Setting Global Preferences
When you first loaded Maschine 2 you skipped setting any preferences because the dialog was not accessible, so now it is time to get the basic settings in place that will be used as the default for all of your projects.
Please make sure that you have the Accessibility Helper in the foreground for these tasks.
General Settings
Press the Settings button (row 5, column 2 of the Control Zone). The Helper will announce “General Settings”, which is the name of the first panel of preferences.
Arrow Up/Down until you hear “Screen Buttons Zone”, so that you can discover what the Screen Buttons do in this page of preferences.
Repeatedly Arrow Right and you will hear that:
Screen Button 1 is turned On and controls Settings.
Screen Button 5 will say “Left from General disabled”.
Screen button 6 will say “Right from General"
All the other buttons will say “Inactive”.
Arrow Up/Down to get to “Screen” then Arrow Right to hear the screen contents. You should hear “1 General Settings”.
Arrow Up/Down until you get to the Screen Knob Zone.
Repeatedly Arrow Right and you should hear:
Metronome enabled, followed by “On” or “Off”
Metronome Level, followed by a value in dB.
Metronome Signature, followed by a fractional value (for example: “¼”).
Metronome Auto On, followed by “On” or “Off”.
Count In Length, followed by a value (for example: “1 bar”).
Time Signature Numerator, followed by a value (for example: “4”).
Time Signature Denominator, followed by a value (for example: “4”).
Screen Knob 8 is unassigned.
Turning any knob will change its value and you will hear the new value as you turn. Just stop turning when you hear the value that you want and the setting will be preserved for the future.
Audio Settings
You may recall that Screen Button 5 reported that it was assigned to “Left from General disabled” and that Screen Button 6 reported that it was “Right from General”. This means that you are in “General Settings” and that these two buttons allow you to move from panel to panel of the preferences. Screen Button 5 says that it is “disabled” because, at the moment, you are on the first panel of preferences and it is impossible to go back to a previous panel. Screen Button 6 does not say “disabled” because you can press it to get to the next panel of preferences, which are the Audio Settings. Alternatively, you can click the 4-D Encoder left or right to move between the panels of settings.
Press Screen Button 6.
Arrow to the Screen Buttons Zone within the Accessibility Helper and use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keyboard keys to examine the button assignments. You will see that both Screen Buttons 5 and 6 now report “Audio” and both buttons are active. This means that you can use these buttons to move backward or forward to a different panel of preferences.
Now move to the Screen Knob Zone and use Left and Right Arrows to discover the available audio settings. You should hear:
Audio Interface Driver, followed by a driver type. The available driver types will vary, depending on whether you are using a Windows PC or a Mac. The best performance is normally achieved by setting a value of “ASIO” (Windows) or “Core Audio” (Mac).
Interface Device. You should normally set this to “Maschine Mk. 3” or “Maschine Plus” if your speakers or headphones are directly connected to your controller.
Interface Sample Rate. Set this to your preferred sample rate.
Interface Buffer Size. You may need to experiment with this setting. Reduce the value if Maschine 2 appears to be sluggish when you play notes into it, but increase the value if you hear any pops or crackles in your audio.
The remaining Screen Knobs will report “Unassigned” in this panel.
MIDI Settings
Pressing Screen Button 6 from the Audio Settings panel will take you to the MIDI Settings panel. The Screen Knob assignments are as follows:
MIDI Sync Mode, followed by “On”, “Send” or “Receive”. If you are not using Maschine with any other equipment you can leave this set at “Off”. If you want another MIDI device, such as a drum machine or sequencer, to play in time with Maschine, set this to “Send”. If you want Maschine to play in time with another MIDI device then set it to “Receive”.
MIDI Input, followed by a value. The default is “Focus”.
Unassigned
Input Devices Select
Input Devices Status
The two knobs that control Input Devices work together. If you want to play notes into Maschine 2 from another item of MIDI equipment, use Screen Knob 4 to find the device that you want to use, then turn it “On” using Screen Knob 5. You can activate any or all of the MIDI input devices that are attached to your computer in this way.
Output Devices Select
Output Devices Status
Screen Knobs 6 and 7 work in the same way as Screen Knobs 4 and 5, but they control which additional MIDI devices that Maschine 2 can use to play notes.
Hardware Settings
If you press Screen Button 6 from the MIDI Settings panel, you will move to the last panel of preferences, the Hardware Settings panel. This panel contains the following settings assigned to the Screen Knobs:
Pads Sensitivity. Adjust this value to make the pads on your hardware more or less sensitive when you play them.
Pads Scaling, followed by a value of “Soft 3”, “Soft 2”, “Soft 1”, “Linear”, “Hard 1”, “Hard 2” or “Hard”.
LEDs Brightness. Turn Screen Knob 3 to make the LEDs brighter or dimmer.
Touch Strip Show Position, followed by a value of “Off”, “Rec” or “On”. This setting configures the behaviour of a line of small LEDs above the Touch Strip, which give a visual representation of the playhead position within a pattern.
Display Brightness. Turn Screen Knob 4 to make the display screens brighter or dimmer.
Mk. 3 Outputs or Maschine+ Outputs, followed by a value of “Main – Line out” or “Main + Phones”. “Main” means that audio is only sent to the two Main output sockets on the rear of your controller. “Main + Phones” means that the same signal is sent to the headphone socket on the rear of the controller as is sent to the Main output sockets.
Touch-Sensitive Knobs Auto Write, followed by a value of “Off” or “On”.
Screen Knob 8 has no function assigned to it.
Please note that the preferences described above are the most commonly-used settings for each panel. You can use the Parameter Page Left and Parameter Page Right buttons in the Control Zone to move between additional pages of parameters within each panel. The Page Left and Page Right buttons are the two buttons in the row above the Settings button. Each page can be navigated in the same way as those we have already encountered, so practice getting around the different panels and pages of settings.
Once you have set all of your preferences to be the way that you want them to be, just press the Settings Button again to return to normal Maschine operation—your changes will be automatically saved.