This thread is somewhat addictive, even though I know it's a waste of time (as by now, the actual value of the comments is zero), I keep reading....and posting
to firstly position me in this "war": I did buy Maschine two years ago, but never really got into it which is more testament to me not spending enough time rather than weaknesses of the product. The fact of having a "sequencer within a sequencer" did bug me though, so with Push offering tighter integration with Live (i.e track creation, device creation, browser, Live devices) AND M4L, I jumped ship and bought Push (arriving today !!). Now, where I kind of blanked out was the fact that I had (stupidly) bought an academic version of Maschine before. Now realising that there is no way I can sell the controller (other than as a replacement controller or for scrap parts).
I know, stupid but also kind of clever in terms of inner family budget discussions
because guess what ? I will have both
. And I am happy about it because they do complement each other (even though not to a level that I would knowingly buy both). plan right now is to use Push as the Master controller at the Live level, managing tracks, devices, clips,automation and accessing Live content. All the patterns, clips and scenes will be inside Live rather than using the respective features of Maschine.
Maschine, on the other hand, will primarily act as a vst sound source (Komplete Elements, Expansion packs) and sound manipulation tool. So I will feed MIDI from Live into it, and I will route the audio per track out of it. Might also feed external inputs and other internal sound sources into Maschine for sampling.
So the direction is quite clear. In case there is overlaps (drum sequencing, playing chords), I will go down the Push route, for everything else, I use the tool that is superior/unique for the respective feature.
But that wasn't my point.
Regarding the (pretty useless) "instrument" debate, why don't you check out the
wikipedia definition ? As both don't produce sound by itself (unless finger tapping on a disconnected device is your thing), they are both not considered instruments. If at all, the computer (or better the DAW) + the user interface (Maschine, Push, Keyboard) is the instrument. So let's abandon the instrument debate and focus on the controller debate.
What is the better controller/user interface ? Obviously, hard to judge as someone would have to come up with metrics first. And this is actually quite hard because functional richness, musical range etc. are not necessarily appropriate. At the end of the day, it is all about creating music, and if a device with less choices get you there quicker, then this device is better (for you).
So why don't you guys exchange all your sound cloud pages and decide based on your MUSIC who has the longest, and who is more having a hypothetical fanboy debate (probably merely scratching the surface) ?
Last comment: I don't think anyone here on the forum regardless which side of the fence has a vested interest in creating more sales for either company (call me naive
), but we seem to use the "Maschine vs Push" proxy debate to make ourselves, our choices/preferences and ultimately our approach to music seem superior. NI and Ableton can be proud of you (for all the free "grassroots" marketing)
So rather than discussing the means (=tools), discuss the final product (if you are really determined to appoint a winner).
I obviously think, there is no winner, most of the music I am enjoying has been produced using neither of those (I guess). Take Squarepusher, Autechre, Aphex Twin. I doubt, I will "overtake" any of them even by having BOTH.
