iMeh-schine...

So i bought it and played around with it...

Maschine is fantastic for sampling, chopping and laying down a beat in an instant...

so where is the chop functionality? it would be so dope to chop your samples up on the go... so that you can load it up at home or in the studio and build from there.

another major disappointment is the fx section... i would trade them all in for only 3: eq, compression and/or limiter and reverb. to me those are the 3 most essential fx for making beats, the rest is extra.

what's probably not possible but would be awesome is the ability to sample the internal ipod. soundflowerish... but that's wishfull thinking... just give me an limiter and reverb and i'm good

now it's just, ok... nice to play around with once in a while... nothing special. please make it special

 

Maschine will be only as "special" as you are, and since you are not "special" maschine will not get used and you will probably never find out, that there is a big chapter on sampling and slicing for hardware and software, that starts on page 185-205.

 

wow, didn't expect immature trolling here.. first of all you don't know **** about me, my music or my knowledge of Maschine. second of all, i'm not talking about maschine, i'm talking about iMaschine.

So you played yourself twice. Good job!

Moving along, anyone else feeling the same way about iMaschine? It has alot of competition and adding a chop function (splitting a loop into 16 chops would suffice), reverb and compressor would make a big difference, especially considering the price and Maschine integration.

 

@Faster, totally unnecessary comment there. If you don't have something constructive to say then don't say anything at all, dig? It would behoove you to read all of the OP's question. He was asking about the Maschine iPhone app.


@Bagoftrix, I personally like iMaschine, but really only for the feature of being able to sketch out beat ideas when I'm not at home (work, grocery store, dentist, vacation, whatever).

I feel you on the FX though...they could be better. However, I just use some reverb here and there and wait until I can export to Big Maschine to fully flesh out a project. Sample chopping on iMaschine would be crazy awesome, but I'm content with where the app is at this point...especially for just $4.99

 

@VinnieTreux true, i only played around with what came along with it, guess when i add some own sounds and really get into it i will love it more, i just love compressing kits and make it bang and go all out with chops... still can, just need to do the chopping before i leave lol

 

As far as I'm concerned I'll be making the beats 'bang' when I finish them on Big Maschine. iMaschine is for coming up with little ideas, which it is good for.

 

+1

 

There is not much use for iMaschine unless you have Maschine, which should be the number one thing people take into account on whether or not they want to pick it up. For a $5 app, I think it works pretty decent, as a companion component to Maschine (I expect that we'll start to see NI give out free download codes with retail versions of Maschine, or perhaps with the next expansion that comes out).

I've sketched out four beats using it already, and the ease of portability between the two platforms couldn't be much easier, unless you could just access your project from its folder automatically and have it sync'ed to your projects folder every time you plugged your iPhone in, or always be automatically updating a copy via wi-fi when that's available.

I would like to see a pattern arrangement view added hopefully one that is more user friendly than beatmachine 2's interface (although the iPad version is easier to use because of the increased screen size). I agree with the poor FX section comment as well (prefab FX combos? Yes please). But I don't need it to be a full fledged handheld version of Maschine. I love the keyboard layout, its very intuitive, although I would like to see more sound shaping for the instrument patches.

A PDF Manual would be nice, too.

 

its an iPhone app...

Seriously what did you expect?

In my opinion I'd rather have them focus on the real Maschine software rather a iPhone App. Waste of resources and time.

 

I agree. If NI gave the 5 dollar iMaschine all the features of the $500 Maschine, who would buy the flagship product? But I digress...

 

you all have valid points, but i don't think a slicing section, reverb and/or limiter aren't that big of a deal. it's not like asking for a complete maschine in my pocket.

a very basic chopping function, for example with only the option to split your loop into 16 equal parts, would be awesome. you can further finetune the chops on his big brother, but quickly breaking down a loop and go nuts with the chops on the go, i'd love that.

 

lovely word bro. this word is not used enough

 

It's not an either or thing. NI likely hired a separate team of iOS developers to make iMaschine.

