Opinions on these two options to use with Live?

[Jome7]

Would you get:

Audio interface + MIDI controller + Kore 2(software version)

or

the Maschine

The first option could also have a few other small things thrown in, like a Nanopad, headphones...as much as possible while keeping it all cheaper than buying just the Maschine. Obviously I would get more stuff with the first option, so is the Maschine really worth it?

Also I just want to check, can the Maschine be used by itself away from the computer, is the library stored on a hard drive inside, or is it installed on the computer? And what inputs and outputs does it have? From what I know it connects via USB and has MIDI in/out, but anything else, like an instrument input? Thanks.

[hubiedubie]

The Maschine hardware is just a controller (albeit a very good one), so you can't use it without a computer - no harddrive or any DSP inside..just a controller.

Having said that it's excellent and well worth the investment. You won't get anything like the experience with a bog standard midi controller.

Hard to answer your question (what to buy) without knowing a bit more about your requirements. Do you need a tool for sound design/manipulation and categorization (Kore) or do you need something for beat creation(Maschine)?

Both Maschine and Kore are excellent but if I had to choose between the 2 I'd choose Maschine hands down. Do you already have an audio interface? Do you need to get audio from any external instruments into your DAW?

If not I would say Maschine all the way (assuming you are producing electronic music). It's a great complement to Live. Kore is a very useful sound design tool and the library is nice but much of what it does can be done using instrument racks in Live combined with a midi controller..

[Jome7]

Ok thanks! I don't have an audio interface yet, but I might be getting one just for throwing in some small guitar and bass riffs at some point. As for which tool(sound design or beats), I would say both I guess. I have the free Kore 2 Player and I like it a lot, and no MIDI controller to speak of so I'm on the computer keyboard.

This setup is sufficient for the basics at least for now, but it would be cool to have some hardware to play with directly as well instead of mousing around all the time.

I'm glad that you bring up the standard MIDI controller, because I was just going to mention another option, which would be the Komplete 6 collection along with a basic pad controller. That would supply 60GB of content compared to what the Maschine includes, and for about the same price. It also includes Reaktor which would supply a virtually unlimited amount of instruments and sounds, similar to Max for Live. But the Maschine does seem to have some interesting and useful features and I like the well-integrated software too.

If it had an instrument(guitar) input for sampling and could be used by itself then it would be my choice without question, but it's a tough choice with all of the other options. It's another one of those "this, this and that, or the other 'that' and THIS with this" choices that I'm always running into with my limited budgets.