Maschine or ableton suite 8with an apc 40?

Hey. Im starting to use electronic music production softwares to make music. Ive been a musician for a long time, and I want a more electronic feel to my music. Im aware of how maschine and apc 40s work very well< i would just like to know which to go with. thank you very much.
If this helps at all, My influences include iggy pop, kraftwerk, suicide, and modeselektor.
-thanks

 

Hi there,

you are obviously on NI forums so im sure a lot of people will say Maschine....

and I would completely agree with them

no seriously, I have owned both devices... and I sold my APC40.

First of all what the APC40 does very well is represent Ableton's GUI on a controller.

That being said, its really just a clip launcher with mixer controls.

To turn into anything else you need custom patches.

It's not bus powered so it needs an AC ADAPTER.

It's very clunky as well and it makes a light humming sound. (i researched, they all do that).

Maschine on the other hand, is a great groovebox. It's the ultimate to scratch pad to get all your musical ideas down.

I have used Maschine more in two weeks than I have used the APC40 in 6 months.

I would definitely get 'Maschine' and if you really want something to control Ableton, get Novation's Launchpad.

But even Maschine can launch Ableton's clips... so really no need.

 

I'm gonna agree with SinFm.

 

It really comes down to what you want and how you work and want to make music. The two set-ups are very different, as sinfm has pointed out. I, too, owned the Live + APC40 set-up but have since sold the APC40, bought Maschine and haven't even used Live in a long time!
But that's because Maschine suits me better. It offers many of the things I want/need from a controller and a piece of music software. But for others, it will not and Live + APC40 would be a better choice. Especially if using Hanz Petrov's script for the APC40.

Maschine is pretty much (give or take) all I need for the majority of my electronic music-making but that's not to say it will be for you too.

 

I have got them both.

I don't like the APC 40 (i only use it for traktor.. in ableton it's very limited).
I don't like it akai made it impossible to change the midi settings inside the apc40
and I really don't like it that now I have to wait 3,5 months for 1 new fader... and they don't want to give any guarantee on it.

I really love maschine, and since I combine it with my UC33 i can do almost everything I want with it.

next to this... the ableton suite is not so interrsting. The sounds are not that good.

I mostly use maschine with complete... it's amazing!

 

Damn... this is a huge change to my thinking. I was going to get the apc with an M-Audio Axiom 25...
I figured that would suit me more because my music that I make mostly sounds like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzZNPyixNJQ
I dont really know if beatmaking fits that style well
I was told to get maschine afterwards to get a good workflow going. I know Im DEFINITELY going to get maschine, I mean, it just looks awesome, But I need something to start off on, and I dont have all the cash in the world. I figured ableton plus the axiom 25 and an apc 40 would be a good start. Any thoughts on that guys?

 

Personally, I think Maschine, though professional too, is a pretty good starting point for anyone. And anyone making any music. The marketing might be geared to hip hop but "beatmaking" certainly does not only entail hip hop related music. Please don't get sucked into thinking that it does. Although I'm sure I have some hip hop influences, I do not make nor particularly like music of that genre. I'm in a library so I can't listen to that particular track but if it's got a beat, Maschine can do it. Even if a beat isn't particularly important, Maschine is still capable, though of course is not only geared but made more for "beatmaking". But it certainly doesn't define what beats you make.

 

The song has a steady 16th note bass drum beat the whole song with eerie keyboards and organs, but with a nice melody. ts kind of a simple song, but its a strong one. i need that strong electronic steady beat sound. Do you think Just the axiom 25 could do the trick with ableton And I can follow through with a maschine instead?

 

If you're swaying more to that then that must seem the best option to you, so go for it. You can achieve whatever you want with pretty much any of these tools if you're willing.
Just a mouse is enough to create a strong electronic steady beat, to be honest.
I'm guessing the "feeling" comes through in the other, melodic parts of the track as opposed to the beat then. So perhaps Maschine would not be your go-to thing. Until you want more expression (or at least different, more dynamic or less robotic) in the beat-side of your music anyway.
Though the step mode is very useful on Maschine. However, it might be overkill if you're not really going to take advantage (at least for now) of the expressive side of Maschine.

 

I see. Thank you very much. This has come to much advice. Thank you all, And goodnight.

 

Though don't just take my word for it. Try Maschine out if you can somewhere.

But you're welcome, and goodnight.

 

You don't have all the cash in the world and yet was going to go with what is by far, a more costly option of Live Suite + Axiom25 + APC40= $1250~$1400 that lacks the total integration and control through a dedicated hardware near the level of Maschine? There's nothing in the Suicide song that can't be done in Maschine.

