Most Requested Features

I mainly create DAWless hardware-based music now and never use soft synths. I was using Maschine to sequence my external hardware seeing as how it's technically not a DAW, but it's not very good at that either. I would have kept dealing with the limitations until I discovered the joy of Elektron sequencers. There are of course some specific features that I want to see, but my point is that when I look through the list of "most requested features" I notice it hasn't changed at all since I stopped using it. Meanwhile, NI has released a bunch of stuff I don't care about in any way. It's been this way for what feels like a long time.

If there had been some progress on these features, which have been on this forum for a long time, I would have a little more faith that one day they just might, hopefully, maybe get to the specific features I want. But they're not getting to any features anybody is asking for. So yeah, I probably will come back to Maschine. It's just not going to be until they start releasing new features their customers have been asking for.

 

Believe me, I have been working with Elektron for a very long time. And I'm using it now. You can watch a lot of reviews and tutorials on Swedish equipment on my YouTube channel. I also produced commercial video courses. I know perfectly well the strengths and weaknesses of Elektron.
NI Maschine give you more options. I see no reason not to use software synthesizers from NI and other manufacturers. Digital synthesizers Elektron (monomachine, machinedrum and samplers Elektron) provide more primitive capabilities in comparison with NI software. This also applies to the Elektron effects. The set is meager. I think you will eventually return to more active use of the NI Maschine.
By the way, I was preparing a program for NI MaschinePlus associated with Program Changes. It is distributed free of charge. Here is the link to the video -
Below it is a download link. If you are planning to use Elektron with Machines, then you will be interested.
You can also watch other videos on my channel dedicated to Elektron.
There are also many videos from me on the djstore channel. For example, this is -
The only thing is that all my videos are in Russian.

 

Does anybody know how the Machine SW/HW combo performs in terms of MIDI timing and jitter vs dedicated hardware/firmware ?

 

I've never had an issue with that. I've used my korg (microKORG XL+) as a time source for everything(cubase11, akai advance49, mk3, mpk mini), and I've not had a single timing related issue.

--However-- I probably don't have the most challenging or complex MIDI environment, and I really only have one HW MIDI synth, so my test case probably doesnt cover everything. I dont use any hardware sequencers so I dont have that experience, but I can speak for a single MIDI HW synth as time source.

My BIGGEST issue in this environment was always cubase 10, 11 and their inability to handle hyperthreading properly on some hardware platforms. This caused catastrophic glitching, popping, and timing issues across all VST, all instruments until I found the specific BIOS config I needed to tune it all. (Had to turn off power management on all cores.....) This isnt MIDI timing related, but I thought I would mention it.

 

Thanks. I find the latter paragraph also of interest, although not directly MIDI related it is overall of importance I'm contemplating using the mk3 in slave modus to a sequencer. It is my understanding that few DAWs are comfortable in that position, as they work best as masters in a setup.

 

I've gone back and forth with Steinberg for close to 2 years on the hyperthreading/multicore issue and they *never* satisfactorily addressed it, including just being honest about their inability to resolve the issue without altering their core DSP philosophy and high standard.

The honest truth of that issue is that it is case by case. Some Cubase users say their motherboards with default BIOS config work fine with all CPU cores and virtual cores working, power management / speedstep included. Others say they had pops/clicks in even 1 instrument/track, cubase's internal ASIO meter often shows spikes to 100%, and the only way for them to stop it is to disable speedstep, p-states, etc. I was the latter, and fought for a loooooong time because I want to keep power management on!

Steinberg could test and document platforms that suffer from this, and they could offer a lot more confidence to customers who just want to know how to have the best audio processing pathway, but they do very little and seem to pass the buck to OS vendors, Intel, AMD, etc.

This was my big issue to resolve on my platform, and it is currently resolved. I wish I could join you in trying a hardware sequencer and working that way! I love to try new configurations and check out other workflows. Hope this all syncs up, so to speak.

 

As far as I remember, if I open up cubase it automatically sets power profile to some "cubase power profile" (equals high power profile afaik), i never had any issues with that. I also have not a high power CPU just a Ryzen 5 2600x.


Uwe

 

The runtime power management/profile options are not related to the hyperthreading/scheduling issue that causes ASIO internal spikes in Cubase, since Cubase 9. That is a separate issue, on my platform at least, and I've never had any issues with the power profile because I always have windows on max power.

What I mean is CPU p-states and tech like Intel Speedstep, which dynamically manage individual CPU cores to clock up/down during power saving cycles. The only way my platform (and many others - I've spent years documenting this) can trust Cubase is by disabling all HW power management via BIOS, and locking the CPU at its rated speed.

Steinberg is aware of this and partially documents it on their site, but they also claim ASIO guard mitigates this for many people. It does not, in this case, mitigate the issue when cpu power management is on, and in fact I have to turn ASIO guard off or it adds too much latency to instruments. I have zero problems with my Cubase 11 environment now.

Platform:
Win10 pro
Intel x299 chipset (ASRock taichi)
Intel 7800x cpu, 6/12 core locked @ 4ghz
32GB DDR4
All stock, no overclocking or nonsense.

 

Mhh ok - I know about the power states and always thought there where bound to the power management profile, then this is maybe wrong or not perfectly correct.


Uwe

 

Depending on your BIOS config, the p-states and speedstep stuff can be HW controlled, SW(OS) controlled, both, or default, I believe. The problem itself is compounded by microsoft (and earlier apple) multimedia multi-threading limitations, the multithreading scheduler, and the various default BIOS configs seen on various motherboards.

Some info from Steinberg is here:
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ws-10-audio-dropouts-on-multi-core-CPU-setups

And here:
https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/...ng-Simultaneous-Multithreading-and-ASIO-Guard

But this info concludes that ASIO Guard should have a positive effect on this, in any situation. It does not, in every situation.

