Well, I gave it a go....I've switched back to 1.8

After playing on 2.0 for the past 5 days I couldn't take it anymore and tonight loaded up 1.8 MY GOD it's like having an old friend back! Also the Solid Bus Comp and Scarbee Mark 1 show up in 1.8 which is nice.

There are some nice features in 2.0 but there are too many little things wrong which (for me at least) break the work flow.

I know it's a new version and things will change but to me it seems like a step back, hopefully they will fix things soon!

Anybody else switched back?

 

I did...

 

In future, could you attempt giving meaningful titles to threads 'a go' ?

Cheers

 

after using 2.0 on the studio for a couple days, i went to 1.8 on my mk1 to look at some older projects. it just seems like 2.0 involves more pushing buttons than it should. 1.8 just seemed so perfect but im sure once i figure out 2.0 ill be plenty satisfied.

 

What were you expecting?

 

I am still in between things since I paid 100 Euros for it have mixed feelings about it, but here are my impressions and verdict after using it in the last 3 days (which kept me from actually creating Beats on my MK1)

Pros:

- Multicore support really helps to get more power out of Maschine. Even on older Hardware (MBP late 2008)
- The Audio Engine seems to sounds better then before and supports 32 bit float export now.
- More plugins are recognized by Maschine which were not accessible before (like Plugins from Klanghelm for example)
- Unlimited inserts and groups are really useful for my kind of workflow.
- A mixer section (which looks really promising)
- Editing Tools for the grid are nicer now. You can also extend the start of an event now and not just the end of it.
- Drum Synth. You can really create banging Drums with this, if you know how to layer stuff.
- It feels like the controller is even more responsive to the pads now.
- Accessing Software Parameters through the Controller has improved on old MK1
- Parallel Processing.

Cons:

- GUI: This is where it gets really bad…

- The new GUI hinders flawless workflow. Mainly because NI tried to give it that flat, minimalist and modern look for the price of workflow and accessibilty by hiding a lot of important stuff in submenus. That's a no go from a creative point of view!
- Contrasts are all way too low and washy. Especially in the Grid area. The Gridlines are almost invisible, contrasts too low.
- The Slots for the "Sounds" are WAY too small. Especially for aging producers with bad eyes. Can't belive that you actually used lightgrey symbols of Knobs - not much bigger than a mouse cursor - for displaying Pan and Volume values on a dark grey background (Hello Ableton!).
- The middle section, where you do all the routing is way too big now on the other hand. You're just looking at a fat grey bar most of the time if there are no controls assigned to any of the knobs.
- No resizable Modules. Before, you had these nicely devided, lovely shaped(!) sections of the GUI which were all foldable(!) to bring other parts of the GUI in focus. And you needed that focus, especially when using Maschine as a Plugin in your DAW. Now, only the Arranger can be resized. That's gonna be a big problem in any DAW.
- The context menu of the GUI for adding plugins is sluggish: it just closes instantly, if you miss to hit the subcategories with the mouse cursor by just a little bit. Really, really annoying! A little time delay would be useful before closing. Plus, the "External" Plugins category opens slowly as if it has to update the plugin list all the time.
- And Pop-up errors like "5 Plugins not found" are actually not helpful. Machine 1.x at least told what was missing
- Why this cheap Font on these ugly Pop-Up Boxes? I boot up windows, if I want to see something like that!

Workflow Disimprovements and removement of features and functions that were available in 1.8.2:

