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

It sure acts like it. All the development resources go to using maschine in standalone. Maschine as a plugin is simply the standalone version opening up within your DAW. Even after doing ALL the routing and jumping through ALL the hoops. Load up a Kit from the factory maschine library and all that routing magically gets wiped. That's just 1 example. There is no option for stereo AND MONO multiouts either when routing in maschine. Just 16x stereo tracks. Now Battery 4, Kontakt, Logic EXS24, Logic Ultrabeat, Abelton Drum Racks all give you mono multiouts capability for doing your drums. But not $600-$1000 maschine.

 

amen!

 

It's beneficial to my workflow because i can creatively work on maschine stand alone when sketching the song/arrangement. I can later just load this project into the VST plugin within cubase, set the scene changes via midi and do the vocals. Its just for filling the gaps of Maschine in its current state.

However i'd rather do the audio recording in maschine as well. I pretty much like this idea:

 

Opening up Maschine up in a DAW is as stated always bummer..

When Ni on top of that decides to take away the EVENTS button that get´s hardwired to FFWD on the transport control of the DAW - then Maschine becomes a LAME DUCK since you cannot select and edit the midi events within Maschine´s sequenser. You have to use the mouse or select one tiny event at a time or use the DAW´s sequenser.

That makes the Flip/Flip from Maschine standalone to Maschine within a DAW twice as painfull since if you are working on the Studio controller and are used to do your edits from the controller on the two screens, then your whole workflow takes a dive.

Sometimes I wonder if NI ever listens to any of this.

Why make a a standalone version and a Studio controller with an advertised workflow that let´s you access and edit all your midi events and data from the controller and then remove that option to give way to a FASTFWD button.

FASTFWD !!!! Last time i pressed fast forward on anything was in the eighties...

 

You know you can take away the transport controls from the controller editor? It's different for different DAWs by the way. It makes sense because if you're using it as a plugin then you're probably going to sequence it in your DAW or atleast bring your sequences into your DAW and edit them from there.

 

Audio Tracks is certainly one of the most wanted features. There are several uses for them. Personally, I would like to 'bounce' Plugin Tracks to Audio Tracks. This would enable me to free up my CPU.

 

First: Especially with the Studio Controller and the advertised mouse free workflow in mind - then the above workflow makes no sense.. If Maschine is meant to be only a rythm box/library within a DAW - why not just buy the Micro and get the Library that way.....

Second: If you started out on the standalone version and the Studio Controller - then you are most likely not in favour of redrawing all your sequenses inside a DAW with a mouse. You open your DAW when you need linear audio....

Within a DAW the Studio Controller as pointless as Bugatti Veyron - It can go 400 km/h but there is no road in the world that supports that speed... !!!

 

audio tracks? it will not help you.audio engine does not support a linear timing or mapping for audio data (time itself discretely )
engine supports three modes (One-shot, AHD,ADSR - based on Voice Settings / Engine such as MP60,S1200).what MP60? yes .. it MIDI sequencing and audio sampling optimized for use as a drum machine! ok sorry for my english
I also tried to create a linear arrangement using audio loops)) I was getting terrible "feedbacks" from audio loops

 

Well they would of course have to add some new code to the current Maschine Software. But adding Daw like functionality to Maschine along with tight integration of Ni products will in my point of view make people buy more NI products compared to the other alternative where Ni is only an expensive drum maschine and users still have to shell out more cash towards third party DAWs and maintain two DAW like environments...

 

I would really love to see Audio tracks. Maschine is imo the most fun way to build beats and use VST's but having to open it up in a daw and export when I feel like recording an analogue synth really kills the vibe for me. For this reason I'm considering moving to Ableton and Push but I would much rather not if this was introduced.

 

Yes.Audio Tracks in my opinion would crown Maschine the Champ.Sales would jump through the ceiling.It would be great to do the complete production inside of Maschine with Vocals.

 

I don't particularly want audio tracks as i'm quite happy to use Maschine as a plugin inside a daw and i would rather the developers spend their time and effort on other areas of Maschine.

However, i would like to see the "Events" button released from the host transport controls. It would be nice if you could choose which host controls you want to use. I.e turn them on and off on an individual basis in the control editor.

 

audio tracks has been a hot requested item for years.

Maschine 2.0 was a complete ground up rewrite of the code and audio tracks was not included. This tells me that NI wont ever be putting this in (ok, strike never..but not the foreseeable future.. say 5 years from now).

