any more since these things satisfy their wildest dreams....

I want one and I don't even really know what they do....HAHAHAH....price seams competitive once you add up the fact that you'd need GURU, ReCycle, and a Pad Control to do the same thing !!!!

FXPansion are really going to have to step up!!!

Good thing they are sitting on the phatest drum sample library since man learnt to wrap a animal skin over a bit of wood and bang it with a stick!!!

[wwinfrey]

In BPM's case, it's even worse than you think. From the intro video, it looks like they outright STOLE the pattern graph functionality! Check it out around the 4:30 mark. It looks just like Guru's sequencer, except perhaps less powerful. Check out the parameters one can control in what they're calling the "graph sequencer". They're almost even in the same order!

Roll (Rpt anyone?)
TimeShift (er, Shift)
Velocity (Vol)
Length (Dur)
Pan (Pan)
Semi (coarse) tuning (Pit)
Fine tuning (Fin)
Cutoff (Cut)
Resonance (Rez)
Decay

Unless FXpansion licensed this approach to MOTU, I really do not see how this is not blatant IP infringement.

Sorry to be so alarmist, but watch the video; you'll be astounded:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/BPM

[jbrown3]

In BPM's case, it's even worse than you think. From the intro video, it looks like they outright STOLE the pattern graph functionality! Check it out around the 4:30 mark. It looks just like Guru's sequencer, except perhaps less powerful. Check out the parameters one can control in what they're calling the "graph sequencer". They're almost even in the same order!

Roll (Rpt anyone?)
TimeShift (er, Shift)
Velocity (Vol)
Length (Dur)
Pan (Pan)
Semi (coarse) tuning (Pit)
Fine tuning (Fin)
Cutoff (Cut)
Resonance (Rez)
Decay

Unless FXpansion licensed this approach to MOTU, I really do not see how this is not blatant IP infringement.

Sorry to be so alarmist, but watch the video; you'll be astounded:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/BPM

Hey guys, you do know that this was the Urban Beat Machine that UltimateSoundbank was boasting about releasing in 2007, right? UltimateSoundBank are the makers of the UVI sound engine, who MOTU licenses from for their MACH 5 Sampler. So humm, looks like MOTU licensed the French guys to do this for them.

Anyhow, it looks cool, but Guru is my bread and butter.

[jbrown3]

<Deleting Comments> GURU Rocks!!!

[Madness]

Man...the MOTU one looks the business!!!!

If you can click that Browser and it slides back in behind the Plug...that'd be sweet and GURU should steal that idea back...(fair is fair)

[johane]

GURU's got the timing, sound and the grooves!
But...... fx's been longing it out on an update....... still can't keep my browser favorites or any option settings.
GUI wise it's all there , hands down! Sliding tabs for different window would be cool tho. And a separate browser window would be nice also.
Drop & drag samples from the DAW window soon please!

Cheers

J

[jamester]

Well I for one am disapointed that there's no GURU 2, and even moreso since MOTU's BPM seems to have done it.

But that's great that there's a bunch of new synths, that's really what's been missing in the home studio market!

(sarcasm)

Maybe it's good that Guru doesn't have to go up against all the other beat-making options coming out right now, but at the same time all those potential customers are going to buy the other products now, making it less likely they'll buy Guru2 if/when it comes out, since they're all based on the same concept.

I wanted FXpansion to take the leadership roll in beatmaking, instead we got some synths...

[db120]

"still can't keep my browser favorites or any option settings"

What a pain in the ___ I thought I was the only one dealing with that.

I like Guru still, but that MOTU isn't looking so bad, and with Max for Ableton live I'd bet within a few hours of it's release someone will have cooked up a pattern graph like Guru and most of its other current functions. Interesting times

[wwinfrey]

Yes, I was really disappointed to not see Guru 2 in the NAMM lineup. Working for a small audio software company myself, I understand development priorities and all that, but we haven't seen an update in over a year. As with any tool I love, I've learned to workaround it's flaws but part of me wonders if Guru isn't going to wind-up EOLed at 1.5.12....

That said, I do think the new synth suite looks awesome, and I will definitely be purchasing it.

