Tempted to buy maschine!

What up.
I'm brand new to the forum, just wana talk to ppl who use maschine.
I use reason 5 with an mpk61 and it's great, solid gear. Im just really interested in maschine. It looks so fast as if you could easily make a beat with in minutes. My question is, is it really this simple to use if I've never used a drum machine/sampler before? Is the hardware easy to navigate and easy to teach your self how to use? Same goes for the software is it easy to quickly learn/know how to use? Are there sound refills that you can buy or are the sounds that cone
With it plenty? Is there any way I can use reason 5 and maschine together?

 

pretty much yes to each question

 

Haha ok sold. Anyone care to elaborate?

 

The only thing you will have problems with is using reason and maschine together. Reason doesnt have vst access built in so running maschine inside reason is a no go.

I used to be a reason & record user up until last year when I got maschine and now I dont load either up much. And since maschine 1.6 I do almost everything in maschine now.

How were you thinking of working?

 

You can use the XT Rewire VST plugin in Maschine to rewire to Reason.

 

Interesting. Id quite like using DrOctoRex and some of my old Combinator setups inside maschine.

Have you found it to work well?

 

i dont really know how i would want them to work together, i was hoping to talk to someone who uses them together with the rewire.
thats cool, so it seems as tho maschine is everything a producer needs in 1 unit? how do ya go about recording vocals say if i were to make a hiphop beat and wana lay lyrics over my beat? can ya do that in maschine?
it sounds and looks amazing im def buying it

 

My story may help. Maschine is the first and only drum machine I ever used. For about a year before I got my Maschine as a bday gift, I messed around with the intua beat maker app (the first crappy one, not the new hotness). All I was allowed to do was chop samples (sort of) and add drums. I didn't use an MP like all my homies because it looked complicated. I'm no idiot, I could have figured it out, but that damn ADHD and all...

I was going to get cubase and an M-Audio Axiom Pro 61, but before I could, my girl got me the Maschine for my b-day during the 1.5 update. I used it with 1.21 first tho. As far as making music, all I had used was AcidPro and a couple of plugs. I got Maschine, and I knew basically how to use 16 pads. My basic research online and via sweet water.com and gear slutz made the general ideas easy. Within minutes of getting the Maschine, I was making beat loops. One vid about how to sequence out full songs, and I started making all the beats in my sig. (Sequencing songs is the only counterintuitive thing about maschine. It's also the most brilliant thing about maschine).

Basically, if an ADHD 34 year old lawyer from L.A. can figure it out and make the beats in my sig, I'd assume someone like you who isn't new to making beats at all would find it easy. Especially since I have Reason/Record and refuse to use it because it seems to technical.

Also, now that you can use VST's (like Massive) and VST/AU plugs, you can do everything with few exceptions:

side chain compression is only done with whatever plug in you have. Maschine doesn't do it natively.

No time stretch within maschine. Again, plug in workarounds are used, but I haven't done it yet.

Note Repeat only goes up to like 1/64T, so if you use that a lot to say make a bass out of a snare, it's a no go here. But it's also completely unnecessary.

As for sounds, it comes with 6 gb of a ton of great sounds. Tons of basses, a few great pianos, etc. Some things are anemic like Strings (I wish I had more instruments and less ensembles) and no articulations, but this is something easily fixed with a great soft synth bundle. I'm looking to get Komplete 7 today. But drums: drums are an issue.

If you make techno/electronic/house music, you'll be fine with the stock drums. If you are just starting to make hip hop beats, you'll be fine. But as time goes on, you'll out grow them quickly if you're really into hip hop. I suggest you peruse the web for great drum sounds. They're there for free. Any one-shot sample works great. I get mine from rap music dot come's audio forums, and from other producers I know.

 

? You "make a bass out of a snare" with Note Repeat?

 

I've seen it done, yes. Pitch shift it down, roll off some high end, and set it to a very high note repeat, then you can play it like a tonal instrument.

 

Guitar Center has a $100 off $499 coupon. Makes it a no-brainer for you now.

 

Thanks heaps QuemusiQ. That was awesome info!
Word that your a lawyer from LA too!