Is this common across all Maschine hardware?

What's good people?

I've had my Maschine for a few months now and find it really, really good. Before this I had (still have) an MPC 500 so the difference between the 2 overwhelmed me.

I have a few issues with my hardware and I thought I'd see if these are common problems or unique for me before I contacted tech support.

1) Sometimes when touching knobs the value will jump to the minimum immediately. I've tried ****ing with the sensitivity but no matter the setting it still happens. Before it wasn't an issue but the more I get into automation the more I need this NOT to happen.

2) About 90% of the samples which came with Maschine have duplicated themselves (i.e. when browsing kicks, it'll be 'Kick70s DnB1, Kick70s DnB1').

3) Auto-normalization. Evem my metronome will quieten sounds when recording. This surely shouldn't happen?

Apart from these minor issues I absolutely love the Maschine and find it really easy to use.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your replies.

Peace

EDIT: I should also add, when I exported my first beat I selected normalize and then when I re-entered said project, everything was normalized and ****ed up on playback. I would have assumed that only the exported beat would have been normalized and not the project itself? From now on, I use a limiter as a master effect instead of normalizing.

 

Not sure what you mean by auto normalization. Could you explain more clearly? If your sounds are peaking into the red on the meter then they may be clipping. Back off the sound volumes until the audio peak meter at the top is not in the red. Turn your amp or soundcard volume up if you need more volume for monitoring. Did you put a compressor or limiter on one of the Maschine group or master slots?

Did you buy used? The encoders may be abused or just dusty. try pulling the caps off and blowing the dust out. If it is under warranty then contact support. You can also try updating Maschine to the latest.

The duplicate entries are probably due to saving projects with samples in your user folder. Try saving projects with samples to another location. Also try going to your user locations in preferences and doing a rescan. Make sure you are using the latest version of Maschine and unplug the controller and any other NI hardware prior to running the update.

 

Thanks for the replies guys.

I may have used incorrect terminology for what's happening with my sounds, when I say auto-normalizing I mean for example: I record a kick on the 1 and 3 and listen to it. Then I record a snare on 2 and 4 and the volume of the kick reduces. I always set the master volume at about half way and have my amp volume up so I know it's not clipping. If I delete the snare then the volume of the kick goes back to how it was.

There are no effects selected when this occurs at any level.

I bought my Maschine brand new and I'm up-to-date with all updates.

@Justin. When I say sounds crappy, I mean my background plays for 2 bars extremely loud at the start of the project I exported and then when the bass and drums kick in, the background drops to barely audible and the bass will be stupidly loud. I only hit normalize when I was exporting to experiment but when i entered the saved project, what I've just described, happens upon playback.

I may have to contact tech support as, although I'm no pro, this shouldn't happen and the knobs issue is really annoying.

Thanks again
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And as for the duplicate samples I assumed as Maschine recommends and prompts you to save your projects in the user directory then it wouldn't save any used samples again. I'll move everything elsewhere and see if the problem persists.

Actually, I haven't used that many stock drum hits (as I said roughly 90% are duplicated) so maybe it isn't that.

I think I'll delete and re-install and see what happens, either way it's a ball ache.

 

If you are not out of headroom in the Maschine software and have no effects then you are out of headroom on your soundcard mixer or external amp. The effect you are describing is what happens during compression/limiting or when you are driving your output to hard somewhere in the chain. Try turning your Maschine master volume back to zero. Solo the kick and snare separately and turn down the sound volume of the individual pads so the kick is not in the red then the snare etc. Then turn your amp down to a volume your speakers can handle. If this does not solve it then it is something between your soundcard and speakers.

Further, turning your master down more than -3 is a bad idea and just plain the wrong way to go about setting up gain staging. Leave it at zero so you have a proper reference. You may have turned the individual sounds up to compensate for the low master volume and are clipping at the source.

 

OK cool. Main thing is though, by the sound of what you're saying, it isn't a hardware issue, well not an NI hardware issue.

I'll give it a go. Plus, I'm getting a mac book pretty soon so that could iron out this issue also.

How about the knob sensitivity issue I descibed? Have you experienced this or do you know if any other cats on here have mentioned it? If I go to tweak a knob, occasionally, the volume (for example) will turn all the way left/down. This is obviously annoying but when trying to automate it ****ing sucks!

I really appreciate your help B.

 

I have seen and experienced the knob issue myself. I cleaned the knobs with compressed air and turned my fan from blowing on it. No longer have that. It can be a defective hardware issue or dust. Not sure if the Mac hardware drivers are more prone to this either.

For the duplicates, Maschine will not save samples with projects unless you tell it to with the save with samples option. This is where you might be getting duplicate samples. If you do not save project with samples then you should start and save them to a different location.

The other thing that can happen is if you save individual sounds or kits. These will not save new samples but the kits and sounds are saved to a user location and will show in the browser in addition to the factory originals. Maschine saves files to a user location separate from the factory content to prevent you from overwriting the factory library.

 

I also experienced this issue. As far as i have seen this is no hardware issue - it happened even with my new maschine i have bought one month ago. Its a bug, but happily i found a workaround! When u encounter this strange behaviour, simply switch to step sequencer mode and back again. Afterwards everything should be fine again! Tell me if this also works for you...

 

I had knobs problem i think it's a bug it can appear when update is done

Thx jaygroove for the tip i will try next time.....

 

this also happens to me! knobs sometimes act weird... since first day.
i will try jaygroove's nasty workaround. thanks.
some time ago i requested a feature. knob sensitivity configuration, just like pad sensitivity configuration.
they are (for my taste) very sensible, i would like that knobs have acceleration (like mouse pointer: when you move it slowly, it moves slowly, when you accel, it moves faster.)
sorry for my engrish

 

+1
We should be able to tune the sensitivity and the knob resolution. You can change the resolution for knobs in the controller editor but not globally for the software. Knob edits are too course unless you use shift every time you adjust.

I also wonder if opening the controller editor after an update and making adjustments to sensitivity may help with the jumpy knob issue? I now opening the control editor can prevent some cases of midi mode crashing.

 

do you notice more stability while controler editor is opened?

 

just try step sequencer next time when this happens, for me it was gone afterwards. but of course that doesnt mean that it couldn't occur once again in the current session. but after switching it worked normally again at least for an hour or so

+1 for the knob sensitivity settings..

as i have understood: the controller editor is only used when maschine is operated in midi mode, isnt it?

 

Controller editor should not be open while using the software. Just saying to fire it up at least once after updating or installing.