Why does Maschine not develop?

I bought my Maschine mk2 about 2 years ago when I started to produce music. I found it incredibly intuitive how you could just apply effects or adjust parameters within seconds right at your fingertips. Especially for beginners it's more than amazing to scroll through thousands of samples in the stock library whilst experiencing a very well learning curve. But I never released anything cuz I was never able to export something decent-sounding out of the Maschine sequencer.

Then I fell in love with Ableton and I finally was able to produce stuff that hasn't just good ideas and melodies in it but also sounds well. But is that what Maschine is for? An ultra quick sketchpad for a track but then you spend twice the time composing it in another DAW again? The Maschine script for Live was something I really used to love, but it still doesn't feel right.

NI probably is the biggest company in their field and they cannot come up with a decent DAW for Maschine? I thought, everything would change with 2.x but despite the dual core/64bit support (which was OVERDUE as literally any other comparable software had that already), a drum sampler I never used and a new shiny interface I didn't see any MAJOR improvements happening to it.

Why can't we have an automation line like everywhere else? I think the automation parameters in Maschine seem clumsy as ****; it actually shouldn't be too hard for the NI developers to just implement the possibility of drawing a simple line so they parameters run smoothly and don't "jump" as they do while being controlled via the knobs.
How about a track view which has been requested for ages? I don't think it would destroy the concept of Maschine if you gave users the possibility to have their stuff organized like almost any other DAW has it. I am not saying users should be forced to work with Maschine like they do in other DAW's, but having the option of doing so would at least give ME a reason to plug in my Maschine again. I really like the structure of patterns and scenes but except for a few music genres that are "based on" repetitive parts it just sucks to make a whole new scene with new patterns just because you want one single event to have another reverb and maybe a slightly different progression in the bass line. How awesome would be to be able to have patterns within your scenes and scenes within your whole track while being able to change things in the track view without ******* up all the other scenes that make use of the same pattern? Just throwing in another sample outside of a scene that just triggers at the very specified time in your song without affecting other parts. And lastly, having automations over multiple scenes or patterns without having to split them up or to duplicate them?

I can imagine thousands of people telling me shut up now and that I didn't get the idea of Maschine and - honestly - they might be right. But this is my opinion and I want to know if there are other people as well who think that this tool is just 5 years behind its time. This is what I once expected Maschine to be and to be honest I am still hoping this dream will ever come true.


Thanks for your attention, Alex

 

NI is certainly huge in the DJ market field and very significant if not huge in the VST market, so there are lots of fields but NI is but a blade of grass in the field of DAW

 

They already addressed this in an interview. They aren't trying to be logic. That's not their lane. But eventually I'm guessing they want you to sequeunce everything in maschine. I bet you they rework the sequencer in 3.0 in the fall (I'm guessing). Their is nothing imo out their quicker to make beats in than maschine.

 

I think NI will eventually release a DAW (Kompose) with Maschine and the KK keyboards as the front end controllers for it. I think it will be similar to Live with the Maschine software as a kind of session view. Thats my little prediction for NI's future...

 

This would be fantastic

 

For some people...

 

the best thing NI could do for maschine is listen to the users and give them what they have been asking for years

 

Whatever they do fix the existing issues first nail this puppy down to perfection before adding more to it., and please do not hobble it so I am needlessly chasing workarounds to work with our DAWS of Choice, by all means feel free to make it midi compliant for everything possible not just in controller mode! Thanks you.

 

I largely agree with this sentiment... Many users are hot happy with how Maschine hasn't developed and can't do arguably "simple", "basic", "fundamental" things that much older grooveboxes (not DAWs) can typically do, yet they want NI to develop a fully-fledged DAW? I wonder how many typical and expected DAW features would be missing from Kompose 3.1.2...

My opinion is that NI should embrace what they have with Maschine and focus on developing and improving it, emphasising its strengths and what it can do, which will, in turn, resolve (at some of) its weaknesses. Maschine is different to DAWs and other products out there - it is something special and with the right development, it could be even more so.

 

true. i've not upgraded because i have older projects that use diva and i have a feeling that they would not work. and that is a real issue that many people are dealing with and they shouldn't have to worry about that at all. all 2.x projects should be expected to work.

in all fairness i'm only speaking from what i have read on forums and not from experience, but is seems that mac users need to have a relatively new computer but not be running the latest version of OS X. that's enough to keep me from upgrading. it seems like the 2.2 update isn't ready for prime time.

 

Are you being for real man?

 

i know it's crazy right

 

personally i don't think NI cares if users continue to use maschine, and that addresses the OP's question.

Why does Maschine not develop?

my theory is that new users are generally happy with maschine until they reach the point where they want to go beyond the basics. NI already has their $$$. so instead of developing the software to go beyond the basics they develop another slick video to lure new customers. eventually those customers start making the same requests that have been made here for the past 5 years. those requests continue to be ignored. instead new features get introduced that bog down the system or break workflows or sell new hardware. rinse repeat.

 

While I do agree with this statement to a degree, I've found that it's nearly impossible to find ONE piece of software that does EVERYTHING that one wants it to. This is why so many of us currently use more than one piece of software. Honestly, how many different DAWs do you use, or currently have installed on your computer?

I'm not trying to create a new argument, but I'm just trying to make a point. I'm 43, and I remember when I was in my teens, I would dream about having the kind of power that Maschine, or any current DAW has. It would take a room full of hardware to do what any modern day DAW can do. In the 80's you would consider yourself lucky to have a sampling drum machine with 11 sec of sample time with no effects, and the closest thing to a modern day DAW was this:



Just a quick reality check. For musicians and beatmakers, times are good and the technology is absolutely incredible.

 

Thanks for all the replies, I thought this thread is going to get buried here. I really get what some of you are saying in terms of "it's just not necessary for NI" but if they did what the users here are claiming for quite a long time already (I know that I am not the first one to say this; jut wanted to sum it up a bit) they would probably reach a whole new target group.

I totally agree with you, but if Maschine came with a sequencer like Live, it would be THAT piece of software for me. Loads of buttons, 8+1 knobs and really amazing pads. I couldn't think of any more perfect item.

 

i was making music in the 80's and i get what you're saying. to your point i don't expect or want one piece to do it all. i guess my problem is that i feel like maschine is getting worse not better, and i have a lot of time and money invested in it. if it were just a piece of hardware that could not be updated then i would get rid of it. but it has potential so i'm reluctant to throw in the towel.

sorry for my venting. honestly i try to keep it to myself but whenever someone else expresses the same things that i am feeling i let it out.

 

So how does kompose work. You have the maschine software, komplete software, and kompose. So you have three different programs. That was the problem with kore and maschine. They dropped kore to devote it's resources to maschine.

 

Maschine does not need to become a DAW. I think most people would be happy with a better way to use the current scene+pattern workflow. Unless you make really simple and repetitive stuff, the current implementation is clumsy and cumbersome. Anybody that has been using Maschine for a while can relate to what the OP is saying.
NI should really focus on this aspect in the near future. We have been waiting long enough. And recordable mutes & solos as well, please.

 

^ this plus the ability to create patterns that do not loop would open a lot of possibilities. we already have plenty of good DAW options.