Geist Expander: Cinematic Percussion

I have been spending the last week delving deeper into the capabilities of Geist and been pleasantly surprised by things I hadn't even touched yet. I remember seeing the "Expanders" briefly when I first purchased Geist, but never really looked into the content. Most of expanders don't generate much interest for me, but the Cinematic Percussion caught my eye. Unfortunately the samples on their site barely nick the surface on what it contains (4900 samples); but I do like that they have preset performance settings to pads/layers and since they are a penny/sample it seems like a no brainer.
 
Has anyone used this Expander that can offer feedback on how the samples contained compared to other cinematic percussion out there?

I have been hoping to hear a review  of it myself. For gesit owners that dabble in EDM, or even if you just like fusion type stuff a la nine inch nails, the goldbaby sample kits for geist are the godesseses teets! He plays them through tube compressors and records them on reels. 

Add-on

The EDM comparison actually carries a lot of weight, since some of the freebies included in the factory content (with Geist itself) by GoldBaby are rather complex and well done. In fact, I began to dabble with the "Song" tab within Geist and the sheer power of this VST was revealed looking at his songs (song/patterns/pad layers... and he uses all 8 engines for some of these). I never really used Geist's internal effects until this past week, and some of the effects alone (even with the simple UI they have) are incredibly nice. Just mucking around with the UI I found the "Inverse Reverb" and it competes easily with BREVERB (included with SONAR) but has the distinct advantage that Geist allows for the underlying clip to be modified as well... no muss, no fuss... and "drum replacement" is as simple as swapping out or layering a pad to taste. I also began to dabble with firing MIDI by channel this week, and the versatility of the Geist engine began to "come alive."
 
I do not own any cinematic material that did not come bundled with SONAR, and when researching options, some are very steeply priced for "playing around" and I have never been able to get into the Kontakt UI (it simply does not appeal to me, not that it is "bad"). I happened upon the Cinematic Percussion by chance today and a couple of the songs on their site do have the sounds I would love to use for some material. At least the video made it clear that these samples have already had some programming done within the engine to create a "real feel" dynamic as well as how they were recorded (plus they can be used in any other VST that will import samples).
 
I will probably nab this in the next couple weeks and check it out.
 
Edit for lawajava - I tried to include the link to the add-on page in the OP, but had to remove it... I posted the OP twice and it was immediately deleted with that link embedded, but the "Geist Expanders" is a section on the FXpansion site, so is easy to find. I am not sure why that link qualifies for "automatic deletion" though

I happened to remember my log in to FXpansion's site, and the expansion packs are 50% off which wasn't obvious just browsing. I bought this pack and most of the samples are pretty decent. I have to delve into it more, but many of the pads have 8 layers that are triggered via velocity. No full presets included, but there are a few dozen engines and kits. The rest are kit pieces.

Thanks mettelus.
 
I'd seen the FXpansion specials emails, but I thought they were all about BFD related items.  I had seen this thread, and then received sort of a final reminder yesterday and when I read the notification more closely I saw it had a brief mention about Geist.  When I went to the specials page way down at the bottom was a link to the Geist bit, and finally connected the dots with this Cinematic Percussion thread.
 
Yeah, it's great.  Totally went for it.  Thanks for the heads up.

I am not sure if they will update Geist, or that it is a high priority for them. I have found a few things that bother me with the GUI but they are not showstoppers (fortunately). The more I delve into it, the more I realize how truly complex and well thought out it is. Brief mentions in the user's guide turn out to be very dynamic components that require some time investment to fully understand. The most impressive thing to me is that Geist is version 1.0.0 (never been updated!!)... that is a huge testament to how well though out the program was.
 
I am definitely gravitating to the "engine mindset" when laying out drum sets now as Smokey mentioned. With 8 engines available, it makes chopping and swapping the easiest method by far (plus can use a couple engines for exotic sounds and swap pads as needed).
 
My nemesis tends to be "too many samples"... and is not only with Geist but everything I own! There is definitely a market for a Windows global browser that allows a user to rate samples (for any program).

Geist is one of my most used VST's. I certainly use Battery a lot less since getting it, although Battery is fantastic also - just in different ways. You really are spoiled for choice with Geist when it comes to song and pattern arrangement though. I think I started off composing patterns in Geist and triggering those patterns via MIDI, now I'm really enjoying using the song arranger. It's great to be able to do everything inside the VST, although you really have to keep on top of the sync between Geist and Sonar. By which I mean, if you happen to insert measures into the Sonar project, Geist does not insert the measures at it's end, you have to insert them manually yourself (which is actually no big deal). 
 
But there are two other arrangement techniques Geist facilitates that I have yet to delve into - one is dragging patterns from Geist into a MIDI track in the host, the other is the "scenes" feature. I love the idea of dragging patterns into Sonar, but I'm not sure how it maps the pattern graphs to CC's. I'm sure it's all very well thought out and logical but I've just never attempted it in a project yet. Scenes are a very cool feature - you can save the whole state of Geist (i.e. which patterns are playing across all 8 engines) as multiple scenes and then trigger them via MIDI. I can see that being a boon for live performance, and indeed as part of a project, but I've never got around to incorporating it into my workflow yet. Perhaps in my next project. 
 
I just took advantage of the sale and bought Goldbaby Synthetic, Cinematic Percussion and BFD Remix. A bargain at $54 for all 3. Downloading them now so I haven't played with them, but they all sounded great in the demos. I'm a sucker for new kits and loops. Slicing up loops is my absolute favorite thing to do with Geist. I love how easy it is to edit samples and apply envelopes to them etc. The workflow is just so smooth and intuitive. Yes it has an itty bitty interface but I really don't mind that now. 

Thank you for the heads up. I actually had v1.1.1.8 installed (my original download) and there is a "check for updates" option in it that seemed to do something, but then stopped. The v1.1.3.2 has these menu options changed so you basically need to visit the web site now to check.

Personally I like the way TH2 and Mark Studio brings up a dialog when there's a new update available - you have to select "update" or "not at this time" to dismiss it. Might be annoying for some, but I appreciate the in-your-face reminders. 

sharke
Personally I like the way TH2 and Mark Studio brings up a dialog when there's a new update available - you have to select "update" or "not at this time" to dismiss it. Might be annoying for some, but I appreciate the in-your-face reminders. 

I'm with Sharke on this.   I very much like programs that tell me there is an update available.
Reaper does this.  Several others do as well...and then they let me chose whether or not
I wish to update now or just continue....