Why do you continue to use Maschine and buy NI products?

Could you have a more meaningful contribution to the thread, since you are a moderator and all...

 

Tarekith writes
It's not perfect by any means, but as a groovebox meant for people who don't want to use a DAW for their songs

You're right and, to me , thats the problem. If you dont use a daw you really cant do much with vocals or other instruments ,so studio productions for hip hop, r&b pop are limited.I know that die hards sample sections or devise awkward work arounds but after the 2.0 software update, Maschine is just a pain to work with in a daw.It was so easy to work with before this. NI continues to market it as the solution that big acts use but they seem to want users to record midi in Maschine ,drag to daw and do this over and over while building a song. Hopefully users wont ask themselves why they're wasting time using 2 sequencers instead of recording midi in the daw in the first place. Also ,NI must be hoping users from the beginning just go away and sell their products. For me ,I'm tired of wasting time and no update for this like a simple DAW MODE.

 

I'm sure I'll draw the ire of a lot of people, but it just seems to me that a lot of the complaints against Maschine have more to do with people wanting it to be something it's not. It's like buying a truck to tow your boat, and then complaining it's not as fast as a Ferrari. I'm not saying there's never any room for growth or improvement in the tools we use, but at the same time picking the right tool for the job is half the battle.

If you know that you need to record longer passages or vocals, seems a bit odd to me to use a sample based pattern sequencer. Likewise someone mentioned doing movie scores earlier in the thread, it just seems painful to want to do something like that in a groovebox like Maschine. It's doable I'm sure, but I'd reach for something better suited to the task myself.

(flame suit on)

 

Maybe the issue with Maschine is the 2 way relationship N.I. has with end users. You have to give them a little credit, users ask or suggest a feature and now and again it pops up, And they still adding new features, how many other devices you have where this happens, most of the kit I have bought the manufacture gives up supporting after about 6 months. So it becomes easy to nit pick when something you want isnt there or not quite right. There has become a right of entitlement.
I think the 'Groovebox' thing goes out the window when you buy maschine studio as its marketed as being able to be the heart of you studio, that you can feed out and in from with ease. But its not as simple as that.
Problem is no one wants to take the initiative. Could N.I. / Ableton / Logic make everything work much tighter, of course they can. But they just want to say "its their device get what you need from them" or " Its their software thats not compatible" . They are the people that have the knowledge but are happy to let customer struggle coz no one has to take the blame.

 

well i did provide a link to some tracks that i made with Maschine

my worry is that this thread will end up like the recent one that was closed, and the slanging matches on that thread just bored me.

sowari

 

I dont think that is it; I dont think you think that's all it is, Im sure some people fall into that category; but when you have knowledgable users like Flux and saint Joe saying that NI have not developed maschine, the issue is clear.

A lack of focus on developing the requested features of maschine; and too much focus on developing an eco-system with soundpacks.

 

This is something I knocked up in Maschine recently. The customer brief was to pull fear/cute/patriotism/anger simultaneously. I was considering recording kittens sitting on a flag being hammered with the back of a gun...this had to do instead....

Did quite well anyway...

 

that has nothing to do with the convo

 

#10, #17, #18, #41.... See the trend.. ... At least I didn't fall asleep...

On your marks

 

I agree with both Tarekith and jpeg. Part of it is picking the right tools for the job, but on the other hand there are some things NI could implement to improve the "pattern based groovebox" experience part of the equation (and focus less on ecosystems). Too bad there is no way to take these hybrid systems home with you to demo them. Fortunately, for new adopters they have these forums, youtube videos, etc to help you "pick the right tools", but there is no substitute for hands on to help you quickly discover hmm its kind of odd the way they decided to do this....or holy ****!! it doesn't do that?? Lol. With these hybrid systems, when you take them home and open that software....that shitz is yours, lol.
To the OP, i continue to use Maschine/NI because they got it going on in the sound/synth game and they provided a way for you to manage your massive collection of sounds (mostly theirs lol), and that is what maschine and the kontrol keyboards, etc are centered around. And I use Maschine because it brought me back to making music again because of its speed and ease of use, and it makes beatmaking "fun again". Oh yeah, I also continue to use their products because I am heavily invested now, lol lol.

 

It did bring the fun back but eventually it became a stagnant system; but the last line about being heavily invested this is why some defend NI's poor product development almost to the death.

They are so heavily invested and entrenched in NI products that they refuse to acknowledge or even look at the decline of the customer responsiveness that NI had with regard to maschine back in the1.6/1.8 era.

 

Well, I am NOT one to be defending them at all. They are a grown ass company. They need to come on with the come on. I AM rooting for them though, I am NOT abandoning them, but I AM reading an Ableton Live manual on my phone right now, lol,lol. Too many eggs in one basket.......no good Danielson.

 

Cool I was not speaking in reference to you; there are other board members, skins is da first dude that comes to mind.

However there others who also have the type of blind devotion based on complete subjugation of their own ability to think as an individual, followed by their depth of investment.

They have become the perfect consumer; it is my opinion that only a week minded person becomes devoted to one particular manufacturer exclusively.

As the objective person should have the ability to evaluate all options on the market without any extreme bias and be able to asses who has the most appropriate product to meet your current requirements.

 

sure in an ideal world we would all be objective but surely that requires having quite a bit of money to spend on software/heardware.

i have quite a collection of 'analog' synths so i can be objective, i also have reasonable collection of FX, so i can be objective.

BUT

i have not got enough money to buy NI hardware/software combos as well as Akai hardware/combos just to be 'objective'. so basically when it comes to 'making beats' i am sticking with NI. but you guys should know me well enough to know - that like loads of people here - i think NI need to seriously up their game this year with Maschine, and if they don't i know that they will loose a lot of customers.

sowari

 

that's true, but i think that NI has earned some of the complaining that we read here every day.

the 2.0 upgrade that everyone paid for touted that it would allow features and long standing requests to be developed faster more easily. well... that didn't happen. it's been well over 2 years since the update. development of new features has actually been much slower than it was in the 1.x era. recordable mutes and solos have been "on the roadmap" for more than 5 years now. still not delivered.

i think you make a valid point @Tarekith but at the same time i don't think it's unexpected that people are venting their frustration. personally i don't have a problem with the venting. i just don't like it when it turns into forum users bickering back and forth.

 

I get ur point; as in u already have a bunch of analog synths, so when u asses new synths on the market u can do so from a position of power, because u have analog synths and can compare what they offer to what u already have.

however I disagree that u need money to have objective analysis, if a new moog comes out that is better than all ur synths (sound, features, design) but costs 3 times as much as ur most bank breaking synth, despite the fact u cant afford it u should be able to acknowledge that it is better.

 

Lol, i already knew you were not talking about me.

 

okay....

this is 'objective' testing based on citing other people's opinions

but this would not be based on personal testing, i supposed i an talking about 'subjective' testing here..

i can personally that GForce VST Synths are better than similar ones in the Arturia V Collection, because i have tested them. if i was being objective, i could also come up with citations where people have said they are not that good.

so are objective opinions are based on other people's comments?

sowari

l