Integrate an iPad into the maschine software

Due to the arrival of the Mpc touch ,live ,X and the toraiz touch screens seem to be where it's going , it may be against the maschine ethos but I was wondering if there where any plans about adding them to maschine, tho I know you can't tell me, I thought maybe it would be easier if you could make a iPad workable gui view for the software , I use duet display which lets the iPad act as a screen for my Mac ,it's not optimised for use in maschine but it's still handy for changing scene and selecting patterns and it could be so much better

 

Or maybe somthing like logic remote, not full control over the software, just some bits like , the arranger /piano roll ,scene/pattern select , sample editor ,browser . Like a third screen for the studio , with touchscreen.

 

Actually everything done on the Jam could have been done through the iPad, and a lot more people would have paid a fair price for that
software.

The only trouble is the Maschine software doesn't lend itself to non-maschine hardware. Unlike the Ableton Live, there's no learn mode, so you can't use your existing midi hardware to control the other parameters of the software. I guess this leaves the door open for other Maschine add-on's.

What i would really like to see, is a way to start a project which doesn't require you to set tempo, or set BPM's or set bar lenght. This is about the preparation before you start a beat, which often dictates what you play and how. If Maschine could find a way to make this more organic, then in my opinion, this would fundamentally change how the Maschine is used. Sure you need tempo and bars etc, but the software could add this later, after you've recorded your core idea directly from the pads. This would be innovation.

In my ideal world, you press record, which would only start recording when you pressed the first pad. After you'd played for a while you would press stop. Then you would review to find the best bits to loop. That chunk of midi would become the first pattern, the rest you could discard. Then you would decide if that was one bar, or two, or four etc. Once you entered the number of bars, the software would work out the BPM, which you could adjust up or down. Finally if you wanted to add quantize you could apply that to a key sound, or the entire group.

Imagine how many people you could reach with that idea of the organic approach. A none technical approach to creating the next sound.

 

I get where you're coming from and, particularly with the first sentence, I agree and really wish the MIDI implementation was better in this regard. However, the rest of this quote is simply false. Maschine has MIDI (CC) learn for all modulatable parameters.

This is not to say that there aren't massive holes in this feature though e.g., MIDI channel is ignored (meaning only 128 CC messages per project), no way to use it as a template/script between projects e.g., for levels regardless of project, no remote output to drive controllers with feedback e.g., LED rings, auto-write does not work when controlling the parameter via MIDI.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the 'learn' external controller feature. I eventually found what i was after in this vid.
check from about 9:00

 

I'm hoping that NI saw the video for the new standalone touchscreen Akai offerings and decided to just go for it. They have solid interfaces, great controllers, amazing software. Why not just throw the entire K11Ultimate bundle into their standalone Maschine box with a 10" touchscreen? Only go a bit better than Akai and release something with a decent internal drive (more than 16gigs), add more than 1/4gig RAM, and I think lots of people would migrate.

 

Already, the touch screen for a future maschine studio seems inevitable. And can be more direct control with the addition of knobs or additional buttons for more comfort. For a standalone version I think we can wait a while ...

 

You're probably correct. In the interim, many of us will get an MPC or the Toraiz SP-16, despite both lacking the amazing sonic palette of Maschine.

 

Maschine would gain to be more autonomous, for my part I find that we are still too dependent on the keyboard and the mouse and the workflow is affected. Ultimately, it would be necessary to be able to do without the keyboard and the mouse, maschine must go in this direction.

 

I have Studio alongside the K, and I find that I only need the keyboard/mouse when life gets busy & I spend too much time away from the control surface. Once I'm re-familiarized, I can close the laptop and just work within the box. Still, the workflow doesn't seem as fast as touching the screen could be, for certain processes.

 

There are surface pros and pc's with touch screens already on the market which can run the existing software, the trouble is the typical program like maschine or live isn't designed to exploit those devices, unlike the iPad where it's apps has touch control of parameters in mind from the getgo.

 

It would be pretty cool but I don't see this happening, ever.
It would decrease the already low sales of Jam, currently the plan seems to be to keep adding hardware devices to complement each other in a very closed ecosystem and have a bunch of exclusive features and control only when inside that same NI ecosystem.

 

It just a matter of time before someone finds a way to implement the jam features on an ipad app and have that device communicate with the maschine software. If NI doesn't do this someone else will.

Still there is always imaschine's export feature.

 

Without NI opening Maschine up or helping a 3rd party out (in terms of the code or just legally), I wouldn't expect this to ever happen.

 

NI could produce an IDE or some kind of moderated open source program - that said there are developers exploring the hardware interface which might be a route into the software. The alternative would be an app which just exploited the sound library.

But yeah, given how slow NI seems to be on developments, I don't see this happening any time soon. It's really down to NI to take the initiative. New tools for the job, interesting new approaches to get the job done, a bit of outside the box thinking, that's what's called for.

 

Exactly. And I can barely imagine them doing that. Maybe they'll surprise us all though.