[Guide] - Cubase + Maschine MIDI Routing & Integration

Thanks
Yes, it's possible but it's has pros and cons.
The Audio and MIDI are unrelated, you can set each one as you want.

In the case of only needing one Group, you can use the default "Sounds to MIDI Channels" and use a MIDI Track per Pad but with this approach, you have to arm one MIDI track at a time, which means recording one Pad at a time. Cubase cant use a different MIDI Channel Input per MIDI Track, it listens to all channels to record, only the output uses channels, at least the version I have. If this one pad at a time recording can work for you let me know and I'll tell you the settings.

 

oddly enough, i record drums out one pad at a time vs finger drumming a cadence....
mainly because i like to utilize the 16 pad velocity mode for kicks and hi hats only. i leave the snare set to a fixed velocity.
please share if you dont mind. that would be freaking great!

 

A lot of people do that. In that case, it fits you just fine. Start a fresh Group, ignore all the MIDI crap in this guide, I won't cover the Audio Part as that is the same, I'll do it for 3 Pads, just follow the same logic for all the other ones.

Sound > Input > MIDI
- Set all Pads to Destination to be Host and give each one a different channel.
Sound > Output > MIDI
- Set all Pads to Destination to be Host and give each one a different channel. (the channels should already be set by default)
In Cubase create One MIDI Track per Pad, set their inputs to be "Maschine Midi Out" and output to be "Maschine MIDI In", give each MIDI track an exclusive Channel. Done.

Gif will be a bit too fast but this is rather simple. Example project attached.

 

yo! thanks so much!

just played around with it and...i think its much better/quicker to just leave the group on one channel LOL
i mean...i could just export the midi as wav directly into the session and individually edit/mix the drums that way.
thanks again, man!

 

I've followed these steps several times...but when i press play, there is audio coming out that is playing over my patterns and I cant get to stop. Can you please help, cuz I'm really getting frustrated?

 

Send me the Cubase project via PM and I'll have a look.

 

I bet you have loaded patterns along with your sounds, and the patterns are playing from maschine2when you hit play in cubase. Need to load new content with the +routing and +patterns turned off or maschine2 will play stock patterns. These patterns can be useful for learning and getting started, but ultimately having control over them is good.

 

Hi, this is brilliant but by any chance do you know how I can still use my komplete kontrol keyboard as usual when both are connected. As usually when Maschine is on pad mode, kk is keyboard mode for the selected pad. I’ve been trying to figure this out for so long and really hope you could help me out. Thanks

 

Thanks. Depends, having the IO routed makes you lose some abilities.
What exactly do want to use the keyboard for? Just selecting the Pads?

 

Thanks for the quick response I really wasn’t expecting that!
Before changing the routing, when you select a pad on Maschine, whatever that sound is, kk keyboard plays that sound at different pitches and acts like keyboard mode on Maschine without having to change from pad mode to keyboard. You can also record what you play on kk into Maschine

once you change the routing the way you’ve explained (which is amazing by the way, especially with softube console 1 faders!) kk keyboard doesn’t play any notes anymore.

I’ve been messing with the settings for ages and found it happens when you change the group input midi from off to manual.
Not doing this step, makes playback not function correctly after dragging it into Cubase.

I hope this makes sense but in short I just want to make my keyboard function as it should and does before changing the routing settings

thanks again!

 

No problem. With a Keyboard, things do get more complicated.

With this setup, the Drums/One-Shots notes are configured to play different sounds, each note is a Pad basically, so you cant chromatically play individual Pads like instruments anymore - This is why the Guide is separated between Instruments and Drums.

To do so you will need to use MIDI Channels(default) instead of MIDI Notes with the batch convert setup, this method has that advantage, the disadvantage is then you're limited to 16 Channels/16 Sounds, if you have say 12 drum one-shots then you only get 4 instruments left and might have to start considering using more instances of Maschine VST which further complicates things.

For Instruments, because DAW MIDI tracks are set to only receive/send MIDI to/from Maschine they will ignore the Keyboard, to fix this you can create a new MIDI track and set it to receive MIDI from the Keyboard and Send to Maschine, the channel you select here will determine what is played/recorded into Maschine... Channel 2 for example will play the Bass on the example Project.
To always get the ability to chromatically play each sound this approach would have to be used.


You can then change the Channel each time you want to record or set up a keyboard MIDI Track per Instrument/Channel.

Overall what you need to do determines how to route things, some people just use Maschine for Drums, others for both Drums and instruments, others need it + a keyboard, etc... Every method has pros and cons.

 

Hi,
Great tutorial !
But I have a problem with my bass which triggers another sound in another group when it goes into the bass notes. I never found a solution: '(

 

Thanks. If you want send me your Cubase project and I'll have a look, send it via PM if you don't want it out here publicly.

 

Just a quick note to say "Many thanks for the guide!!". I've just bought a Mikro and that's pretty much how I envisage using it at this stage and, well, that would have been an absolute nightmare to try to and work out on my own and I'm not sure I could have even managed it.

Tbh, it's still a nightmare although I imagine it gets easier with repetition and only adding one thing at a time rather than a whole project. Still, without creating a Cubase template that I can at least start with each time and refer to in future, I'd be lost. My thanks again!

 

Hi, I'm starting to use Maschine (MK1) as a controller for Cubase (10.5) and checking tutorials I found a couple that talk about this integration process. Following all the steps I can record and I can listen to 1 MIDI track without problems, really nice to record drums, of course more confortable than my midi keyboard. But when I try to repeat the process adding a 2nd MIDI track, even I can record I can't listen to the sounds. I see the midi notes recorded but no sound came from them. This is the video I followed . . if you can watch to it, you'll notice at 6'34" that he doesn't get any sound from the 2nd midi track neither..any help will be really aprecciated!

 

I didn't watch the full video but Jeffs 2nd MIDI track is the drums and they are playing while he is recording the Chords at 6:35 to MIDI track 3.

Recheck all your settings.

 

If you pay extremely attention, the 2nd track doesn't sound, it plays but you just hear the 1st track, the kick and snare, the hihats of the 2nd track aren't sounding at all.
But, as I put in other post; problem is solved. If you want to record more than one drum kit you always have to use Midi channel 1 to record and play, and once recorded you have to change it to any of the other 15 to continue recording drum kits. This don't happen if you record another instruments.

 

Ohh I see... I guess it's because for some reason he splits his drums into two Groups so has to use the same MIDI channel for both, which creates the problem, I would just give the 2 Group with drums a different channel rather than dealing with switching all the time but if that works for you than great!

 

Solved that one but another problem appeared..When I record a new midi track, for example, following Jef'svideo I record 2 drum kits ( as I said now I can hear both tracks) and once I record the 3rd one, a pad, the notes of the pad are interrupted by the notes of the previous recorded tracks. Like there is a "choke" assignement or like the polyphony weren't enough. It's like the new track were sidechained with the others midi tracks. I`m recording using Maschine Hardware in Cubase, I tried using a normal keyboard midi controller and no problem there, so this is related to the pads in Maschine. Any clue?

 

My guess is it's related to the previous issue, if things are not on unique midi channels they will interfere with each other, this is why I would advise on setting up everything properly without resorting to using workarounds.
Upload an example zipped Cubase project if you want and I'll have a look.