1. Features: Removement of Group Polyphony (why?) Please Restore this!
2. Features: Removement of Attack, Hold, Decay for Oneshot samples (Why?) Please Restore this!
3. Features: Removement of: Drag and Drop (not re-arrangement) of plugins from Sound a to b and from to Sound to Group Level. (Why? Especially in hindsight that we've got a dedicated Mixer Window now…) Please Restore this!
4. Plugin Management: You CANNOT tell YOUR Maschine NOT to use AU plugins, no matter what you do! (Why?) Please Fix this
5. Plugin Management: You CANNOT disable Autoscanning for Plugins. (Why?) Please Fix this!
6. Plugin Management: No Plugin Categories for 3rd Party Plugins. In the Options there's a checkbox that says "Use NI AU Plugins". If you enable this, you find the category "Native Instruments" in the context menu when you add plugins. Why didn't they instead didn't just give us the option to create categories based on vendors?. Please add this!
7. Plugin Management: Why is there no destinction between FX Plugins and Instrument Plugins like before? Remember how the first plugin insert was the only one where you could insert software instruments and how those software Instruments were categorized? GONE. Everything (FX and Instruments) are now just bundled under "External" Plugins, so you have to scroll through all of your plugins to find your instruments. Suggestion: split it into "External FX" AND "External Instruments or whatever supports MIDI"! PLEASE add this!
8. The browser is completely tag-based now and takes up a lot of screen estate if you unfold all it's sub categories. Because they dumped the left to right approach and went top to bottom instead. That is realized again by utilizing a horrible, lifeless grey on grey colour scheme. Time will tell if the tag cloud actually improves workflow or not… but by now it just likes to not tag right, crash and freezes a lot. Please Fix this.
And not to mention that it is not really flexible when it comes to importing and tagging user files. You can open .rex files with Maschine, but you damn sure cannot import them into Y O U R (!) library…

Closing Comments:

The overall GUI Design looks like it was developed by Designers who seemingly have no ties to actual music production and also feels like no actual Maschine Users (aside from Jeremy Ellis) were involved in the Development of Maschine 2.0. As far as the overall media coverage of the Maschine 2.0 Software is concerned, nobody (!) of the reviewers actually paid close enough attention to those kind of details and issues you come across when actually working with the product. This, I think is kind of sad. Because I probably would not have bought the 2.0 upgrade if I knew then what I've experienced up until now. So, N.I. I paid 100 Euro in ADVANCE, before being able to demo the Software, did bug testing (unwillingly) laid out all the problems and put them in a comprehensive list, so you can go ahead now and fix these issues!

Thanks in Advance!

 

i have the feeling I rewire my brain to learn to play this instrument.... and then this will be really cool too. But it's a pity I didn't make any nice music last week.

don't know about the gui. I almost never look on it

 

Same, 2.0 has actually made me appreciate 1.8 x even more.

I can't help thinking they really should of just added the things that where missing in 1.8, instead they opted for a whole new rewrite and went OTT but at the same time forgot to add even the most basic sequencer functions.

Maschine for me is most importantly about sequencing and sampling, the hosting of plugins is a nice bonus but not at the expense of such basic sequencer functions such as clicking on a note in the piano roll and hearing it, or having either pitch names or kit names on note events.

Or having some innovative option that can pick out kicks - snares from drum loops and put the names on the notes in the sequencer.

Or internal drum replacement

Or extracting midi from drum loops and mapping it to maschines 16 pad format rather than the generic chromatic mapping

Or allowing us to batch import drum midi files and having an internal mapper to map to maschine format

Or options to randomize and re-order notes in the sequencer

Or......

 

I have to agree with the GUI side of things. There's lots of eye candy but when I'm trying to work with Maschine I want fast access and proper information on the screen rather than wasted space.

For example, the list of items in the browser has around 6mm of wasted space each side of the white bar that showes you the selected item. The list of sounds in the kit is narrower and with the additional eye candy of the vertical orange line and additional spacing means that the sample names almost always need contracting. For example, with the "808 Not Enough Kit" 12 of the sample names need contracting as opposed to 5 in 1.8. Then in the section above (Master/Group/Sound) the font is bigger for the sample name so 6 of the names need contracting as opposed to none in 1.8. The only place you can see the complete sample name is by clicking the sample display button. Just making the various windows resizable would go a long way to helping here.

You can no longer see all the patterns in tabs along the top of the sequencer window, you have to go to a sub menu - more time spent clicking around.

