GURU Specifications / Requirements

GURU minimum system requirements
  • 800 MHz Pentium III or Athlon cpu (for Windows platform)
  • 733 MHz G4 cpu (for Mac OS X platform)
  • 384MB RAM (512MB or more recommended)
  • DVD-ROM, DVD-R or DVD-RW drive (for installation)
  • Windows 2000 or XP, or Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" or 10.4 "Tiger".
  • 500MB free hard disk space (6GB for full sample library)

Recommended for best results:

  • Fast, multi-core modern CPU (Intel CPU on Mac)
  • 1GB RAM or more when using GURU as a plugin
  • A suitable DAW/host for running the plugin version

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Product Status

Is GURU a current, supported product?

GURU is now a legacy product. It has been superceded by Geist.

GURU may run on recent OS/sequencer version combinations, but it is not possible for us to test or develop GURU any longer, so please do so at your own risk. You may be able to find help from other users at the GURU forum.


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General Information

What is GURU?

GURU is a combination of sampler, drum machine, beat slicer and step sequencer - in short, a complete rhythm production workstation for your computer or DAW.


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What styles of music is it most suitable for?

GURU is ideal for hip hop, rnb, house, techno, electronica, modern pop, garage, trance, drum&bass, breaks, electro, industrial and more - basically any style of music that leans towards programmed, rather than real, drums.

It's also ideal as a programming environment for latin, jazz & other polyrhythmic styles, when used in conjunction with an external sound source such as BFD with the Percussion expander, and can be used as a scratch-pad drum machine for rock.


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What are the advantages of GURU compared to existing solutions?

Being a software instrument, GURU gives you access to a huge library of sounds at a very affordable price. However, unlike some products which are more heavily focused on their bundled, pre-mixed sample-libraries, GURU gives you an enormous amount of flexibility to use your own samples and create new, original beats from scratch.

Aside from that, GURU's main strength is the integration of slicing, sampling and sequencing functionality - we don't think anything else on the market can match it for speed and creative workflow, and its onboard sequencer offers timing precision 10-100x greater than conventional MIDI software sequencers, and equal to that of the best integrated hardware sequencer/sampler combos.

Finally, as GURU is a phrase-based sequencer with multiple simultaneous engines each with independent tempo multipliers, pattern lengths and step lengths, GURU is ideal for anyone interested in polyrhythms and other more complex rhythmic interactions.

So to reiterate:- far more sound, for far less money, than hardware samplers; way more scope for originality and creativity than "loop library" instruments, much tighter timing and better workflow than a seperate sequencer / drum sampler combination, and more power and flexibility than typical "beat slicer" products.


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How does GURU compare to..?

Drum samplers? GURU is a drum sampler, and its voice architecture and kit browsing capabilites are equivalent to the best available. It has 128 multisample slots in total, divided across the eight engines - unlike conventional drum samplers which typically offer 16-40 slots on a single page.

Loop slicers? GURU is a loop slicer, with slicing accuracy equivalent to the best in the market and convenience second-to-none. It has a unique automatic beatslicing tool called autodetect, which will do all leg-work for you in a second, it will detect the bass drums, the snares the hi hats and others and put them on the right pads! It can also export individual slices to your host or hardware sampler.

Beat boxes? GURU is a beat box, its pattern sequencer is as fast, powerful and easy to use as any out there. Its sophisticated quick-preview options, slicing, powerful voice architecture, great-sounding built-in effects and intelligent loop-to-score and timing-extraction take it further than any other.

Loop library players? GURU is a loop library player, it comes with a huge library of excellent-quality, ready-to-use audio loops covering a huge amount of musical ground, and a fast, integrated browser to give you quick and convenient access to the factory library and any other loops you might have; its system of Engines allows you to quickly build your own compositions by layering parts together. But there's more:- the intelligent hit-classification system means that you can, with just a couple of clicks, extract the sounds from one loop and apply them to the score of another, with the timing feel of a third. Plus, the matrix-based editing system makes it just as easy to customize imported loops and make them your own, without ever leaving the speed, convenience and cross-host compatibility of the GURU environment.


