Wishes for Maschine hardware mkIII/mkIV

ipad?

 

i sill say the next harware will be a keyboard version of maschine

 

MP3 Sampling capability.

I would be happy to just be able to drag and drop samples right into the maschine. And be able to import MP3's...

 

I would prefer knobs that click between stops so that you can browse by feel more without having to watch it closely and fine tune every step.

 

Well despite the fact that it has a bunch of advantages NOT being stand-alone it would make plenty of sense to get something all in one box. Unfortunately it's quite impossible to get all the software stuff in there without making it a fully fledged PC. This tends to come at a serious cost, remember the mpc5000 and mv8800.

I dislike the software for being software (neverending update cycles), but it's flexibility is straight awesome. I still think a hardware based environment could be superior but it would have to be really good and flexible.

 

Which is why I was suggesting only partial features available stand-alone. If you wanted to run VST's for example, you would need to hook it back to your PC. Anyway, it's probably not going to happen (won't hold my breath) but I would be very excited if it did.

 

I fully agree with that. I think there is a good bunch a stand-alone unit could be without relying heavily on plug-ins. Sampling and sequencing on the go sounds like a cool feature.

 

maschine mk2 turns more to daw like thing so i think there is no need to make it works without a computer..

 

After having owned the Mikro mk2 for a while now I tend to agree. People should probably look into stand-alone for different reasone than just being stand-alone.

A Macbook Pro and a Maschine would already be portable without really losing anything we've got right now. The other thing is not being limited to just one user interface, but being a programmable midi controller already they seem to have gotten that right too.

I would like to see more knobs on the Mikro series. I love the form factor, but it could use two or three knobs so we can at least control cut off and resonance FX at the same time for example.

 

pointless when u consider u could run maschine off a notebook, ipad mini, perhaps an iphone or a windows tablet


so that is still very portable


so i dont feel there is any need for what u suggest nor does it sound cost effective from a business standpoint

 

It's not pointless at all. It means you don't have to carry extra bags with a laptop and controller, but just take your Maschine with you when on the road. The way the Beat Thang handles the stand-alone mode really shows it can definitely be done in a useful and cost effective sense.

I'd also like to see the Maschine to be operable with an iPad, iPhone, Windows tablet and Android devices like you state, from what I understand that is not possible yet. That would be great, even though the devices probably aren't fast enough for that just yet.

Anyhow, those who are stuck in their studio anyway might not really see the point of a stand-alone Maschine, but with the exception of the Beat Thang there isn't really much out there providing the same.

 

You have to realise that those who long to the true MPC era are (and NO disrespect intended !) in fact musical dinosaurs and there is no market for that extremely small group.
Sure, they might look like a large number of people in the hiphop community but when you look at the actual consumer market they are tiny.

If you are serious about music making, even in the hiphop community, you ARE using a computer at one point or the other. Even DJ Premier who still uses the vintage MPC60 can not finish a song without a computer (eg. Pro Tools). So the computer always comes in play, no matter if you like it or not.

Now, the adding of a serious audio interface is something that i believe in too but everything has a downside. USB power is extremely limited so then you would have to add a powersupply or batteries/powerpack in order to make an audio interface work.
This takes away from the mobility factor, eventhough this is not important for everybody but these days professional producers more and more produce while travelling. Having a modern notebook that can last upto 8 hours really gives a LOT of flexibillity with a device as maschine.

Remember that the good old MPC needed a small nuclear powerplant to operate and using it on the move was far from ideal due to it's weight and size.

Another thing to remember is that standalone maschines that have an instant boot structure are pretty limited to alterations software wise when it comes to serious updates. Just look at any device with firmware, the updates are never dramatic as there is only so much you can alter as the hardware remains the same. On a modern computer the storage is NO issue at all, and cpu performance increases every year.
Meaning, you can have that same device working better in the future and there is almost no limit to software enhancements. On a standalone device that is a different story.

Ofcourse everything can be made, even in a light small even portable package with Lithium Ion batteries, highress OLED color screen, and now with SSD drives you can have plenty of storage too. But you will be looking at a device 3 times the price of a Ren, kinda pointless for 99.999 % of the people.
Best to spend those extra $$ into a kickass ultrabook that also allow you to do a LOT more than just making beats. And once more, let's be honest ... There is NO serious music producing without a computer anyways, at one point or another the computer is needed anyways.

NI should focus on the one thing ALL music lovers already have, the computer ... So the Controller type MPC is the only way to go.
They should integrate it more with devices that more and more people also have, like tablets as they could dramaticly improve the view of things and improve workflow. Maybe even one day they could act as the computer itself and allow you to only need the controller and the tablet to produce.
As stated before, an proper audio interface would also be welcome.

And ofcourse they should dramaticly improve Imaschine, there should be a dedicated Ipad version (finally) with more options that really allows you to start on a beat or continue working on one that you already started on the computer.

 

I see where you are coming from, but it's not about using a PC or not. It's about the user interface that is far from how dedicated it should be. That's from a musician's point of view. We are not programmers, so the software tools we use should be adapted to keeping a musician's work-flow going. This is not really the case with the Maschine and in comparison the older MPCs and MV8800s do a much better job at that.

Making music is a specialist thing, the average consumer PC is just an all-purpose device. It should be plain obvious a specialized tool will always be a better choice over an all-purpose machine. I'm not hating on the Maschine as a controller device though, it's a step in the right direction when it comes to the controller side of things. But... a lot can be improved upon for sure.

Less mouse involvement and menu structures to go through, features you'd regularly use should have either dedicated buttons and knobs or have an easy to find plain in sight spot of their own that makes sense. Quite a bunch of things are in fact somewhat hidden and the way they sort of force you to use the Maschine software on a PC (ie. with the mouse or keyboard looking at your PC monitor) makes very little sense.

It's almost like two separated worlds, especially with the Mikro MKII which lacks a few knobs and buttons compared to it's bigger brother.

I like Maschine and I somewhat like it's software too, but even the sequencer and quantize could do with a strong update. I'm not that blown away about how the quantize works and frankly that has nothing to do with whether we use an all-purpose desktop PC as the main chunk of hardware now.

That being all said though, people seem quite capable making music with the Maschine, but there's definitely room for improvements.

 

And yet, the older devices downright prove that it has never been about performance as long as it all makes sense within the standalone device. In fact, you can still make music without the need of an all-purpose PC and many artists still do, there is a lot of equipment that can't quite be replaced by virtual variants yet.

A musician doesn't care about the amount of ram, as long as the device operates smoothly with the features it was designed for, so ultimately we can make music with it without it bogging down in the process. Adding a faster PC machine to the Maschine work-flow really doesn't add that much. Surely we'd focus on getting the lowest latency as that does directly influence our music production, but the amount of CPU cores means very little. It does open up a few doors for using heavy plug-ins, but at the end of the day companies can design a device around that for sure.