Rate of improvement

Honestly, I don't care much about imrproving on the looks. I think Maschine is fine as it is for what it is (a jump off point for starting songs). I'd like to see some serious effort in integration with other full blown DAWs so that moving things into another DAW when you're ready to get more in depth with your project or you want to use the hardware in said project, it doesn't require a bunch of work ahead of time. I mean, I wonder how many people opted for a different piece of hardware because it just works with their DAW. I think that would be much more useful than superficial UI enhancements at this point.

As a user, of course I want that for me personally, but I'd also think that integration improvements with other DAWs would lead to better sales and adoption rates which would in turn lead to more money for more development.

I'd like to bang out beats and sample on Maschine quickly and then finish songs in a DAW without having maschine turn into a basic drum pad once I've moved over to that part of the workflow. But I also don't want to spend a week scouring youtube and forums looking for a way to get a knob to tweak what I want it to tweak, or download software from a random foreign language site just to get the play/pause button to work in my DAW.

TLDR; It's pretty enough as is.

 

Each one on us has their own priorities, stating them while diminishing the ones from others as 'unimportant' doesn't really change anything. For some it's Automation/modulation, others want magical DAW integration, others Performance recording, better arrangement, audio tracks, workflow enhancements, the list goes on and on... :S
HiDPI is not a priority for me but I understand people asking for it.

My previous monitor was 2560x1440 as well and I had no issues either, at that res I didn't really need any scaling, my personal reason to upgrade was sharper text/GUI's, maybe because I am getting old or something or because I stare at a screen for 15 hours a day so I value a good sharp monitor, good mouse, good keyboard, etc... Comfort is important.

No one is really is asking for an artistic, pretty/modern GUI or any sort of complicated overhaul/redesign, just clear sharp text and controls across the multitude of available screen sizes and scaling options.

Screen size might also matter, from 22" to 32" things can often change a lot. I never compared so IDK but this might be one of the reasons some people are bothered and others aren't.

 

I run Maschine on a 32" or sometimes on a 50" with no issues.

The problem with a request is it can be a distraction similar to people asking a DJ to play a song when it's not that type of event.
Some people are always looking to hear that dumb song that no one wants to hear and would be really out of place,
Feature request are very similar.
NI kinda shot themselves in the foot with some early features and now years later Maschine suffers from not having a clearly defined identity so users tend to want to steer it in a direction of their choice.

I'm all for making a product better but if you are trying to make it perfect for you and your strange workflow, just go buy something that does that already.

 

What feature requests might these be? NI has marketed to both the electronic crowd and the hip-hop crowd with their marketing of Maschine. I don't think I've come across many feature requests that wouldn't be massively useful to either demographic, and I don't think many feature requests constitute a 'strange' workflow unless you've been under a rock for the last decade of software and hardware development in other products.

In regards to UI and general accessibility, display size doesn't say much without resolution factored in. It's important that as pixel density increases, NI either keeps pace or, hopefully, implements a vector-based UI that will scale infinitely, aligning the planets and bringing them into universal harmony, allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life, from extraterrestrial beings to common household pets.

 

Lets be honest. None of these GUIs are *so* bad that they are illegible, or even hard on the eyes, and Im not even just talking about NI products. None of this is hard on the eyes unless your monitor is crap and you dont understand all the DPI, resolution, contrast options present in your chipset and screen, Im sorry to say.

This same battle plays out on steinberg, kvr, and on other various vendor forums, and it always sounds the same. Plugin vendors who sell instruments that retail at $30 are being shouted at about DPI by that one person, always, lol.

People who've adopted 4k and higher, and use very high (very expensive) high DPI screens shout about how they need the GUIs in their chosen software to keep up, but the vast majority of users aren't in that boat, per industry statistics on technology adoption. We have to consider this from OUTSIDE our perspective (audio production), and from a larger industry perspective.

Im ironically in that same boat (very early adopter of all things tech, typically, including higher DPI/4k), but my screen and everything on it, in my opinion, looks great and I couldnt care less about DPI scaling. I would, however, very much like to see some feature improvements, and things like aftertouch support in machine2, etc etc, that are FUNCTIONAL, and very important differences to me. But that's just me...

The argument about GUI and DPI scaling is an argument of micrometers. However the comments from folks on the receiving end of the DPI "issue" truly, repeatedly, demonstrably make the issue sound like a show-stopper and that they have lost all confidence in NI(and steinberg) because of it, blatantly ignoring the giant galaxy of other functional issues and feature requests that people also complain about. The more I see this, the more I engage with it lol.

 

I'm only on 1920 res and I find some GUIs difficult to read. Mainly Plugins, but NI do set a rod up for their own back by claiming to be "The Future Of Sound" and yet being very much behind the curve in so many areas. I really wish Audio companies would consider looking for interface designers from other 'disciplines'. I've spent considerable time doing CGI and the usability of some CGI software makes most Audio software seem really clunky.
There's also the factor that although a GUI maybe legible, if it's a strain to read easily it really makes you much slower and inclined to choose an alternative.

 

I have poor eyesight(nearsight) and have recently broken my glasses, and I have a 13 year old 27" Dell 2707 1080p screen, and a 2 year old BenQ 32" 4k screen. Wife has a 15" MSI laptop with a 1080p screen. We both use audio applications, her less frequently than I, but they all look fine on every screen. I was using cubase 5 on this last year.

Could they be MORE clear, and allow more GUI scaling/resizing/convenience options for me? Yes. Yes they could. I would like that.

But what I would really like is perhaps more bulletproof install/uninstall scripting and removal tools. For example, I cannot receive any maschine2 updates at the moment because of something that went wrong during install or update.