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What else does GURU come with?

GURU comes with around 6GB of ready-to-use content -- drum kits, audio loops and pattern banks covering a wide variety of musical styles. Note that much of this content is available as free downloadable add-ons.

GURU's content has been developed by some of the best in the business:

8 Bit Audio, Gearshift, G-Force, Groove Criminals, Nu Skool Breakz, Q Up Arts, Set Creative, Wizoo, Yellow Tools.


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Compatibility

What plug-in formats does GURU come with?

GURU comes as a standalone application, and as Audio Units, VST and RTAS plug-ins. It's compatible with all major sound cards and the latest versions of all major host applications - Live, Logic, Pro Tools, Acid, FL Studio, Garage Band, Sonar, Project5, Cubase, Tracktion, Reaper, Digital Performer and Bidule to name just a few.


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What are the system requirements?
  • Windows: 733+ MHz Pentium III, 1.5GHz+ Athlon, or any Pentium 4, Pentium M, Athlon64, Opteron , Core etc.
  • Mac: 733 MHz G4, G5 or Intel, PowerMac, iMac, Powerbook, iBook, eMac, Mac Mini, MacIntel, MacBook etc.

Basically, any Mac released since mid-2003 is fine, as well as some older models.

NOTE: OS X 10.4 "Tiger" is required to run GURU 1.5 or later OS X 10.3 "Panther" is supported by GURU 1.0.0 thru 1.0.3, but NOT v1.5 or later


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Does GURU run at high sample rates?

Well there are two answers for that question.

Within a host application: YES - GURU will run at high sample rates!

HOWEVER - the standalone version of GURU only runs at 44,1 kHz at the moment. Which isn't a problem for soundcards with an internal clocksource. GURU will just reset it to 44,1 kHz. But users running an external clock should make sure they've set it to 44,1 before using the standalone version of GURU.


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What file formats can GURU read?
  • WAV (including Acidized)
  • AIFF (including Apple Loops)
  • REX / RCY / RX2
  • MIDI (type 0 or 1, BFD or GM mapping).

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What file formats can GURU export?

GURU can export MIDI clips (by dragging the Pattern Memory pads to your host or to Finder / Explorer), and WAV loops and one-shots via the Audio Exporter (Audio export available in v1.5 or later only)


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What aspects of GURU can be controlled from MIDI?

Pretty much all of them. You can trigger Pads, Patterns or Scenes, tweak almost all the parameter knobs, as well as changing engines, starting and stopping the transport, and slaving GURU’s sequencer to MTC and MMC.

GURU is ideally suited to be used with a pad controller such as the Akai MPD-16 and MPD-24, Korg PadKontrol or M-Audio Trigger Finger. You can even drive it from an MPC.


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Licensing / Copy Protection

What kind of copy protection does GURU use?

Serial number only - no dongles, no challenge response, no CD checks.

Pirated serial numbers and cracked copies will be denied registration, updates, tech support and bonus content downloads. Use of pirated software may lead to system instability and leaves you liable to legal action being taken against you. Don't say we didn't warn you.


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Can I use it on both my laptop and main machine?

Yes - you can install on up to 3 machines as long as only 1 is running it at any one time. Site / volume licensing is also available (POA - please contact us for details).


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Do you allow license transfers?

Yes, however:

  • If you're the seller, you must contact us in advance of the sale. If you're the prospective second-hand buyer, you must check that the seller is cleared to sell. If in doubt, contact us.
  • There is a flat $50 fee per product for a license transfer, which can be purchased from our online shop.
  • Review copies, NFRs (Not For Resale copies, sometimes used for in-store demos), etc., cannot be transferred under any circumstances.
  • We reserve the right to refuse a license transfer request.

Once a transfer is authorised and the fee has been paid, the new owner is entitled to exactly the same upgrade paths and technical support resources as if they had bought the product new.


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