How to fix Maschine's broken workflow once and for ALL.

I’ve been coming in this forum for years and people are still complaining about the same things. There are too many hoops to jump through to do the simplest things that are possible in a DAW.



Maschine is a pattern sequencer and is different from a DAW, I get that, but NI’s post about “an update on the future of the sequencer” looks to be the completely wrong approach. Instead of adding yet another layer of complexity to the process, they should just fix what is lacking underneath.



You can keep the scenes and pattern workflow as a “starting point” for a complete song without changing anything, but also:



1. Allow the ability to drag and drop anything and anywhere with the mouse. Add a parameter to the pattern menu for POSITION menu on the controller. (Position on the timeline).



2. Add a switch to loop the pattern or not.



3. Allow multiple patterns per group, per scene, to easily allow for unique patterns/fills every 4 bars for example



These 3 things would, in effect make the sequencer fully linear with no apologies. Ableton live has both scenes and linear, Maschine should also.



Next, DAW integration. It is a tremendous pain to set up all of the transposition and routing properly per sound and per group. All of this stuff is still turned OFF for some reason. It comes ON with the MPC touch. With that platform everything you edit automatically already works when you drag the pattern into the DAW. MIDI notes are mapped to pads.



What’s worse is the routing and transposition is lost every time you load a factory group, so that tedious process has to be repeated.



“Our goal with this next milestone is that you will do more arranging inside of Maschine, exporting longer parts or stems of the entire arrangement into a DAW, which is then more or less only used for recording audio tracks and mastering the full song.”



That is arrogant. NI should have the humility to understand and admit that many users don’t want to use the sequencer at all. No matter how good a plugin is, some of us want to have all of our instruments, audio and drums organized in ONE PLACE.



They are also talking about “new features” like linked scenes, and with “one button” those patterns can be made unique. I don’t know when Logic Pro introduced region aliases, and the ability to make real copies out of them, but I would wager that it was well over 15 years ago.



So this is cutting edge technology for them to introduce, and it is only one out of many features like automation that other DAWs have had for decades. The automation in machine is primitive in comparison.



I don’t want to do more arranging inside of Maschine, I want the option to do NO arranging inside of Maschine. Battery is a great sampler, but it doesn’t have a nice controller that has the deep embedded functionality of Maschine.



The Machine controller needs to send MIDI out to the DAW, while at the same time allowing us to edit envelopes, loops, LFOs, all of those parameters and not have to toggle back and forth to a MIDI mode.



So, basically, there should be an option to DISABLE the sequencer completely for the people who do everything inside the DAW.



We would like to have the least convoluted and fastest workflow possible for all situations. I believe the above covers it all.

 

Amen.

 

This! Also the ability to drag the loop per channel/over lapping scenes. With the ability to have different sizes of patterns. I make ambient in mashine, I'd like more control over the size and start/end points if my patterns with groups being independent.

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Yes, I'll take it one step further and say that the SCENE unit itself just gets in the way in some situations and should have the option of being turned off. No scenes at all, just put patterns wherever you want. Sounds revolutionary.

 

Exactally, I don't need to use a daw when I have a linear squencer that I can create punch ins with, if I want to record live audio I can over dub with a real daw.

 

Well said, indeed. Some of your comments have stirred up my recent thoughts about Maschine.

That would entail another re-write like 2.0 was so the song layer seems like an attempt to avoid that. I remain very skeptical as to whether the song layer will rejuvenate my need or desire for anything Maschine offers as a stand alone tool.

Definitely an amen to this. Since I've just about given up on Maschine as a stand alone song making tool, this is now probably my biggest pet peeve with it. I own hundreds upon hundreds of NI drum kits that are essentially useless to me in Ableton Live as "kits". I've found uses for the individual samples elsewhere, but I find it very unfortunate that I cannot use NI's kits as kits properly in any environment besides Maschine in stand alone. I mean using the kits inside maschine is just fine and dandy if that's your thing, but certainly not me because of the other shortcomings noted .

Automation is the other aspect of maschine that just continues to push me further away from it. As much as I hate to say it, the automation in maschine is just plain awful . What bothers me most is that automation being such an essential element to modern music production, yet it just seems that NI continues to ignore it or focus their resources on trying fix other things. Even if the song layer is revolutionary, I still think Maschine will be very "primitive" for me as you say mainly due to its poor automation capabilities.

I agree . I've found myself more recently trying to exploit (or salvage) maschine for anything besides arranging. Things like using it as a midi input in Live for its chord sets and scales in keyboard mode, and sometimes as a sound source or browsing tool. Sometimes I don't even need (or want) to use patterns inside maschine. Its sad that its come to that, but its reality for me.


I'd like to note that I really do like NI as a company and truly enjoy many of their other products other than Maschine ( e.g Reaktor, Traktor, .etc) However, Maschine is the one product I was really excited about when I got into it about a year and half ago, and now I just find it unfortunate to see where it is in terms of development (even with the beta in progress)

 

Yeah, they should re-write it, once and for all so it will never have to be done again. It's what should have been done in 2.0.

A good indicator of success is when the forum has mostly feature requests, and not complaints.

 

I agree with everything you say, however song layer is not the wrong approach, it's perfectly logical. If you use Geist for instance that does something similar it works great. Again though agree with the rest esp an option to turn off the sequencer. All of what you say though isn't an "instead", it's an "in addition" however...and of course they don't need to rewrite it to do all this, these are enhancements and new features that should have happened long ago.

