To Maschine Or Not To Maschine

[pulsoc]

I just sold mine. I just don't have the energy to learn another workflow/instrument, can barely find time to work with Live anymore.

[delicioso]

I think Maschine is the best groovebox to ever come along to computer music making. It's an amazing all-in-one drum machine and general sampler to use in a DAW and when used properly can actually save you a lot of routing and messing about in your DAW.

Definitely. To me Maschine was something I've always wanted but couldn't get from either MPCs or Live.

I hear you on the needed improvements especially for those who run it as a plugin in another host. Sounds like the next updates are going to address them. As someone who uses Maschine exclusively in standalone mode though I was very happy with the last two updates. Closer integration with Komplete is something I've always advocated and I think it ensures Maschine will grow as a sustainable platform. As NI said, their original plans were to implement plugin hosting much later down the line but were completely overwhelmed by the amount of users who prefer to use it in standalone as their central production hub.

[djadonis206]

I love mine

[JuanSOLO]

Nice set up.

[aj1978]

I bought maschine back in feb 2011. Im still in 2 minds about it now. If it had better DAW intergration It would be ideal. The FX are crap. But the workflow is good. If Ableton had a step sequencer/pattern editor like FLStudio, Sonar and Cubase (without having to buy an APC40 for the pleasure as ive seen on you tube) id sell my Maschine tommorow.

[delicioso]

The FX are crap.

I strongly disagree but obviously it's different strokes... Ice Reverb alone is worth having Maschine for. The built-in effects get regular use from me especially the Beat Delay, Grain Stretch, and EQ.

[djadonis206]

The FX are crap.

...the Beat Delay, Grain Stretch, and EQ.

+1

I also went all in and got Komplete. Guitar Rig is dope.

[Breaks Dude]

The FX are crap.

...the Beat Delay, Grain Stretch, and EQ.

+1

I also went all in and got Komplete. Guitar Rig is dope.

Guitar Rig is amazing. On certain synths you can get them close to sounding like a metal guitar. Fun times!

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Yea I really don't get it guys.
Simply how do you make music?
You use the mouse to create midi clip and use the mouse to create chords, rhythms and everything?
I now have Mashine 8 groups routed to 8 tracks in Live and voila. Just using maschine as an instrument.
How can you complain about it? Its just awesome to use it.

[pencilrocket]

Yea I really don't get it guys.
Simply how do you make music?
You use the mouse to create midi clip and use the mouse to create chords, rhythms and everything?
I now have Mashine 8 groups routed to 8 tracks in Live and voila. Just using maschine as an instrument.
How can you complain about it? Its just awesome to use it.

All pro are releasing masterpiece by that way. No one would want to listen uncompleted rough song.

[Syncretia]

I love mine

The picture a few posts above is virtually identical to mine. I now have Maschine and this is a basic outline of what I have to say:

Maschine isn't a silver bullet. It introduces all kinds of annoyances in to the production process that are just inevitable when you use 1 1/2 DAWs. Forget all this crap about "workflow". That is just bullshit marketing that people swallow. This "workflow" crap might apply to a certain extent if you were using Maschine in standalone mode, but you'd be missing all the functionality that Ableton provides. If you use Ableton and Maschine together, you can say that your "workflow" will be literally painful. As in being raped by a gorilla painful. If you use Maschine by itself, it might not hurt so bad, but you won't be able to arrange a song.

That said, Ableton simply doesn't do what Maschine does. I'm very frustrated that I had to buy Maschine to do something that should be available in Ableton. Basically Maschine is great for jamming out a beat and then recording it - full stop. I'm getting some great beats because essentially the pads are very good, very sensitive and the kits sound great. The kits are all arranged nicely and you can sit their for hours playing them. When you want to record a beat, you just hit the record button and you're done. It doesn't even stop looping so you can record as many layers as you want. If you attempt to do this in Ableton, your experience will be very different.

So, the answer to the opening question is begrudgingly yes. Maschine is a useful tool, but a tool not without its own set of headaches. Buy Maschine and just accept the fact that you now have to have yet another piece of hardware on your desk and at gigs, and you will have to switch your brains between two different modes of operation constantly.

[humnumb]

It introduces all kinds of annoyances in to the production process that are just inevitable when you use 1 1/2 DAWs. Forget all this crap about "workflow". That is just bullshit marketing that people swallow. This "workflow" crap might apply to a certain extent if you were using Maschine in standalone mode, but you'd be missing all the functionality that Ableton provides.

Utter bollocks. Maschine IS all about the workflow. It's not "bullshit marketing".

Not everyone uses it the same way. This is only one of many ways to use it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WcbjOm1uhY

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Yea I really don't get it guys.
Simply how do you make music?
You use the mouse to create midi clip and use the mouse to create chords, rhythms and everything?
I now have Mashine 8 groups routed to 8 tracks in Live and voila. Just using maschine as an instrument.
How can you complain about it? Its just awesome to use it.

All pro are releasing masterpiece by that way. No one would want to listen uncompleted rough song.

Ok so let's forget about piano, guitar, hardware synth, samplers, electric bass. Who need that right? Because all pro are releasing masterpiece by entering midi notes with their mouse anyway

[timothyallan]

Maschine is really good if you sample other peoples music. I've been playing with Nerve at a mates house, and that thing is fantastic for making grooves from scratch out of anything.

[Slightlydelic]

I love mine

The picture a few posts above is virtually identical to mine. I now have Maschine and this is a basic outline of what I have to say:

Maschine isn't a silver bullet. It introduces all kinds of annoyances in to the production process that are just inevitable when you use 1 1/2 DAWs. Forget all this crap about "workflow". That is just bullshit marketing that people swallow. This "workflow" crap might apply to a certain extent if you were using Maschine in standalone mode, but you'd be missing all the functionality that Ableton provides. If you use Ableton and Maschine together, you can say that your "workflow" will be literally painful. As in being raped by a gorilla painful. If you use Maschine by itself, it might not hurt so bad, but you won't be able to arrange a song.

That said, Ableton simply doesn't do what Maschine does. I'm very frustrated that I had to buy Maschine to do something that should be available in Ableton. Basically Maschine is great for jamming out a beat and then recording it - full stop. I'm getting some great beats because essentially the pads are very good, very sensitive and the kits sound great. The kits are all arranged nicely and you can sit their for hours playing them. When you want to record a beat, you just hit the record button and you're done. It doesn't even stop looping so you can record as many layers as you want. If you attempt to do this in Ableton, your experience will be very different.

So, the answer to the opening question is begrudgingly yes. Maschine is a useful tool, but a tool not without its own set of headaches. Buy Maschine and just accept the fact that you now have to have yet another piece of hardware on your desk and at gigs, and you will have to switch your brains between two different modes of operation constantly.

i dont see what's so hard about doing the same in ableton live, make a clip set the lenght loop it and drop in and out of midi overdub to build the layers.