System was flawless with komplete 12 full. Then I updated to ultimate. Next, kontakt started crashing when using kinetic metal along side any instance of komplete control with massiveX. NI recommended using their "kontakt removal tool"..... which I did. Kontakt was fixed. Now, all updates to massiveX and maschine2 fail, and I cannot uninstall either, lol.

I would prefer... if work were done here, for example. My old eyes would certainly love a GUI that POPPPPPPS, but for now, I would prefer less administrative trouble. I hope this makes sense.

 

Yes it does and it's odd you're having so many difficulties. The only time I've ever had problems with an NI installation, or any other, was due to my AV and I've got Ultimate CE plus a huge amount of other non NI products. Maybe it would be useful to try and get on the Native Access Beta..........

 

I wont be joining the beta right now, no. Not enough time in a day, nor would I like to deal with any potential beta issues at the moment. If I had another PC I could dedicate to it, perhaps. I maintain a very ordered computing environment, lol, and I know nearly every process that runs on my windows and linux machines, and I know all the traffic on my network. Im not going to put a beta stack on my main machine right now. Nope.

The problem I experienced was obviously due to a specific installer issue of some kind. Everything was installed in default paths, there are zero issues on the system outside of this audio application stack, and my disk I/O is squeaky clean. Then I used NA to update komplete 12 to ultimate, and then kontakt began to crash. Then, I used their removal tool. Then, updates failed. I'm pretttttty sure I see what happened. You would have to follow my same process to reproduce this, using the kontakt removal tool, etc.

 

BuT I hAvE a 150" 720p tV aNd It WoRKs GrEAt sO it sHoul be FiNE for evERyoNe elSe.
plz ni, leave it how it is, don't ever improve.

 

Feels like Maschine has always steered towards all the little flashy bits and bobs and working/progressing in a backwards thought. It’s like they program and release all the little fancy features instead of first programming and releasing the core elements that would make Maschine a super solid go to for making strong foundations of a song/track.. obviously this is recording mute performance and pattern and scene changing performances.

The Akai MPC One (all akai OS products) can do the mute recording inside the stand alone hardware AND on the MIDI controlled software. This is super dope but I basically got my strongest flow in Maschine and all the Komplete software plus normal VSTs so when I go to create on the MPC I feel like I’m missing out on the sound creation aspect, but I guess that’s my fault until I get better with it.
Still I think NI should have been creating this solid foundation for their software Maschine before most other things that have came out in the last few years. I mean come on a few years is long time to waste.. Akai will be passing them up in the software realm shortly if they open their eyes a little wider too. Basically all the user out there are leading the horse (horses) to the water but they just won’t drink. If I was CEO of these comapanies I would be chopping heads left and right asking why these things haven’t been completed yet.. I would be withholding paychecks hacking available vacation time down and be breathing down the necks of these supervisors and managers everyday until I see huge improvements in the basics of the software. .

 

You're assuming a knowledge of the inner workings of NI that probably no one who is not under an NDA actually has. You're also assuming the problems lay with people taking direction rather than the direction they were tasked to take.
Supposedly the overall direction the company is to take lies with the CEO not those under them. Whether or not that CEO actually discussed what was feasible and how with his various leads is open to question and on the surface it seems that the communication within NI has not been optimal or in the companies best interests but there we go...just speculation..........................................

 

You sound like a fun person to work with. You think the workers at NI should be threatened and extorted so they will work faster for the somewhat selfish, entitled crowd who don't respect the value of their labor, nor their time, eh? I have choice words for you, but they might get me banned here, so...

 

People forget that it's just other human beings working at NI, they're likely passionate about making music and would have plenty in common if they met and would probably be a little more compassionate.

 

Definitely
Personally I love progress in every aspect and it is a great time for tech in general with amazing new gear and even more great things to come.
Regarding screens , I do dream of nice 4k Monitors but it is far from being a priority and I personally think that we are actually in a "not funny period for video" with lots of confusion and bad aspect ratio all the time and for a lot of people in many applications because of that huge fracture between the top and the bottom of the pyramid . Just to make the analogy bigger it is like 1% of population fight over to convince themselves, and the 99% of the world, that 4k is the norm.... I wish it was as it is definitely amazing but dear, I can tell you it isn't.
Tech giants are ruling the world, they are rich, they are fast, but they are very expensive (even overpriced because they have their own sense of what value is) which make transition very slow ..
I am still working on low res monitor like many of my mates and standard people, and the smallest Maschine vst window doesn't fit on 1024x768.
The best investment I made the past 2 years was switchresx for 14 bucks...solves a lot of issues for me .
More than a high res Maschine gui, I'd rather have detachable windows or being able to split arranger/idea/sequencer/mixer view on my 3 old screens and the ability to pin all party plugins like the NI one's.
Or simple things like holding shift to switch group prior to sound slots in routing options ...I have an endless s list of those minor improvements in mind

 

This guy^^^ gets it!

 

Thanks...just my own facts...

 

HiDPI is important to me but not something I would call a priority. I’m running Maschine on 5K2K monitor in Retina (HiDPI) mode and it looks decent. I think EvilDragon mentioned few times that re-doing the GUI requires gargantuan amount of work due to NI relying on some old franeworks/code libraries.

I much rather they implement functionality improvements first, HiDPI can wait.

 

TBF HiDPI was only one of the points of the OP, he didn't mention it was a priority, actually, no one here did.

 

Indeed, you need to go to youtube for that. Best of luck finding a comment that isn't about HiDPI.