 

I originally posted this in a discussion thread about DAW features in Maschine:

I'm not a +100000000001 for audio tracks because I'd like development in other areas first and I actually quite like the alternative method of recording "real" instruments in Maschine (if I want traditional linear recording, I'll use REAPER with its takes and comping), BUT one very basic way of adding some very basic "audio track" functionality that would fulfil some of the more basic needs* of users wanting audio tracks would be to add an "audio track" mode to the Sampler module's playback type parameter (i.e., ADSR, One-shot, AHD, Audio Track) that would use Scenes as markers/triggers to denote the point the audio sample should be played from (e.g., Scene 5 after scene 1-4 are all 4 bars long would start the audio sample at bar 17).

For starters, just a very simple implementation of this, perhaps with a loop mode, would be sufficient. But over time this could develop and even become its own ("audio track") module type, distinct from the Sampler.

Apologies if I'm way off what people want.


*These basic needs being that an "audio track" sample would just play relative to the sequencer (as audio would/does in linear DAWs), as it wouldn't need a note event to trigger it and wouldn't be dependent on Patterns.

 

I don't have a crystal ball but my understanding is that the rewrite of the code was to future proof Maschine? Apart from the fact that it hasn't been done yet (and let's face it, we're only 8 months into the new version), are there any other potential road blocks that you or anyone else are aware of to getting this done?

 

For everybody?
Not for me. I like opening it up in a DAW. I'd like to see better integration with others, not removing others from the picture.
Please speak for yourself rather than say "everybody"

Cheers

 

Many with you think like this when producing and find it convenient.. i purchased the Studio to get away from all those "middle-things", having to remember a lot of keycommands, using mouse and keyboard.. one piece of hardware to out-rule them all.. but.. as i thought i could use the samplingfunction for what i wanted totally flushed the excitement down the drain when it didn't work

Also i think Daschine speaks for a few more people here than just himself i'm afraid, if you find it's comfortable working with another piece of software then it's really great..
I haven't used Maschine Studio for a couple of month's due to the reason i get annoyed when there's no easy way to lay down a few tracks with acoustic gear/ vocals / drums / whatever just to sketch out fast ideas. I find the workflow getting retarded having to use maschine as a plug-in in Cubase / Logic / Studio One / Whatever software i'm using as this other software can't be integrated and slaved to the hardware and the fast workflow from all dedicated knobs the Studio hardware has is wasted.

I think if they extend the samplingfunction to be used as either an audiotrack or as sampling function or a combination + a bounce feature it would make a lot of people happy.. and maybe win over a few more people that don't feel they need it atm.

my 2 1/2 swedish Kronor

 

But then by the same "grab an idea" logic, why not have linear tracks instead of scenes?
I mean that argument can be used to make any of the unique functions more generic DAW.
There are so many DAWS - some free - which you can use to throw down an acoustic idea like that. Maschine's simplicity and focus has been a draw. You go to it to do specific things is does well. Once DAWs start trying to be all things to all people, they get convoluted, complicated and lose the initial appeal.
I mean, Spark has gone the other way from Maschine, and is even simpler, because there's demand for that.
Reason on the other hand, has gone from simple to "everything" and can do exactly what you're saying - work in sections (blocks) or throw down acoustic tracks over the whole thing etc.
I just think all DAWs looking the same doing everything isn't as cool as a bunch of niche specialists doing cool things but all working well together. It helps with creative focus too in my humble opinion. It helps me stay in a particular flow to only use Maschine to do it's thing, then go out to use something else to track vocals, and mixdown.
It's how it used to be. You'd preproduce, you'd track, you'd overdub, then you'd mix.
Now we can mix while proproducing, and I think the process suffers as a result. Which I think is part of why some are moving back to tape for certain projects.

 

I can see it now. Give it 20 years and people will be complaining that Soundcloud's automated panning on the 178 channel mixing console isn't as smooth as Tuncore's, but its' virtual vocalist instrument works better than Superior Drummer's "Video Editor - Live frontman" plugin.

 

Although a month later, and maybe I'm going to have to eat humble pie and suggest I might be wrong... I'm warming up to Maschine 2.0, which is more DAWish than 1.8 and yes, it's more immersive to stay just inside Maschine.... I'm beginning to see the point.
But even if I'm recording all my audio as 16 bar samples (which I did tonight) I still need Pro Tools to sync to picture.
We shall see what the future holds I guess. It's nice having the option to go standalone or VST. But I'm entertaining the idea of a true Maschine DAW.