Announcing: Maschine+

A lot of people at gearslutz are speculating that the + has disk streaming, atm it doesn’t, but there isn’t a technical reason this can’t be added , so it’s possible at some point it will .

If anyone informs the gearslutz community of this , please break it to them gently.

 

Everything sounds very interesting. But what about my existing complete software? Is there an update program for long-term users? Or do i have to buy everything completely new?

 

No update program , buy the +new it comes with software, if you evaluate what software you’re getting compared to what you have , you may be able to sell your existing software depending on how you got it .

 

Algarve, it’s in the south of Portugal, it’s hot, I live in the north where it’s cold.

Y so serious?
Some concern is justifiable, sure, it’s the amount of concern that I’ve found funny, I never seen this much CPU discussion on similar products if any, I’m not trying to be disrespectfull to anyone over there but there were some crazy comparisons. I would have loved to see some AMD cpu on Mas+, more over my dislike for intel than raw power.

You honestly believe that a huge company would release a “dead” product that has been under development for at the very least 3 years?

I am reserving my judgment for when I get my hands on it, I am not expecting it to run 40 Instruments so I probably won’t be disappointed with the CPU, but I'll only know when it test it.

The whole thing reminds of people panicking about mandatory subscriptions 1 or 2 years ago.

 

My ancient mac mini 2012 (16gb Ram and SSD) cost me 400 euros 2 years ago (second hand) and I think (based on research but waiting for more info) that it's more powerful than the atom chip the machine + has.

Next year VST developers will embrace (some of them ultimate, others maybe didn't start yet) the new Apple silicon proposals. That will require some effort but will reward amazing apps (in fact BM3 was coded by 2 people and has more features than Maschine Desktop but not so many "sample packs" I suppose...) like Logic (it will run, since the development kit is a mac mini with the iPad pro chip... so it means Logic and Final cut must work on these). So the thing is "maybe gearslutz are right and NI wasn't enough aware of what's coming next".

We will see but this time outdated will mean "disruptively outdated". Think in Nokia when the first iPhone came out...

edit: the conversation goes and it's interesting

 

Cool , I went there when I was younger , in the 80s , if I remember correctly there’s a wet n wild water park ?

 

Not on purpose (but old CEO stated too many times their x86 dependecy). That could have been the reason to halt on its release and after "study the implications" (Do you remember that Kai comment?) maybe they have a workable plan (there's one involving Elk audio and other involving not selling the Traktor division but merging knowledge between them and Maschine division). I'm very serious... remember the Pioneer Toraiz Sp-16? It was the first "half cooked" product from the AlphaTetha brand... lots of concerns, comparision with MPCLive... The same with Denons vs Pioneers (now we are seen similar discussion)... it's not a coincidence, it's a sign of times.

Disruption is coming. In fact was from iPadOS (File system, usb-c, ... even with the drawbacks I point often) and, as I stated other times, Djing industry is slow as "adopters" meanwhile think they are "forward thinkers" (or innovators) but it doesn't work like that anymore.

I'm exaggerating? Ask Nokia about the iPhones and remember the Balmer meme "Developers, developers, developers!".
Where are they? Right, on iOS.

 

USB 2.0 ??

 

But most companies in the pro audio world depend on x86...
I think half the company being fired at the time and Clips still being distant would be a bigger factor to delay the release, with the announcement of Mas+ suddenly most decisions that I personally didn't understand in the past few years of development are kind of explained, the Audio Module rush, Clips, background scanning, reorganize Groups and Sounds from HW, change color from HW, MK3 general focus, Sounds.com, etc, it all makes more sense to me now but of course with this sort of speculative assumptions, no one is ever right so debating is kind of pointless... You could be right.

ELK is certainly very interesting, I am sure NI has been keeping an eye on it, like every other Audio SW/HW company, and evaluated all other possibilities as well.

I believe you, was just trying to lighten up the mood.
I don't, I never had any interest in the Toraiz as it looked gimmicky to me from day 1, I don't trust DJ focused brands doing complex production gear as they tend to make hybrids that merge DJing with Production. The only product I had interest from Pioneer was the PLX-1000 and I opted for a Reloop 8000 instead. Comparisons are unavailable even when they don't make much sense.

Maschine is not a new novelty hybrid product tho, it has a long history wich gives me some confidence, same with Akai but both have a lot of flaws. I'm sure Mas+ won't be fully cooked on release either, it's normal for these things to take some time to mature and generally i'd say it's up to the user to decide if he/she wants to risk being an early adopter; if you have too many serious concerns than it's probably not a product for you.

Indeed, there's no debate that disruption is coming.
When ARM, iPads, iPhones or whatever else comes next takes over the pro music world I'll be sure to move towards it but for now I'll use whatever gets the job done and suits my needs regardless of what chip it uses. Keep in mind I am someone who values CPU performance to the point I went thru the trouble of building a Hackintosh, overclock, delided cpu with liquid metal, water cooler, etc...

