New home studio setup, including Maschine! - Tips and Advice please!

Hi guys! I recently bought some new gear for my home studio set up and its now pretty much centred around Maschine! I use Logic studio 9 and basically I was looking for some adivce and help, it will be very much appreciated. I am a pretty experienced song writer but now with Maschine in my set up I wanna make sure I know pretty much the ins and outs of it before I get carried away and make sub standard music. Here are a few questions I have:

1. What latency setting should I be using? (Short as possible?)

2. What about the sample rate?

3. Standalone mode or plug in? (and why?)

4. best workflow method?

And any other tips and tricks you guys may have picked up on the way? It really is so appreciated guys!


Thank you, Suskiewicz

 

Anyone?

 

start your tracks off in standalone, get all your chops together and bash out a load of patterns. set your latency as low as you can without glitching.

only move to vst/au when you have the majority of your chops and patterns done for mix and arrangement. now you can bump your latency up as it doesnt matter so much. this will get you more plugins etc. without glitching.

obviously this is just my personal preference.

 

hey,

when i bought maschine i started with using maschine in stand alone mode to gain inspiration and just play a bit with the sounds. Now i use it as a midi controller for my DAW (studio one) in most cases, because of maschine lacking some features- but i am really looking forward for the things to come when NI releases the next few Maschine updates (sidechaining please!)

I think everyone has to find his own way on how to integrate maschine in his personal workflow - but there are a lot of ideas on youtube and around this forum

The sample rate depends more or less on what you want to do - for audio-(!) recording it should be as low as possible to avoid latency issues, but in most other cases i would use higher rates to save some CPU...

Another advise i would like to give you, is to move your little studio out of the corner if possible and try to turn your speakers a bit so that they point to your ears. (btw: the distance between the speakers should be the distance between one speaker and your ear)

i hope i could help

cheers oneiro

 

you need to change the angle of your monitor-speakers to get a good stereo-impression

 

Yes very true. Angle them to point toward you when you are in the listening position. You should also have them at ear level.

Another quick tip- If you haven't done so already, give yourself a solid 4 hour block of time where you'll be undisturbed and go through Maschine's User Manual page by page with Maschine on and practice everything as you read it. This will DRAMATICALLY speed up the time it takes you to learn your way around Maschine not to mention you'll know exactly what Maschine can and cannot do for yourself.

 

chech this videos: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02qpJt0hsL0"]Studio Rescue: Episode 1 - YouTube[/ame]

its a basic threatment. just to get the idea of what should not be done (before) and what should look like (after)

the video interesting part is in the middle; the rest of the video is filled with mierda de la mtv, and propaganda.

 

Studio Monitors need to be pointing at 60 degree angles, and your head should be at the vertex, ear level with the monitors. The KRK's come with a diagram in their user manuals, so take a peek.

 

Thanks for all the replies guys! really appreciate it, Gonna look into getting some smallish stands for the speakers to raise them to ear level!

And I will have a good look through the Maschine manual! I just wanna know everything if you know what I mean! hah, bit impatient too! (or just excited to get started)


My main concern is how to export the beat in to logic with each drum on its own channel strip? Anyone got any hints or tips?


Also, is it best to export as midi or audio?


Thanks again, Suskiewicz

 

i personally use Audio Drag n Drop. if you solo a Sound and then Drag n Drop from a Group, then that soloed sound is the one that ends up in Logic. please look at you manual for the section on Drag n Drop.

you can also use the 16 X Stereo version of the Maschine plugin, and create AUX Channels in the LOgic Mixer and therefore Mix indervidual Maschine Sounds into Logic. remember AUX Channels can be selected as Inputs for Logic's Audio Tracks, so that means you can record the Outputs from Maschine into Logic.

sowari

 

Brilliant! thanks for your advice! When you talk about the manual i presume you mean the online PDFS? as i didn't have anything inside the box itself.


Also, I've started to use Maschine as a plug in in Logic now but for some reason I have been getting latency when hitting the pad and hearing the sound back? :S any ideas why?

Also, do you use it as a plug in yourself? or standalone mode?


thank you!

 

check your settings in Logic pal, that's a blatant latency issue - reduce your settiings in your soundcard settings in Logic, that will fix it..

ps the above comments on speaker separation etc are "the perfecto" but most people cannot do simply because of the setup and limitations they have, I would like to bet that most people giving info on speaker distance, placement and angles have no idea about critical frequencies etc (it's not an attack on anyone, simply a statement) and how to deal with such issues when encountered.

learn your kit piece by piece is the best advice you can get.

enjoy yourself and please remember to ignore rules - remember it's supposed to be fun

 

after installing the software, you also get a folder called Documetation, it is in your Maschine application folder!

all Maschine updates also update all of the manuals. i presume you are using 1.7.2?

make sure you record enable the maschine track and/or reset your audio settings in Logic's Audio Preferences. are you using the mac's in-built audio card?

i work on stuff in Maschine Standalone to come up with ideas - that included using plugins inside Maschine, then i use Maschine as a plugin inside Logic to finish and mix the track.

sowari

 

How do you do that? :S sorry! i must sound like i know nothing about this stuff, i've just never had a piece of gear like this before.
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How do you reset the audio settings and record enable?

Also, whats the benefit of using standalone and then switching to plug in?


Suskiewicz

 

Sounds like you've got some learning to do. Latency can be an issue at the sound card level as well as in the DAW so check both. Reduce the buffer size as low as you can in both your DAW and sound card. If you experience playback issues you may need to move the buffer up a bit to larger number. My buffer is set to 128 in both my DAW and sound card settings. The guys here can correct me if I'm wrong but I think a buffer up to 512 should be "usable" anything more than that is going to give you significant latency. Use a buffer 256 and lower for best performance with the lower numbers offering the lest detectable latency.
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Also, hit up the guys over at the Logic forums for better help with Logic's settings....obviously not everyone here uses Logic.