 

I agree with the requests. Would love to see what more they can/will do with iMaschine. I have enough hardware that the full Maschine is not for me. But a powerfull skethpad/looper/inspiration starter- that is perfect. And another thought- they now have access to millions of IOS users who may just put down the $5 to play around with it- they are not going to be the ones investing in Maschine. NI was smart- they can now offer addon's for cheap and get it into the hands of many. Imagine all those iPod Touch kids who get this app with their Christmas iTunes cards, buy all the expansions- and come out with some great beats. Great educational tool at the minimum. Huge income potential for NI at most.

 

in the meantime i had quite some time to check it out...

not being able to change the timing correction is very annoying, the expansions are very weak (the sounds are very focused on the project songs they're a part of, instead of giving us usable instruments) and to not be able to edit start and ending points of samples/instruments is probably the biggest flaw.

i have fun playing around with it, but to make something really dope with it, you need to preproduce the hell out of some dope sounds, import them and whip something up with it. but that kinda misses the point. you want to create something basic but dope and flesh it out at home. with it being focused on instrumentation, drums and recording, it completely ignores the reason me (and alot of people probably) love maschine so much, the sampling part.

i'd rather throw out the whole recording thing, and give me a few basic sample editing options, so i can play around with some chops, lay down a bassline, a lead, and drums. 4 groups, potentially a great beat.

so my opinion has basically stayed the same... hopefully they give us 1 or 2 more features in the sample department, it would make alot of beatmakers happy i think.

and please, when selling kits, think about usability! no producer wants a synth instrument thats 4 different chords played after eachother, give us the sound and let us play our own chords. especially since we cant make it cut off or start at a different point.

ok i'll stop now lol

 

Something I think they should do to make it into a really usable tool for sketching out ideas (I might even make another feature request for it) is to make the factory sample library compatible with imaschine. iPhone has plenty of disk space to accommodate it and if it's a question of compatibility there must be a way to include a feature into maschine "save kit/instrument as imaschine version".

Like I say for it to be a useful sketch pad tool for me, I need access to the sounds I would usually have access to. (it's the same reason I've requested 24bit support).

 

It's not Maschine

Seems like what you guys are looking for is a $5 usd version of Mashine. While I'll be the first to say there are some valid points especially the synth chords (?) and no reverb (?) and the lack of ability to set start or end points. Yet are we forgetting... it's a 'SKETCH PAD"? It's really not intended to be an instrument of it's own.

I suspect the lot of you, once you play around with it, will find ways to over come the limitations like 32 bars and no song sequence (?) but at the same time I realize this is a sketch pad to catch an idea on the fly and finish up once your at Maschine. I think that is what is putting people off... It's an extension of Maschine not a dumbed down version of Maschine. In other words, NI didn't release an instrument. But if you guys take a listen to what me and my friends are doing on Facebook iMaschine users group. You may just get inspired!

I put a link to a mix of compiled of tracks done entirely on iMaschine. Mix was done using Traktor... even with limitation, "Lyfe wyll fynd Away".

 

Like i said in my previous post, for it to be a usable and useful sketch pad tool (i.e for me to be able to start ideas i can then continue in my home studio) i need access to the sounds i would normally use. For me this means the access to the factory library and my own sample library. I don't think that is beyond the scope of the iMaschine...

 

for me, starting with a sketch is finding a sample, chopping it and make a basic beat, that's what i would like to be able to do. who wants to record vocals? nobody uses machine for that, it's not a daw... so they aim at maschine users, but forget what maschine users use maschine for? ok not completely, but a little

 

I suggest NI develop an iMaschine "Pro" version of the app. You can tell by it's features that some things were omitted intentionally(number of bars, tracks, instruments). i am assuming it would not take very long to add these basic features if not more, like start/end points, HD screen for example For the folks who want to do more with the app vs the hardware, you could have the option to purchase this version, along with as many expansion sounds as your ipad storage space will allow. i would personally pay $50-75 for this level of functionality on my ipad. It wouldn't probably cost NI that much to implement because the features were most likely already there to begin with, but it was limited to be a "sketchpad".

I really like this app, it is way more fun and sounds MUCH better than the iOS apps out now...but sadly, no where near as capable as a workstation...but then again, it was never billed as one.