iMaschine sounds great, except...

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?p=819666#post819666

Besides onboard mic, you can use things like iRig, Apogee Jam, iODock...etc. and any class compliant USB audio interface and mics via the camera connection kit.

 

How come they pushed the release date back?I was so hyped on the release date of today://///

 

So we can all indulge in idle speculation I presume

 

Wow, i missed that. I actually woke up today and went straight to the app store for it, doh!

STRATEGY

 

i don't have an iPad anyway so I'm keen as for it and the demo beats on the NI site that have been made in iMaschine are dope i can't wait for it

 

Release date is likely pushed back until after the next revision to iOS is released? (Apple have an iPhone event coming this week).

I'm really hoping for an iMaschine Controller app for the iPad in the future, that would do it for me over this release.

 

I've been spending a lot of time in the last several weeks trying to get a handle on using Puredata/Processing to build better TouchOSC templates for my iPad with more visual feedback than the stock TouchOSC interface elements can provide (for everything I use, but in particular Maschine, which I've only had for about a month).

I'm starting to run up against roadblocks there, and I guess the alternative is building an interface/app in something like Kivy? I'm not sure. Anyway, since it became clear that NI isn't thinking of iMaschine as a secondary controller (at least initially), I've resolved to try to beat NI to the punch on this one. I'd love to end up with (among other things) a touchable waveform display (both for sample management/slicing, and possibly even on-the-fly glitchy granular synthesis type stuff), but Maschine doesn't have an API so I'm not even sure if it's possible to get that data out of the software.

But I'll absolutely let you all know whenever I manage to finish anything. If any other Maschine nerds happen to be devs (I'm a big geek but a terrible programmer) and might be interested in working together or are perhaps already working on something similar, I'd love to hear from you.

 

How about Control?
http://charlie-roberts.com/Control/

 

Helloooooo CSS.

Thank you, sir, BRB.

 

Some of that went woosh over my head, but god bless you.

I support what I think you're trying to do I'm not a dev but am experienced in QA and can help if you need it as I have an iPad and Maschine

STRATEGY

 

I'll definitely post anything I make that's worth using. A Maschine (hardware controller) wouldn't even be necessary for the simplest implementation (although using them in tandem gives me interesting ideas). Just an iSomething or Android device and the Maschine software.

If you have an iPad, or a Nexus S (or another 4 inch WVGA Android touchscreen: see this page), those are the devices I own and the screen sizes/resolutions I'll be best able to write for/test.

I don't really even like using my phone for this sort of thing, I just want to try it with Android because Control apparently works just as well there as on iOS. I'm not sure how much time/effort I'll want to put into other screen sizes/resolutions. It depends on how well it turns out and if other people decide they want to get involved, I suppose.

 

This is super basic, I only have it working with Maschine running as a VST in Live, and it would have taken a fraction of the time to build in the TouchOSC editor rather than writing and rewriting a bunch of JavaScript.

Still, I think it's worth investing some time in, as Control is way more extensible than I could ever imagine TouchOSC being (I have visions of a future where I may never need to switch to step mode on the Maschine controller again). Thanks for the heads up, noiserot.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq3ol46EsNw"]NI Maschine x Control for iPad - YouTube[/ame]

When I listened to the video on my phone then again on my computer you could hear the sounds when I play them on the Maschine controller just fine. Something happened when YouTube re-encoded it and now you mostly hear my fingers hitting the pads. At least I didn't use the take where I cleared my throat.

As I mention in the video, the kit is AlfabetStreet in one of the vinyl packs from the awesome HelloSamples.

 

Nice! What do you have in mind for the step mode?

I thnk a step mode on the iPad where you can see multiple sounds at once would be very useful for a lot of people, like the step sequencers in apps like Molten. In fact, that's what I would have requested for iMaschine.

 

Exactly. I'm envisioning a 16xN grid that refreshes itself depending on context. If I understand correctly, between Max and Control it's not terribly difficult to refresh the interface elements on the fly, so in this instance you could have a 2 bar scene with an eighth note grid (16soundsX16steps) and switch to a 4 bar scene with a 32nd note grid (16soundsX128steps) all on one Control page.

It'd be really difficult/impossible to use: the pad of my index finger is 1.5cm wide, let's say we make the toggles 1cm. An iPad in landscape view only has 19.5 cm of usable space, and you have to factor in margins and separators for the toggles. 16 wide is easy. 32 probably wouldn't be too bad. Trying to fit 128 into a (hypothetically) 18cm wide area leaves you with 0.14cm slivers to attempt to hit accurately. But I want to see if it's possible to implement, then usability can be addressed.

This guy has been successful in loading Maschine as a VST in Max and using his Maschine hardware to control a Jitter patch. He hasn't posted a video in months, I'm going to attempt to get in touch with him and find out if he made any more progress, and if he's game, pick his brain about what other issues he's run into and any solutions he's found.

It's really a bummer that Maschine doesn't have a proper MIDI mapping mode. At this point it looks like anyone who uses this is going to have to set up all their own macros, which is no fun. I keep encountering ideas that seem really straightforward but end up requiring just as much time configuring Maschine to receive the notes/CCs as it does to write the JSON files to get Control to send them.

I'm also having a lot more success with all of this when I host Maschine as a VST in Live. That's fine, and that's what I'd end up doing in a performance context anyway, but I like using Maschine as a standalone when I'm just getting started on an idea. Then again, I'm doing all of this on a normal, network connected user account; not even using an ad-hoc network. So I guess I should keep my complaints to myself until I'm reasonably certain that I'm not the source of the problems.

Anyway, I had half an idea last night for a dedicated Group volume/mute/solo page, and then it occurred to me that Max would be able to record that input, which could mean even more sophisticated automation than is currently possible in Maschine. I think I'm going to work on that next and see where it takes me.

 

You might want to check out LiveControl (which became part of Griid). It did exactly what we're talking about for Live and it was still very useable when I tried it on the tiny screen of my iPhone at the time.

Thanks for pointing that out. I've been meaning to explore options for sequencing video with Maschine. I was looking at Resolume but I'm sure you can get more freaky with Jitter.

Anyway, yeah, adhoc network is much much faster than regular wifi.

 

If you don't already have a license, this summer Cycling74 dropped the full Max/MSP/Jitter price including a free upgrade to Max 6, which they just started posting videos about.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrzwTyECsmI"]Max 6 Sneak Peek: Usability - YouTube[/ame]

Upcoming videos to include

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Also

I remember using LiveControl a while ago, at the time I was much more interested in building OSC templates for specific use cases. Since then I've used TouchAble quite a lot. I think I'll have a look at the details of the LiveControl patch, though.

Despite the fact that my primary (and really only) DAW is Live, I like to use Maschine on it's own, I'm interested in trying out things like renoise, or just using a few apps like modular pieces and tracking out without all the extra trimmings that come along with any DAW; I want whatever I make to work with Live but I don't want live to be a required condition for it to exist.

On the other hand, there aren't a lot of tools like Live with APIs and tie-ins to Max that also have the UI of a high-end audio suite.

 

Yup. I'm the same way. I actually no longer use Live as a production tool thanks to Maschine (my main DAW is Logic). I also sometimes use renoise because I find it to be the best for sequencing intricate stuff and have the Renoise sequencer synced as a slave to Maschine (always in standalone) via the virtual MIDI port.

 

By the way, if you're using Renoise, check out these templates by a fellow user aksn:

Renoise MIDI template for Maschine:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?p=617201#post617201

newer Duplex template:
http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?/topic/26974-duplex-092/page__view__findpost__p__212385