Anyway see you in 2018 for more of the same.

 

I agree everything you say.

What will happen when/if audio tracks added to maschine?
Then we'll need comping. Then we'll need better/sample accurate editing.
Will maschine able to catch Pro Tools with audio editing? I dont think so. Even if, will it be done without the controller? If i'll have to use mouse why would i bother maschine..

I will keep using a DAW. Maschine should be maschine, but in a better way.

 

Nobody is asking Maschine to be a DAW apart form a few crackpots. NI wants it to stay a sequencer and sampler for good reason. However your point is totally valid, the emphasis should be on the controller. That's doesn't mean the mouse workflow can't be improved however or the sequencer can't have an on/off toggle.

 

If only the DEVS truly paid attention and listened. Maschine could be such a killer to work with far above other controllers. The capabilities are all possible with the software and units. Just feels like NI is lazy in the software development department as evident over the last few, long years.
This platform could be so much more fun and painless to use.

 

IMO a lot of the issues with the sequencer arise from the implementation of Scenes. They are too rigid and even after the recent changes, they still feel too constricting.

Imagine for a second that you could turn Scenes OFF. Yes, completely OFF. Then all of a sudden the sequencer becomes an open place for patterns to live in. Just imagine hitting record and printing all your pattern changes freely in the timeline, or moving them around with your mouse for editing....

Wow, I don't know about you but that makes me feel a lot better already!

I am not testing the song layer so I don't know if it is a good solution. But it does seem, as the OP stated, like another complication on top of an already complicated ststem.

 

@robertge
Your post is spot on.
I'd like to give every single point you make a big +1.
Developers would do very well to take your points on board.
Once you've worked with Maschine for a few years they are obvious.
It's internal sequencer totally sucks (apart from the swing implementation which rocks)
Now i just use Maschine as a 16 channel drum synth with Push2 as sequencer. It's just heaven compared to working with Maschine's stodgy little toy sequencer.
Maschine's sequencer reminds me of 'pattern mode' on my old yamaha RS7000 hardware sequencer ... except the RS7k already had a 'song mode', where you can record full length tracks, all your mix automation, mutes, solos etc. It came out in 2001.

At the very least, NI should pull their collective fingers out and make Maschine work effortlessly inside any other DAW ... one simple mode switch that sets all the obvious MIDI ins and audio outs. Really, how hard can that be?

 

Three magic words:

Never. Gonna. Happen.

Sorry, but i think with jam on board, there is no way that the style of sequencing in Maschine will change significantly in the future. Also, a way to turn of the sequenzer will not happen. Jam would be become useless for anyone who uses a DAW if this feature would be implemented. And that will decrease $$$ so, haha, no way. Look where the money's at. Not the loyal customers who sacrifice their rare leisure to give feedback and want to push the product to the next level. It's the kids who want to copy the prevailing music style. Here, buy this expansion kiddo, be the next (put-famous-artists-name-here).

Song layer is the next big workaround, that will be implemented in Maschine, that's what we know. I'm not on board with the beta testing (maybe because i only use the plugin?), but if you take a look at the currend structure of the Maschine workflow, i have serious doubts that this will 'free' the workflow we know. Like in previous versions, there will be new shiny features, which will cripple the workflow in other areas of the software. We all have seen this before.

The problem is the hardware paradigma and the layer system itselfe.

How on earth should all what OP says be possible with not breaking it? And that my fellow NI friends is the biggest disability for the programmers i guess. There is a reason why this all takes ages and is full of bugs. Because they are forced to bend around this paradigma all the time. I can imagine, that the programers have a really hard time to develop ideas, because there are so many dead ends with it.

Don't get me wrong, i also want to see the majority of what OP says implemented, but we have to be realistic. Money rulez.

 

The reason I stopped using Maschine are all listed in the OPs list of points. Before they released Jam I actually saw a light at the end of the tunnel and thought finally NI is on board with its users, then, BAM, here comes JAM. Another item to buy with a software that just isn't right. I have completely resigned myself to the fact that I should have never bought Maschine to start with. NIs other products may be great, I really wanted Komplete but at this point the only reason I pop in here is to see if perhaps a miracle happened and Maschine became the incredible piece of gear we all really want it to be. I haven't even used it as an external controller this year. I don't think I have fired it up twice all year. NI perhaps I am the odd guy out because so many still seem to throw you the cash but my doallars are not going to you and haven't all year. I will continue to pop in from time to time to see how development of Maschine software has changed but in reality I expect nothing to change. Basically I have give up on you. I will give you the benifitnof the doubt and say it is because it just isn't the gear for me but I am not convinced of that. I wish you well but until these points are addressed and a few other niggles corrected you have completely lost me.

 

The lack of progress never ceases to amaze me.. Barring a miracle and an intervention by God we are still going to be discussing these issues till the end of time. Maschine doesn't know where it's going its confused and lost in the fog of software improvements that don't improve anything. Releasing Jam when there's no song mode or velocity about sums up the mess. There's no end game. Or if there is would be good if NI would let us know exactly what it is. Very dissapointed indeed that something with so much potential has been sadly neglected.

 

Maschine used to be able to do this but for some reason they discarded it from 1.8>2.0. I had finally got my workflow nice by 1.8 and now i gotta fart about with scene changes

 

it's pathetic that many of the same feature requests and suggestions have been made to NI for 5 or 8 years or more.

 

Pretty sure we will get an update about what's going on. But the developers are working hard.