pros and cons of maschine

"coming up with stuff fast and creatively" is what I'm hoping. I guess that's the reason I got interested in Ableton and Maschine in the first place.

Mac is out of the question. Exactly why you wouldn't recomend Live?

PS. Keep the pros and cons coming! Why You use it?

 

For me it will most likely replace Ableton one day. Only reason I will continue using ableton after 1.6 will be due to ableton having timestretch.

 

Thinking on how much maschine changed my musicmaking almost brings tears to my eyes and im not kidding! I dont do music for profit, it's just for joy and to keep my head stable(ish).
It brought back the spontaneity i lost when i went into the virtual world. I used to have synths with real knobs where i could sit for hours and tweak and play. The joy of throwing the mouse back into the darkness it came from!
When i started to play guitar almost two years ago i bought a ton of ampsimulations from line6. Problem here was that when i wanted a different sound, i changed the amp. Now i have bought a real amp, with real knobs. Instead of changing my amp every five minutes, i turn those knobs instead.
That is what maschine did for me when it comes to the techier side of my music. No more twisting those knob with a mouse. I do have a bcr-2000 but i have yet to find a vsti that works with it 100% where you never have to look at the screen (to control it fully)
Maschine brought those pads to my home for the first time. Prior to it i have had a digital piano with weighted keys and a crap electronic drumset. I sort of could record drums live via midi but it's NOTHING compared to maschine. It turns out that i do can make grooves!

Spontanity is the name of the game here. While reading some posts here i sampled a few beats from beyer's weekly mix. I sampled some from youtube .. heh, i sample everything now!

I hope there will be more products like this. Especially a virtual analog, also 100% controllable via hardware.

Like everyone else i also have a wishlist. Arpeggio, preferably in the style of Catanya. It isnt too easy to play rapid melodies into maschine, and doing it via stepsequencer takes too long and is a bore. I'd love for them to sell an additional piece of hardware with more buttons, knobs and those displays.
NI: I'd love to buy one of those!

Sorry if im rambling, i have a fever

 

personally, i don't like editing Audio in Ableton Live.

Ableton is fast and easy to use when coming up with ideas using the Session view, but i don't really like the Arrange view for arranging songs unless i need to work quickly.

in terms of editing Audio and Audio recordings on instruments and vocals, i would use either Logic or Pro Tools - i don't use Cubase.

this is just my personal preferences when it comes to my workflow and plugin preferences.

sowari

 

The best aspect of Maschine is that its brain is in software so it exploits the best of what the computer world has to offer you at the moment (with the exception that it doesn't take advantage of multicore CPUs at current). If you install the 64bit build of Maschine in a 64bit environment it can address an immense amount of RAM.
Compared with hardware equivalents which inspired it, Maschine can run an insane number of FX simultaneously (2 inserts per pad, 2 inserts per Group bus [think of Groups in Maschine to be similar to having 8 Auxillary busses on a mixer], 2 inserts on the Master = 274 simultaneous FX). There is nothing equivalent in the hardware world with regards to these aspects! Even the mighty (old) Korg Oasys could only give you 10 simultaneous Insert FX and would address a limited amount of sampling RAM.

Maschine really takes you closer to feeling like you're playing a musical instrument again rather than operating a piece of software. Because it is a committed control surface with rich graphic feedback from the software to its displays and LEDs embedded in the buttons, you can break away from your screen, mouse and keyboard, pop the unit on the end of a long USB cable and knock out some beats on the couch, away from the computer ... it encourages you to focus on playing in good performances rather than music making becoming akin to graphic design. In fact I touch the screen mouse and keyboard so little when using Maschine that my Mac will often fall asleep (to address this I've installed the Freeware "Caffeine" application which prevents this happening) - that's the mark of a truly successful control surface implementation IMHO.

Also its one of the few true Samplers in software form - most software "Samplers" are in reality, "ROMplers". You get a dedicated button to Sample and within seconds you can grab a sample from a microphone and have it playable and sequence-able on pads. All of this without touching the mouse, having to name and store said sample properly nor having to import/map the sample. The only workflow I've enjoyed close to this is Ableton's Sampler running within Live but then it's necessary to use the mouse to Drag the sample just taken into Sampler.

Running Maschine standalone is my preferred modus operandi when I'm getting ideas together initially. Once I've got my ideas together then I close Maschine, launch my preferred DAW and then work the arrangement and ideas up to be more sophisticated. Also you can launch multiple instances of Maschine inside your DAW and then flick between them very easily using the a shortcut combination on the Maschine controller. Makes for good collaboration sessions as well - you can have one producer working Maschine while your collaborator works independently in Ableton. Collab sessions always work best when you are both actively. When you save your DAW project, with the exception of any custom samples you've recorded into Maschine, all the settings for Maschine are embedded in the DAW project file. Very convenient workflow!

The forthcoming 1.6 update will knock your socks off! I'm looking forward to running other drum machine plugins inside of Machine such as MicroTonic, Waldorf Attack, Addictive Drums and the forthcoming Arturia Spark ... Imagine that - running an entire drum synth mapped chromatically inside a single pad of Maschine! Also very much looking forward to running my UAD2 plugins inside of Maschine - in particular the lovely new Studer A800 tape emulation.

