Maschine, Ableton, Midi, Keyboard - Help!

Hi guys

I'm not sure if what I'm wanting to do is even possible or not but I would like to think it is. Have tried searching here, there and everywhere but couldn't find a solution.

I've followed the various tutorials and Youtube vids and eventually used Feerlyss' template (which is great). Things start to go wrong when I try to use my X-Station to play instruments from various groups.

Things are fine when I restrict a set up to Maschine vst with a kit and one instrument over two Groups. It seems to work as I'd like, but what I'm hoping to achieve is to have a kit on Group A, and anything up to Groups B-H mostly instruments, possibly another kit, all able to be played via keyboard (though not at the same time of course!) and all able to playback at the same time. Midi from all of this keyboard playing to be recorded into tracks within Live and then each of the groups to then be driven by Live's tracks simultaneously upon playback leaving me to be able to switch between groups on the Maschine hardware, twiddle encoders, overdub in Live or record new midi clips.

I only ever seem to be able to get one Group to trigger sound at a time on play back. Is it even possible to have Live drive the midi for all 8 groups at the same time? Just to be clear, I know how to route audio between Maschine & Ableton, it's this particular midi part that starts to fall to pieces. Manuals haven't helped to hopefully someone here can offer up some advice.

It's not the end of the world if I can't get this working - I can always resort to either working within the Maschine arranger or jsut sticking to midi tracks in Live but it would be useful for my set up to be able to achieve this. Maybe 2.0 will make things easier or achievable?

 

Have you setup the "midi batch" settings for each group? Also have you setup the individual midi channel settings for each pad within each group?

Chapter 4.10 in the manual covers it (entitled "Sound Midi Options"). It's best to have them routed to Abletons "External Instrument" device, as this can handle both the midi and the audio of each track from Maschine.

 

I'll try the external instruments route. I have Maschine set up correctly, I'm fairly certain of that, it's just when I select my x-station via Live's I/O section as an input something goes wrong.

I know my x-station's midi channel. This is selected in I/O. The Maschine midi in per I/O is the same as the Midi batch selection. Just nothing plays! I think it will be one of those that I'll end up mucking about with things for however long and then all of a sudden it will just magically work and I'll not know what I did!!!

 

If your just using the x station as a controller keyboard (and not as a synth) you shouldn't have to set anything up other than enabling it in the midi part of Abletons preferences. It will then play whichever track you have armed in Live. Then as long as you have routed Mashines groups correctly into separate midi tracks (or External Instrument tracks for convenience) in Live then your keyboard will play the sounds from Maschine when you "arm" the appropriate track.

I think for it work properly when recording, you also have to select the corresponding group in Maschine as well as arming the appropriate track in Ableton.

 

In a nutshell, that's what I'd expect to happen too but unfortunately not the case. And yes, Im just using the x-station as a controller. The synth engine has been turned off. I can play any other midi instruments with no bother, working just as expected, it's only when it comes to Maschine that I have problems.

I must be missing something obvious so will build a template from the ground up rather than use the Feerlyss template. Just to confirm, is it possible for 8 midi clips in Live to be routed in a way to play 8 groups within Maschine vst simultaneously? If I know it is definitely possible then I will certainly make the effort to try and get this working. If it isn't, I can make do with my current template that only utilises 2 groups.

 

Yes, it's perfectly possible as long as you've correctly routed each group to separate midi channels in "midi batch" setup and have also routed each pad inside each group to the same midi channel that you did in batch setup (and set the key range for the pad to cover the whole keyboard range) and also as long as you have a separate midi track in Ableton for each of the groups you are using, routed to the same Maschine midi channel that you setup for the group (and pad inside the group).

 

Also, you don't need to use a template to do this. It can all be done in standard Maschine mode.

 

As in Standalone mode? I could do it that way but I'd prefer the option to sequence in Live. That will probably become less of an issue with 2.0 and its midi import feature though.

I'll start from scratch tonight and will try a blank slate and will see how I get on. I must be missing something obvious and will just work through it all methodically.

Thanks for the help so far though, really is appreciated.

 

Managed to get this working as planned. Not sure what the issue was in the end but going down the External Instrument route within Live seems to have worked a treat and things are working exactly as I had hoped. Now to integrate the Octatrack and other hardware...