Maschine+ (an uninspiring user experience of DAWless Live performance) issues report

First things first: I have my maschine+ for a couple of months now. However I never was a maschine user before. I am a music producer and i play DAWless live sets here and there, well, at least i did before that covid thingie. So i bought myself a Maschine plus considering that it could be a great central part of my setup instead of the digitakt, which i love and had tones of fun with, but after a while i miss some features that this device just can't provide (from time stratching to fx chains and to be stucked to 4 bars only). However, i stepped upon many issues that are making dawless lives with maschine+ just uninspiring.

At first i was amazed of how many possibilities i have now by owning such a piece of gear, but long story short: it appears that it wasn't even made for making long live sets at all. Hear me out: it's great for making tracks and produce music with some quirks tho that still could be related to this approach. But it's useless as a standalone piece for like hour and a half live set.

Even minor things like importing my sample library to maschine+ was so much pain in the ass. It took me whole day to arrange samples (using computer and maschine soft, you can't do it from a standalone device somehow) to at least somehow usable form. Why? It was already sorted in folders, why it can't be just imported like that with those directories? and i wasn't able to find any third party apps or whatever to help do this quicker.

Next i hooked up all my synthesizers and other gear and what did i found? Oh well, there's no midi program change in midi instrument's that are provided with maschine soft. So i started to look up how could i map macros to midi cc messages and the answer was that you just can't without a computer. And i was confused again. I have a standalone device, come on, why is that just exact copy of mk3??? so i made my own custom midi instruments. And guess what, maschine+ doesn't send midi cc program change if it's not motion sequenced when played, but it's so hard to do it right, cause when motion sequencing starts the knob changing appears in percents etc. alright then, gonna change my presets on my gear manually, whatever.

So it's all hooked up, i started to look how it all works. Projects have silence when changing, alright then, gonna have my whole set in one project i thought to myself (how naive i was). By working with Korg, Roland grooveboxes and Elektron (which is more close to M+ because it also stopping the music when changing projects) devices before i was sure that scenes in Maschine then should be kinda same as patterns in digitakt, so i can put different tempo on different scenes. Oh boy i was so wrong, master tempo per project, wtf? i need to manually change tempo from part to part of my live set? it's bizarre, but it didn't ended here. You just can't put this much of samples and fx units (even without using VST's like FM8 and with only just two send FX units) to play the whole live. Ofc if you're not using one drum setup which is definitely not my case, why i would by a god damn sampler to use just one kit for the whole live set? FX don's save their parameters per scene, you need to use additional locks(which also save mutes and sometimes it's so tricky because of that) for that or automation, why?

Alright, we're going somewhere, i found out that even tho it has pauses in between the projects it still sends clock and starts in time, so i can hook up my digitakt and have some drums going from it before projects, but at least i now i don't need to think about cpu overloading. No more sidechain then, but who cares, it's working now at least.

Aight, but what if i wand to use maschine sound engine to process some of my gear, i mean it has audio inputs, and i have my mam mb33, which loves to get some attention from distortion units, you know what i mean. well, it could be done, but (aw **** here we go again), you'll meet latency, if you're not sampling, but feeding the signal through - there's gonna be latency which makes this option mostly unusable.

At the end what do we got? A device with great potential, but that's just not ready for using it as a center piece in long continuous performances. That's why you can't find any maschine+ jams on youtube longer than 7 (???) minutes. It's just so sad to pay so much for a half-useless gear. Things that are so obvious for me to be in grooveboxes just don't work in case of M+


p.s. i hope that some of that could be improved in the future. that's why i'm making this post and i never done something like this ever in my life. that's how upset i am. anyway here's a video of my live performance, so you could have an example of my workflow if someone has some questions about it. peace

 

so what made you think the M+ was designed to do “long DAWless live sets”? (Btw I hate that word DAWless).

I think M+ was designed as a standalone version of the MK3. Nothing more, but also nothing less.

Its a pity you’re upset, maybe some research in advance could have prevented this disillusion.

 

i'm sorry to use that word, never wanted to hurt someone's feelings.

so, alright, cause that's what every other groovebox can, that's just it. it never was mentioned anywhere that this one can't, so my post at least could be helpful for someone who's doing that research of what M+ is not capable of.