 

Just wanted to add a little tip when it comes to using multiple Maschines in a daw: You can sample from one to another with VST's in the middle of the chain (unless anyone cracked the nut how to send audio out from Maschine, through a VST effect and back into the same instance of Maschine)

 

the following opinions are for maschine in use as a stand alone groove sampler with out the addition of a daw (cause what would be the point of comparing that)

if you write music that utilizes tempo changes, heavy sample layering, and crossfading, as well as heavy amounts of samples ie: more than 8 groups worth, it might take a bit to get on with maschine, the same goes for if you are looking for a robust songmode mode and the ability to record mutes, solos, and changes quickly and easily.

the best thing to do is augment your use of maschine with your preferred daw of choice. Ableton live is the best daw to smooth out these shortcomings in maschine.
I do believe the solutions to these issues in maschine are forthcoming and I do not regret purchasing maschine even though the things I listed above are cornerstones of the type of music I make................maschine is THAT good.

 

no mute automation

 

Have you used the emulations on sped-up samples that you pitch down in Maschine? They sound pretty damn accurate to me. The sound of the SP and MPC comes partly from the engine, partly from folks recording at 45 and pitching down 5 or 6 semitones, and also from recording LOUD through dodgy old 2-channel DJ mixers, with the bass turned up, the gain turned up, and the channel fader all the way up. Cut a bit of treble off the top, and boom, you've got your hot-as-hell levels coming in, and then let that 12 bit crunch do the rest.

 

agreed 100%

sowari

 

a few questions

1) can machine use all midi and audio ins and outs yet or are there limits; and if so what are they?

2) can u change the metronome click yet to your own samples? something about that mp click really works for me - guess i've grown used to it over the years and can't change.

3) how deep is the sequencer on it? is it equivalent to an mp or is it step only?

4) roll? flange? if so can you change the time signature and/or note length (1/4, 1/16, etc)?

5) any plans for rewire?

6) does it really have instant access to auditioning samples like FL or do you have to load them to play them?

7) custom templates?

8) does it have instrument definitions for easy recall of sound module settings or do you still need to use a DAW for that?

9) is there a limit to the sample database size or is your pc the limit?

10) 64 bit yet for more sample ram or still "no need or use" by NI for 64 bit yet?

11) pitchshift?

12) timestretch issues?

13) vst instruments only or also vst plugins?

14) 32-bit 96k? (just curious)

 

Seriously? Do you have to hi-jack this guy's thread with that many questions?

 

THe only cons i ran into with maschine so far is under windows vista you need a asio driver to get it to work. Now most on here may not have ran into that problem but i did. But under windows xp i didn't need a asio driver to get it to sample. Now having said that it is Microsoft windows vista that caused that problem not N.I. maschine etc. But one thing i don't like about any product is if i have to buy 15 extra things to get this one product to work then it's never worth it (good thing the asio driver was free!). And that is what i do like about N.I. is because they keep releasing new versions of their software and getting it to us maschine owners for free! You can't beat that. And if any time here after i would have to start paying for updates then it's time for me to leave N.I.'s maschine alone. Other then that. maschine is great. Software can always be updated easy compared to the mpc 500 and things like that etc. so other then the problem i told ya i had maschine is a great musical tool to use.

 

to be honest, it is recommend that all Windows users download and install asio4all if they are wanting to use music applications without problems... this is not Maschine specific.

also name me one Software that has been around for more than 2 or 3 years that has not had a paid update.

sowari

 

If you weren't going to answer or address any of my questions you could have left this as a thought on the other side of your monitor.

"Hijack"? If you say so buddy. I didn't see any specific details in anyone's response that I thought answered any of my specific concerns or needs. How many questions fewer would have not constituted hijacking or invited such a negative response OR are you just negative?

And if THIS is not the place to submit these questions just where exactly is?

I'm not the only one who wants to know the answers to these specific questions. I just took the time to ask them all at once.

 

It's just general forum etiquette :S The original post wanted a general insight into pros and cons, not YOUR technical requirements. Just make a new thread and I'm sure people will be happy to answer half the stuff that is already available on this forum and the internet already. No need to get offended

 

to be honest your questions do not relate to this thread.

also even if you did start a new thread with these questions, i doubt you would get musch of a response for 2 reason:

• there are too many questions
• many of them just have one or two words and a question mark, so it is difficult to know how to respond

Edit having said that you have started a new thread and someone has answered all your questions.

sowari

 

with regard to the the sp12/mpc60 emulation changing the pitch helps but the mode should produce a more pronounced sound alteration as soon as its turned on.

 

but the whole point of the emulation need you to replicate what producers were doing with the original hardware, which was about sampling a track at 45 so it would take up less room... so changing pitch is needed to replicate that style of working.

sowari

 

they should have connected with the guys over at presonus to figure out how they where able to get studio one as lite as it is as far as coding is concerned because maschine is heavy on cpu and studio one daw is lite as a feather