For me the new GUI isn't as fluid or intuitive as the old one, which is a shame as I was hoping for an improvement. It looks nice so I'm sure the screenshots will help sell the product but I can't help but think that there wasn't much usability work done with a wide selection of users. Or maybe there was and it was ignored - either way I hope it gets better with age!

I'm using MK1 hardware, not that it makes that much difference.

Mike

 

5teezo,

I just wanted to say thanks for your effort. I haven't been able to follow the news of the 2.0 release until several days after and I'm really great-full for forum members like you. Your detailed analysis puts many of the problems into focus in a way that I haven't seen (so much) yet. I would love to see this forum improved by more helpful information like this. It's understandable that you're upset and annoyed with the situation, especially since it is a paid upgrade (which people made such a big deal about) and I think your criticism is justified. Lets hope that the programmers at NI take your words to heart and use all that profit to continue to improve the software and offer more unpaid content with successive updates as they have in the past. It may not be an ideal system, but with feedback like yours NI has the potential to stay relevant in the marketplace and the opportunity to show gratitude for their user base.

So for what it's worth, on behalf of all the Maschine users, I say thank you very much!

Stay positive,
Sonifr

 

Great breakdown. Always amazes me how hyped a product is yet take away all the shiny flashy marketing baloney and you can see what your really getting. It's almost as if NI had given themselves till the end of 2014 to release studio hardware and software it would be a much mor solid product rather than hyping everyone up for new gear and lackluster, buggy "upgrades".

 

I can only speak for myself, but I think part of my disappointment comes from the fact that everything I own by NI is solid.

It feels like an industry standard when it comes to software. Ive waited months for SEM V to work in Live, But, no offense Arturia, I expected it a little.


I also know my moans arent as valid as some of the users as I only use machine as a plugin for drums and am happy using the mouse with the hardware. Fix the drag and drop midi and Ill be on my way to being very happy.

But I feel for folks that were solely hardware based, and/or upgraded to Studio (new users dont even have the 1.8 option), for that Im pissed off at a company I had faith in.

They dont have a great reputation for customer service (mind you, theyre not alone), they dont have a great deal of communication with users, but...up until now....you could rely on their products (yes I own Kore, lets not go there)

So im looking forward to the first update and some happier maschinests. It would be nice to hear from NI, but that might be taken the wrong way so I doubt we'll hear anything...besides I hope everyones too busy working on 2.0.1

 

I don't have this in 1.8. Did you mean something else?

Does anyone know if 2.0 can copy & paste automation?

 

Go to a Sound... then go to the Sampler slot and look under Modulation Envelope

 

ahhh, I was looking under ADSR. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

Great breakdown 5teezo!

I got all excited about multicore but I've realised Maschine never really struggled on my pc anyway.
I've noticed in 2.0 that all my VSTs don't show up (either 32 or 64 bit) but they do in 1.8
As far as I can see there is no way to control the mixer from the hardware (MK 1), you could at least do groups in 1.8
You now have to press more buttons to access looping options for a sample and it isn't shown on the hardware.
I don't like how the browser separates content, I want to browse my Gold Baby packs at the same time as my NI packs.

Right now I can't think of anything I prefer in in 2.0 over 1.8 if I'm being really honest. Oh wait being able to change the sound engine on all sounds in a group at once is nice.

 

I can sign most of the things you told us. But not this:

My experiences are totally other ones ...

 

I wouldn't agree with this statement. NI products have been responsible for more host crashes than anything else. This was only a suspicion/theory to begin with, but now Ableton Live actually tells you what was responsible for the previous crash as part of their crash report when you restart the application. 9 times out of 10 it's caused by an NI pluggin.

 

Hence my disclaimer about speaking for myself


Other than maschine, i own ultimate, but I only really use kontakt as most of my set ups hardware...but never had problems when Ive used anything else

I own the v3 collection and spark as well, theyve been, well...troublesome...in the past

 

I've gone back to v1.8.

v2 is somewhat of a disaster as far as I can tell.

I'd have been happy to pay $100 for the ability to just have more than 16 outputs...