Maschine needs audio tracks!! Opening it up in a DAW is a huge bummer for everybody

Maschine has a wondefull workflow... and then you need to cut guitar, vocals and other audio and overlapping stuff and then you are back in DAW mouse land....

Working maschine as a slave is huge bummer...

Why build a nice Ferrari, that runs beautifull in the first 3 gears, but when you reach the fourth gear you have to park it in the side off the road and take the bus while dragging the Ferrari behind the bus...

32 bit summing, multicore support, all the plugins in the word, arrange window etc. etc. etc. - but still having to go to other programs, drawing out new arrangement etc to cut what are basicly in 95% of the projects made on Maschine...- WTF

To me, NI are starting to look like pussies, so scared of adding this functionality will make it look like a weak DAW in comparison with other DAWS.

Guess what! We are tired of DAWS and their 10000000 possibilities of manipulating audio.... We want to lay dawn basic tracks and focusing on whats is important.

Thats why we are on Maschine...

Please give os what we need - Audio tracks within Maschine

All the best

 

Or at least: Make Maschine output some kind of usefull sync that will making slaving a DAW to it possible..

Maschine needs to be the Master!!

Of even better- its own master!!

- its so strange to me that NI should be should be so scared of own shortcommings that they refuse to go for the title, when its right there for the taking....

 

I would like to see this feature, for sure.

However: I'm going to suggest that assuming NI are scared of "looking like pussies" is probably not the most logical interpretation of why they've made their design choices.

 

Opening it in a DAW isn't a bummer at all for me...

-Ki
Salem Beats

 

It's not a bummer by any means, but it leaves a bit to be desired.

I love the "groovebox" model NI is working with; that's how they market the product, and there are plenty of producers who feel at home in a groovebox environment. I work that into my Ableton workflow (albeit with a bit of elbow grease), and I love the sound content /hands on vibe in Maschine enough to justify the effort.

But with Studio they're stretching into DAW territory with the jog wheel and the arrangement features, and I can see how adding audio tracks to the mix could create a whole new production paradigm. Sorta like how Ableton flipped the script in 2002 by taking seriously the idea of daw-as-instrument. This would be like taking seriously the idea of instrument-as-daw.

Implementing audio tracks--and designing that well--would be no small task, but I don't think it should be out of the question.

 

To be fair though even when i produced on my MPC1000 with only 128meg of Ram i still had audio track options. That might have been from JJOS but regardless the option exited inside the very units Maschine is based on.

 

I totally agree. And I'm a fan of the MPC. You gotta admit that sequencing on an MPC has limitations (which can be nice, but limitations nonetheless), and it might be cozy to have something in between JJ OS and something like Ableton.

I think expanded audio tracks wouldn't make it not-a-groovebox, rather, they would take seriously the idea of groovebox-as-daw.

 

Maschine for Master

You this is one feature that I truly want myself and I am looking forward to it. You have some great points and metaphors. I have been wondering this and I have been on the edge of my seat with this myself. NI has made so many features possible with plugins and hardware so lets take it to another level and go for the crown and add those Audio tracks cause these producers, composers and beat makers are ready to follow this next level of Maschine so we can all say Beat These loud and clear!!!

-Outstanding

 

Timeline

Maschine 2.5: Realtime timestretch

Maschine 3.0: Linear audio tracks

NI introduces an iOS Maschine app designed for iPad and a controller that plugs directly into the iPad.

Maschine X: World Domination

 

It´s a mystery to me why a lot of people keep stating that working with two independent arrangements (one in Maschine and the one you need to draw in to your DAW) is beneficial to their workflow.. Perhaps they are just using Maschine as a midi sound box within their DAW, but otherwise they must have a lot of time and patience on their hands to work double arrangements....

All the best

 

People have been doing this for a while (especially experienced Reason users) -- That's how ReWire works.

Unless you're constantly making ridiculous changes to your song structure, it's not as tedious as you seem to be implying.

-Ki
Salem Beats

 

Okay, I am still very new to Maschine, but can't you simply set up the sample recorder to accept input from your audio interface, and bring your audio in by recording a very long sample? Or am I being dense?

 

Well the issue there would be that the sample would only play if the sequencer moved across the start point of the sample. If your 60 sec sample is triggered at the song's 0:30, and you wanted to start the track at 0:45 for editing reasons, that sample wouldn't play if you started the track from 0:45. You would have to listen to the entire sample--triggered from 0:30--every time you wanted to hear any part of it. This also, of course, makes it impossible to punch in/out recording, etc.

 

Both Maschine and a Daw like Ableton can do things that the other can't, including both sequencing and generating/recording sounds. Using both is often beneficial. But getting Maschine to play well with daws (search youtube for "using maschine in ableton" to see what I mean) is often a real pain in the ass.

Once you get it down pat and make your own default setup files with everything routed properly, though, it can be really doable.

 

Please don't!! I don't want to see my beloved Maschine bogged down with DAW like features. It opens nicely in Pro Tools etc thanks...
Look how Ableton Live got so unstable because of all the new features.

 

Yes.. Having Audiotracks that can span the lenght of the track and be visual too would be great for a sketching purpose point of view, but for myself i wouldn't dream of having a fullblown project with up to 128 audiotracks and not having the possibility to see all audiochannels in the mixer at once or at least by scrolling slightly ( yes i have a really large monitor for this purpose..) As i see it Maschine-Uh are THE perfect partner for laying down spontaneuos and creative idéas quickly ( which none of my main daw's gives me at this point) and if they would develop the audiotrack idea further i'd be afraid the loose something else in the other end that's already good or optimal for the intended use it has now.

So i'm not sure i'd like the audiotrack idea to be taken up to the level of a full blown DAW.

 

So then the best you could do is record a sample that is the same length as the patterns for that scene, and redo the whole thing if you make a mistake?

 

If they are serious about the Maschine as a stand-alone device, it's pretty strange they do not already have audio tracks in there. Same goes for a much needed overhaul of the sequencer which is too much aimed at using a mouse far too often. I have to check out version 2.0 and the actual changes still, so bear with me, but from what I can tell not all that much has changed when it comes to quantize and the general sequencer, except for being able to switch certain settings on/off more comfortably from the controller.

It needs to tighten up the quantization and could do with some template style quantization for sure. Doesn't mean we can't already make music with it, but I feel Maschine software still has a long way to go when it comes to maturing into a more competent DAW. (And that's coming from someone who's really only using the Maschine software in stand-alone mode. It's not bad, but it's certainly not perfect by any stretch)

 

Yes, so you can currently forget about adding longer vocal stabs in a live sense in one go. You'll be editing and redoing a lot there unfortunately, unless you record them as samples and hope for the best as far as tempo goes. It's just not that great for recording in an audio track manner.

 

No. That just means you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it with the hardware.

Maschine has never been about trying to compete with DAWs.