 

Hmm, funny you should say that, before this thing came out I was thinking about building a custom case out of my MK3 and a used 2017 Surface Pro 8GB Ram 128GB for about $300 + original cost of my MK3 with option to remove the Surface for fine grid adjustments.

That said, I am currently jumping back and forth trying to talk myself into the M+ and trying to talk myself out of it. Mostly because I don't trust Microsoft to have great latency performance and I have a back log of projects. I really want to find out how enjoyable recording live instruments into the M+ is and what the latency specs are.

 

THIS RIGHT HERE is my highest concern! I have quite a lot of gear, including a few multi-timbre synths. (k2661, montage, sy77, TX81z, Z8 exc...) I need this to be able to host far more than its singe midi port. I really need it to be able to interface directly with my mio10 (class compliant) like the current rival can, and I'm really not interested in NIs interface offerings because I'm already heavily invested in a 40ch mixdown type audio I/O system.
If there were some official confirmation that this can reliably host class-compliant midi interfaces, I would buy the thing literally NOW. I'm so over the current top-tier stand-alone drum machine and their sluggish, dismissive product development; but it has the extensive I/O my studio relies on. Praying to the NI gods for a Maschine Studio+ with all the extra midi/audio/cv I/O, but if the midi interface hosting can get sorted, this one could fill the void for now. Maschine is just so much better for exploring sound design and its interaction with the groove in realtime during the creative phase. The workflow is more intuitive and NI is infinitely more attentive and active with their product improvement. As a hardware-centric synth-stacking gear-nut, interface hosting is really my last major inhibition here. I am on the edge of my seat, waiting for this & cant wait to get back onboard with NI full-time.
Midi interface hosting: please Please PLEASE

 

Hum.... It's not class-compliant (in the sense that any class-compliant audio interface will work), it will support the KA MK2 interface line up (Audio 1, Audio 2, or Audio 6 MK2), anything other than that might come later. It does support all class-compliant MIDI keyboards, if that means a mio10 works idk.

 

My mistake , it’s not class compliant for audio , but is for midi , yes ?
I was told I can use a USB / MIDI breakout box if i needed more I/O.
Is the motu micro lite a breakout box or a midi interface ?

Years ago I had a creative soundcard with a breakout box

 

Yes, I'm not the target for M+ but I can be the target for MK3 full class compliant with the proper iPad app. Now that possibilty seems very distant. Let's hope almost they can migrate successfully from x86 into ARMacs and that also bring more mature iPad apps... My gut says that TDJ2 has lot of key resources involved in that possibility.

Thanks for listening/reading my concerns and speculations. It could seem I want NI to fail sometimes but I will love to see them success. If not Traktor could end in Behringer's hands...

 

A version of the Maschine SW running on an iPad and compatible with the MK3 controller? I would be super down for that too, in a heartbeat. NI struggles with scalable UI's so I can't even imagine how far a full port to Armple is but like you said, it should be pretty distant, maybe in 2 years when 'the transition' is in full effect? iMaschine 3? IDK but they surely must have some plans.
No problem

Yeah, that's what I was told also, it probably works but that mio10 device is pretty complex and has a huge list of compatible and incompatible stuff, so I would wait for confirmation about that specific device in THELOOPKING 's shoes. MIDI breakout is kind of a loose term.

 

Yeah , true . I don’t think the motu is actually class compliant after looking more into it , I could of sworn I read it was , never mind , I’ll just wait until we can get some official info , or to see what others are using , thanks

I read it here , but then I read somewhere else it wasn’t.

https://www.wikiaudio.org/best-midi-interface/

The MOTU Microlite USB is a little higher up in the price range when it comes to the budget. This interface brings out the best in class compliant connectivity with a ‘plug-in-play’ approach for both Mac and Windows.

 

...buying the same software a second time for such a huge amount of money is crazy.

 

If they port their code properly to Big Sur (not just Rosseta 2.0) it should work on 2021-22 iPads. That's the point.
I hope the Kai @ NI plan goes that direction...

 

I love what NI has done! Congratulations to the devs team

That being said, there are still some software related restrictions that are preventing me from buying this device:

- class compliance for audio interfaces

- DEEP(!) maschine Jam integration

- cv/gate control (possible?)

- clock sync (maybe it has already?)

- midi mapping to connect something like FaderFox EC4 - more knooooobs for massive, FM8, etc (maybe it has already?)

And the most important ones:
- new Kontakt/Komplete VSTs added on a regular basis. Of course I am not expecting to run an orchestra with a 200 tracks template on this little box, but it would be nice to have some “real” instruments, battery, abbey road, guitar rig, etc.

- It would be nice (and I suppose everyone will agree with me on this one) that NI puts out a statement promising that they won’t charge extra money for the M+ version of VSTs for komplete owners.

This is clearly an unfinished product that has a lot of potential. I hope that the developers team will work hard to bring it closer to a finished product.

P.S. I don’t know if this is possible, but it would be sweet if Maschine+ could eventually work similar to UAD interfaces for the plugins it supports, hence, freeing up computer RAM when obviously connected to a computer.