[Cerebral_Infect]

Yeah, the MOTU BPM, NI Mashine and Cubase new beat plugin (Guru splitted in two plug-in) are indeed copycats of Guru and improved versions. Although I am not a NI fan, I must admit the integration between the controller and the software is pretty neat and the overall presentation is pleasing to the eye. The sound browser seems to have better functionnality. The included soundlibrary seems to be more radio ready too.

Guru is still great. But with three new strong contender, Fxpansion will have to work hard in order too keep that advantage or even be equal quality with the other. Especially NI. They have a big production workforce. So it will be interesting to see what Fxpansion will do in the next year, will they accept the challenge ? I hope so.

Competitor strong points : Neater GUI (Guru 1.5 is interestingly cluttered), better browser, AD(S)R enveloppes, 2 effects per pads, groups for sample cut off

If FXpansion are wise, they are going to move some effects of the BFD2 to Guru. Also, the filter developped for the new softsynths could be replace the actual filter in there. Finally, a drum synthesis sound engine would be welcomed but not mandatory.

the race is on.

[keyman_sam]

Amazing, isn't it?

When i saw the NI demo i thought, wow they had copied GURU!!! only to be completely shocked by the MOTU BPM video.

BPM = what GURU 2 is supposed to be. Audio sampling, scene sequencer, mature effects, piano roll, etc.

It is sad to see other companies seeing what a great idea GURU is when fxpansion themselves fail to see this and improve upon this idea. If only guru were marketed properly, it'd outsell all these clone clowns.

[onervas]

Don't forget about Live 8 as well. It's just stepped up to be almost the most serious contender. You got drum racks with unlimited layers, vst effects and the ability to mix samples and synth vst's on the same pad. You also got time- and pitchshift, a proper Recycle "Chopper" (new chop at transients function) and everything totally integrated with
Live's browser and mixer. All drum channels open's up in the mixer, ready to mix with Vst's and on top of that, you got all the "articulations" from Battery like "Flam" etc, and a new randomizer function to make your grooves more human. Now, they just added groove quantize and a bunch of new features to, so there's not a lot of need for a drum vst if you use Live...

I still think Guru rocks, and I keep on coming back to Guru. It's just great with the sequencer, the way you layer drums and all the small functions Fxpansion adds in every update. There's almost no company with the same customer support like Fxpansion, and they are probably doing the right thing in not releasing Guru 2 at the moment. Give it a while, let the competition play their cards and when Guru 2 is released it's probably gonna kick some ass.

[phazed]

I'm sure FXpansion will intensify further development of GURU once the synths are out and running stable. The biggest point for me to use GURU is that it gives me a lot of fun to work with. Kit switching and loading are very fast, it features an extensive drag-and-drop support and there are many little details that speed up the workflow. And I really doubt that most of the new competitors will do such a good job there.

[Angus_FX]

Guys - if you're having problems with the favourites, get on to the tech support crew via the contact form.. there is a fix, basically what happens is if GURU can't write to the file system where it's supposed to store its favourites, it ends up storing them in a subdirectory of /temp, which of course ends up getting flattened periodically.

Jamester - we can't do everything at once, and those synths are really something special. If we thought they'd only be 'more of the same', we wouldn't be doing it.

Guru is not being EOL'ed, we have a 1.6 coming out RSN - we could have gone public beta with it already but we've been keeping it under wraps somewhat for our friends at Open Labs, who are integrating it in to their very, very cool Gen5 NeKo's with Bump-MP - which, by the way, is a KILLER combination, especially with the touch screen to boot.

What's quite funny with these clones - especially the MOTU one - is that they've copied the design so closely they've ended up doing a lot of things which we now, having been working with this stuff for 4.5 years, consider to be mistakes or at least sub-optimal design choices. I don't really want to go in to too much detail, as they'll probably just read it and copy that as well. @KeyMan - I'd be interested to hear (maybe privately, on email) what you consider to be 'right' marketing for something like GURU.

Doing this stuff *right* takes time, and lots of it.. if you remember with BFD 1.x, late in its life a couple of competitors (Addictive and Strike) caught up and maybe slightly overtook v1.. it's not something we lose sleep over, we can't expect to be an entire generation ahead of the likes of NI at all times.

Would also like to say.. all the suggestions in this thread so far are things we've been considering since, well, before we shipped GURU 1.0 For the time being though.. please have a little patience, and when these things get talked about, make sure the original is acknowledged!