Maschine+ Standalone

Agreed, but I have a feeling that if someone wants all that then they'll likely want a computer and the other gubbins to go with it. I could see the value of this if it could be used on a battery, but I don't think it's for me as-is.

A battery powered Mikro though? That might be very cool. Either that or being able to connect a Mikro to a phone app. For me, the appeal of a standalone unit is in its portability. Though I could see the appeal of this for reliable live use.

 

I think some people are using portable battery banks with the mc 707 , so maybe that would be a possibility.
No mention of Bluetooth, hopefully it has it , I could connect the xm over Bluetooth that would be pretty cool

 

Looks real to me.

The listing doesn't mention what kind of processor it has. I can't imagine it's using Intel chips (unless the clock speed is quite low), because those things are heat belchers, so it would need a fan, and I don't see any vents in the photos. If the vent is on the bottom, those small feet aren't gonna provide enough airflow.

My guess is it's using ARM chips, which don't need a fan, and NI has compiled a bunch of their plugins for ARM (the page mentions it includes a bunch of NI plugins, and there's no way they'd include those if they don't work in standalone mode). That means you won't be able to use any third-party plugins on it until other companies start making their plugins available for ARM (and it's likely that not all NI products have been updated for ARM, though it seems they at least have Reaktor and Kontakt working). But that will surely happen anyway, since Apple is moving the Mac to ARM, and anything that wants to come along for the ride will have to run on ARM (the Rosetta 2 emulation layer will be temporary, just like the first Rosetta, so anything that doesn't run on ARM will eventually stop working).

 

Really glad they made this to put themselves in the conversation for standalone gear, but given that I require my new Mac Pro to adequately support the projects I'm making in Maschine (and especially at low enough buffer sizes), there is no way this device offers enough firepower for me to switch.

I do like that it's just a Mk III with a computer inside so that I don't feel any need to upgrade controllers

 

I guess this thing is interesting for live purposes, for dj sets or something, there it would make most sense to me. And it is a first step for native in that category of devices.

Uwe

 

Finally, I’ve been dreaming about running a stand-alone Maschine with my Mpcs. I’m really excited this is finally happening.

 

So I can't wait until Song Mode and those Softube Weiss collection standalone gonna be killer!

 

You can't make this stuff up, lets build a box with a cpu in it. Or you could just plug it in to the CPU dedicated for that use.. Akai is already killing the speed of their software development because they chose this standalone route.. Great more wasted time and resources hit due to the airplane disc jockeys ;( I definitely don't see 1300.00 worth of value in the MK3 hardware shell, not even tilt screens.. NI I really hope this isn't true. Looks terrible.

 

Random thoughts:

1. Leaning towards this probably being real, but not 100% convinced.
2. The price point feels very high.
3. It doesn’t appear to be battery powered, which is a bummer for me.
4. Very interested to know what plugins (if any) will work in standalone mode. As Stormchild said, this would almost certainly be built on ARM, and NI almost certainly will be porting their software to ARM anyway for Apple’s upcoming Macs. So it stands to reason that the entire NI suite *could* be made to work on this thing — eventually, if not right away. That would be HUGE. I don’t expect third party plugin support in standalone, but at this price point I would really like to see a large collection of available (and included) NI synths and effects working.
5. Also very interested to know how it would handle projects that use third-party plugins in computer-tethered mode. Given all my existing projects use both NI and third-party plugins, I’d certainly hope there’s some kind of crafty solution for making them work in standalone mode. Perhaps something like automatic track bouncing so I can at least play back those tracks — if not edit them — in standalone mode.

Bottom line, assuming this is real (which again, I think it probably is, but wouldn’t be shocked if not): physical design looks great, and I’d definitely LIKE to have this unit. But if it’s not battery powered, and it doesn’t have good plugin support (numbers 4 and 5 above), then this feels just way too expensive for me to upgrade to from my Mk3. That would be $750 more than a Mk3 for basically one feature: standalone mode. It’s gonna need to either be considerably cheaper or have numbers 3, 4, and 5 above for me to get existed about it.

 

They can keep it, its wack af.

 

Somewhat interested in this. Will compare to the mpc once more details are made available. And if this is real, of course this will be just the first iteration of this maschine. I’m sure that they will probably release a sort of micro version that is more portable. I’ve never known native to release multiple maschines at once.

 

So they went to all this trouble just to confirm that it was not a good idea......way to go.....

 

in what way? I think it will make some inroads into the standalone market share that Akai mostly rules right now, while also getting a head start on ARM conversion (of course that part is just a guess since the components aren't confirmed)

 

That's surely a lot of cheddar right there, I'd be happy to own it but can't see it flying with the wife to be honest, there's lots hate on Facebook for it too, which is a shame imho because on paper it looks great to me, I think if it had a replaceable battery and was truly portable I'd have a very difficult time not buying it, as has been mentioned though if you've gotta plug it in then I really don't see the benefits over a mk3 and a laptop, probably weighs roughly the same and is way more flexible..

 

this looks really interesting. NI attack Akai where it matters. lets see where it goes.

 

In any case, this key ring is real.


Design by René

 

If this is the case then surely at the moment it would only be able to run the NI products included in the release which would mean not being able to use any of your files that used other programmes..........and only 4 GB of RAM!!!

 

: popcorn:

 

Be careful. If it's ARM as platform (and that will be reasonable) and they are using some special-own-crafted operating system which is optimized for that specific type of usage it's not a problem.
There seems to be a SD card slot (maybe for storage expansion - 32GB internally including the operating system may be a little bit sparse) and there are USB-Host ports (meaning i think other external storage devices can be attached). So that's the "storage" part. Memory part: regarding the "work" itself, MIDI data doesn't take much RAM if it's loaded into the RAM. Audio - that may differ of course but just for playing samples (meaning, streaming from file) a small memory buffer is only needed to proceed the files. Editing samples - due to the fact that only one sample may be edited at once - also that seems to be no problem.
Decoding from specific audio format may be done with the help of the hardware (maybe there is some DSP or FPGA chip additionally added to the hardware). But even without, it's not that bad. Of course you can't compare the specs 1:1 with a full blown Windows or OSX system.
I think 4GB of RAM isn't a problem. (I hate such comparison but: Some may mention the worldwide well known Raspberry PI which is also ARM, is using SD cards and also has only "4GB").

 

Reason I query the RAM is that when I've used Drumlab it very quickly ate up 8 GB, so I'm thinking about having even 4-8 groups with anything large is surely going to start seeming restrictive which of course highlights the problem with standalones.... you can't upgrade or change configurations.