Maschine is all about the mouseless, hands-on workflow and it has completely replaced MPCs and Ableton Live for me as my main production tool. There are very important things that Maschine does for its workflow that is just not possible in Live. For example, you can't record real-time automation (as in record your knob tweaks) in Live's Session View. Maschine has the huge advantage of being able to record automation of almost everything as you turn the knobs in real-time.

Even with the APC40, you're not going to get the level of visual feedback that you get on Maschine's dual displays showing device/parameter names and values, which makes it feel more like you're using hardware since you can do pretty much everything without having to touch the computer or the mouse/trackpad and not even needing to have the computer screen to be on.

Also, you can't do any of the following with Live and APC40: browsing/loading samples, navigating, sampling, slicing, zooming in and out of waveforms, applying dsp audio edits, opening/saving projects...etc. Maschine can do all of that just from the dedicated controller. These little things do add up to a very unique experience that makes it not feel like using software at all and for those used to hardware-style, hands-on workflow, that makes a huge difference.

Maschine just goes way further in terms of the software/hardware relationship. For example, the 'undo' function. In Live, this is a keyboard shortcut. In Maschine it's on the hardware (via a 'shift + pad' combo) Now, you COULD map the 'undo' keyboard command to a MIDI controller in Live, but you'd need Bomes or some other layer of additional software to achieve it. And this is just the undo function: there are more complex operations available from the Maschine hardware that is just not possible in Live right now, although touchAble on iPad gets the closest in terms of total mouseless control of Live.

It's also important to note that Live has serious bugs and stability issues as of version 8 and Ableton is most likely doing a complete rewrite of the program for Live 9.

 

The workflow sounds amazing. your right. Considering that Maschine is designed to bring the perfect hardware out for its software, I would probably feel a lot more comfortable working with it. I shall take your advice and go with the maschine over the apc 40. Maschine Sounds like the perfect hardware-software-composer relationship. I will still Probably get the axiom, because I just need a keyboard to write melodies. Will I need extra software for the axiom, or does maschine allow it to hook up to the software too?
---
My main concern for maschine was writing melodies. how is the flow with that?
---
and I completely forgot that ableton suite 8 is 700$$$....
yikes.

 

Yeah, Maschine and any MIDI keyboard of your choice is all you really need. The Axiom keys are good if you like a more semi-weighted feel. You don't need any extra software to use MIDI keyboards with Maschine. It will be recognized by any MIDI-compatible software. I prefer simple "no frills" keyboards like LPK25, Korg microKey, or Alesis Q49 without additional knobs/faders/buttons...etc..

There's plenty of youtube videos of Maschine out there that show the flow with writing melodies. You can just tap on any pad and you can play melodies with the sound on that pad from any MIDI keyboard. You can also play melodies directly from the Maschine pads themselves.

 

I use Maschine, APC40 (Live Suite), and the Axiom25.
I totally dig this set-up, it works great for me. I use Hanz's free remote script with the APC40 adding lots of features.
Using both I can really do a lot of improvisation, controlling beats with Maschine, tweaking FX's and recording clips with APC40, and switching instruments with the Axiom25.
I have not noticed any external hum coming from the APC40.

Ableton Live suite is really all about the instruments it comes with. In my opinion it is worth Operator and Sampler alone.
Although the ability to use vst's in Maschine opens up its uses immensely, Ableton Live is a full blown DAW. Songs originally produced and organized in Maschine can be taken a lot further in Live.
You can do huge amounts with either tool and the combo to me is over the top.

Usually I recommend people get Maschine first because it is so immediately playable and comes with its dedicated controller. But from the music example you gave, I might suggest Live first. Composition in Maschine is pattern based, which is most ideal for beat making. For those long cascading passages, and recording vocals all the way through a song, Live will be easier.

 

Maschine ATW

MIK

 

I own Axiom 25 and Novation Remote SL MK2 61 and Axiom as 25-only keyboard is suitable only for some live gigs. If You can afford it, I would suggest 49 or 61 version. Axiom 25 is very good but quite short, what is worse for studio and better for gigs.

 

So
I tried a maschine yesterday at my local guitar center. I honestly believe that there is no better piece of equipment for me. I felt like my possibilities and music between me and the controller were limitless. then I looked at an apc, and I felt barely as good as I did whilst playing maschine. I will most certainly buy maschine now, without a doubt.

 

Modeselektor68 you are gonna friggin' love it!

I am way into the Maschine/Live combo, but it was Maschine that got me back into making electronic music with a passion.

Have fun!

 

the APC40 doesn't make humming noise at all... it doesn't have any kind of audio interface! it's just a controller.
the fact that it uses a power adapter doesn't change a thing...

please only speak about thing you own, not just stuff you read on the net...