Besides that, you could find long jams with mk3 on youtube tho. I didn't buy it blindfolded, i saw tones of reviews, but non of them we're mentioning that things. That's just it.

 

I play livesets for over 1,5 hrs or more, or less. Especially now that maschine jam will be able to work woth M+ it will be so much more fun and easier to actually perform live. One HUGE project

 

I believe a lot of modern groove boxes have issues with midi program changes and/or seamless switching between projects. At least the Mk3/Maschine software is not able to handle program changes as a one-off fe. I guess most long Maschine live sets to do it like we used to do in the old days with mixing in other sound sources and use those as a transition while loading up and switching to another project/track.

like this fe, Maschine is an important part but is mixed with other devices and ableton live stems:

 

yet again, we're talking about standalone groovebox rn, modern standalone groovebox, it's not the breaking the deal issue with program change, but it always better when there's one, but look at the market, roland mc-707 - you can find a long live sets just with this piece of gear standalone, electron octatrack, digitakt, synthstrom deluge etc - yes, even good old korg electribe. with M+ i just can't get my head around how to do a long live per one project that won't overload cpu and would be easy to mess around in live situation.

 

Hey albms4free like your music. That is one massive line-up of gear you setup, haha. Sorry to hear that the Maschine+ does not fit in with your approach. Got a question, though: do you guys really try to squeeze a complete set into one project? Why not mix in other sound sorces like olafmol described? I had a VCV rack patch running while switching projects, I think Blue Lab Beats use triggered one-shots for the same purposes (just guessing). It's easy for me to say, I don't mind a running computer in my setup, but some device or other should be able to keep the beat running. No?

 

Sounds like Akai Force beginnings... luckily it get improved over times so let's hope M+ gets similar updates to keep it competitive.

I also miss a modern standalone groovebox competing against Ableton Live approach. Mc707 seems the nearest followed by Force and Djs1000... and M+.

For me there's a gap in the market but maybe my look is too niche so there isn't any money for brands in that field. Meanwhile iPad apps do the job

:/

 

Tbh this is nothing new. In the past I’ve used RM1x and RS7000 for sequencing duties, and these also had challenges with program changes being ignored etc. I also have an electribe, but with the second generation like ES2 it’s super easy to get dropped notes, and effects cut out when you switch programs. So that also wouldn’t work.
Tbh I never did or did see a longer live set where somebody didn’t bring a DAT/cd/sampler to mix in loops or fx for transitions. Not that it cannot be done but it feels like such a hassle where you constrain yourself a little to much artificially.
Hopefully you can achieve a modus that works for you though.

mention of the DJS1000 remind me of his inspirational video:

 

I too over estimated the M+ but do 2 x 90 minutes shows + Encore.
I ended up using Machine+ as a hardware sequencer w/ Drums and SFX only.
In that capacity the CPU works fine as it’s not doing anything other than MIDI bass tracks for external hardware and mastered drum tracks.
The Pads are reserved for on the fly SFX transitions, backing LoFi vocal takes, etc.
Added benefit was using my own Nki’s.

Glad I bought it, hope they improve the software/hardware integration in future updates.

 

Simplest solution for now would be to use a small multi fx (maybe even built into a mixer) and use a feedback delay or looper fx to enable you to transition into your next song. You can use a seperate section or clip at the start for setting al program changes, make sure you don’t loop it though

 

I did not try myself yet but how about you treat the groups as"songs" of your set and silent load groups while M+ continues to play other group(s)?That's definitely something i want to try instead of cramming everything in one big project etc

 

That’s the minimum “living” use for a djs1000 IMO and that’s why said “iPad apps” as alternative since I can do more or less all of that just with Launchpad app and Groovebox app (where dedicated controllers are a plus/must). Even these work on iPhone (with hardware support almost in Groovebox app).

I don’t want to hijack the thread but if someone is into these take a look.





Both synced by Ableton link and midi out from launchpad app (iAP). Obviously these could sync with the zillion of apps available for iDevices including loopers or djing apps...


What I miss is a true performance groovebox and what it comes to my mind is probably near to rolands dj808 and so but it will be great something like the djs1000 (maybe 2 D2 glued? ala mc707...) with proper vinyl control of the set instead just being domwsized Abletons...

OT end.

 

I also think it’s the best solution ...