On my platform, testing showed that windows power profiles, and really NOTHING from inside the windows runtime environment, could stop the ASIO overload issue in cubase. Including a 100% clean system with NOTHING else on it, including a/v and defender.

No power profile or specific custom changes, no GPU power management states, no ASIO driver tweaks, no ASIO guard settings, process priority settings, etc, could make even a small difference in the problem. The problem vanishes entirely when speedstep and p-states are disabled, with the CPU locked to its highest frequency - in this case 4ghz. Steinberg went back and forth with me in email... for 18 months. They wanted... my help in documenting this further...

 

Thanks for the info

Uwe

 

I received an Ableton Lite license with my Summit and the integration with hardware synthesizers is wonderful, I had no issues yet and it is much easier to do anything. I'm switching from MaschinexLogic to Ableton. I probably get Ableton Suite + Push 2 soon. Much easier to automate and works more fluently, I'm done with Maschine.
As I barely / never use soft synths I have no use with all these sample pack stuff. And the only thing I would have liked about it would be the possibility to have a master tune, that would change the pitch of all NI Sample packs / soft synth presets to my choice. But it did not happen (yet).
I still need to figure out what I will do with the Maschine MK3 + Jam controllers. Though NI has some nice plugins, like Replika XT, Supercharger GT, Raum and more. But I'm done with Maschine.

 

Heyyy if you don't want that Jam, I've heard good things about them and would love to get my hands on one. If you are done with it, sell?

 

Like I said I still need to figure out what I will do with the controllers. But I'm not selling them (at least not yet). It could have another use as midi controller or maybe I can use it with Ableton.
You can always find Maschine Jam controllers on Reverb:
https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=maschine jam
Or you can check your local 2nd hand online marketplace to get one.

Good luck!

 

D-One, how are you determining or calculating what the most requested features are? Are you truly doing some sweeping tally across all posts? And what does one have to do to start a campaign to see its way onto the bottom, bottom, distant future, bottom of this list that you crafted?

 

Yes, I was at the time.

Basically, I hand-scraped the legacy request threads by the number of likes, +1's, comments, and used common sense to gauge how many people were asking about XYZ feature, some things are also asked repeatedly in the main Maschine forum but not here, this meant I could not rely on likes/+1's alone.

Note that what I attempted was beyond just making a list of the most requested things, before I changed this sub-forum all we had was the Feature Request Archive, which had 9228 threads, as you may imagine no one (from NI or otherwise) is gonna read 10k threads full of duplicates, requests for things that already exist, silly rants, etc...

So.... step one was to create a new FR section, archive the old one, and slowly move significant threads with propper feedback from the old to the new section to clean things up, this also included manually editing poorly explained requests, merging duplicates, creating rules for posting requests and enforcing those rules to avoid the new section from becoming a mess like an archive was. What was achieved is far from perfect but it's a better representation of what users want than what we had but since it changed nothing as far as development goes I gave up after around 3 years later... Working for free to not see any results is very frustrating.

I guess users would need to stop being selfish and only caring about that one XYZ feature they personally want and start demanding the top requests to be addressed, it would benefit the majority in the long run.

A whole new forum is in the works, hopefully, it will have better tools to gauge what users really want; I don't know if requests are going to have to start over or not but whatever happens, users have to come together and NI has to make more of an effort to be in touch with it's userbase.

 

D-One!

Wow! You are one Maschine of a Specimen (Pun Intended)! I don't know or want you to reveal what your full-time gig is here, but your thoroughness smells like Engineer, or some tech-based background (I'm a EE working as a Software Eng myself)! Your effort was a huge and time consuming undertaking. Whether or not NI rewarded you, they should have done so.

But when I specifically asked you,
"And what does one have to do to start a campaign to see its way onto the bottom, bottom, distant future, bottom of this list that you crafted?"

And you replied,
"I guess users would need to stop being selfish and only caring about that one XYZ feature they personally want and start demanding the top requests to be addressed, it would benefit the majority in the long run."

This drove a stake in my heart, and rightfully so! In all my years of dabbling here and there in forums and such, I have inadvertently put good detail into posting my requests, and afterwards combing through the posts of others to click the "Likes", when they requested the same or similar feature(s). But it never truly occurred to me that I was one of those selfish users, until I just flipped that sample of your quote back at myself!

I apologize, bruh, and thank you at the same time for dropping that sentence! Going forward, I will carve out some time just to dig through the samples in our forums and take time to read other's needs (unrelated to mine) and rally behind and break bread with the ideas that can benefit us all. Good looking out, D-One!

And for the record, if you haven't been told, I (we) admire your dedication and contributions here to the NI forums over the years. Your work is underrated and I hope NI, if not already, continues to acknowledge the impact you have had on this community.

People don't realize that some folks (like myself) sometimes determine whether or not they are going to buy into a company's products, by just simply looking at the forum activity, presence and company/user feedback that exists. I recently did this for the MPC forums. I jumped in to ask folks questions about the MPC software, compatibility with the MK1 controller, and other general questions, etc. And found that there was very minimal presence and interest there. Then I found a lot of other complaints on other issues I sought out for, to bring me to the point of pushing my money back into my pockets. I am, though however, now reconsidering getting the MPC Software, by reading posts here in our own Maschine forums. I just want to get at their mpc expansions and sampling features to grow a more diverse library, and take advantage of some of their capabilities not yet in Maschine.

But you get the point, D-One. What you do here is very impactful. Thank you, Sir!

 

Thanks, JAB3 I appreciate all your kind words.

 

My pleasure!

 

Isn’t that request (sort of) implemented by Clips?

And this as well?