To Maschine Or Not To Maschine

[skatr2]

On the ableton template, you navigate around the ableton piece with an up down left right highlighted buttons. As you move around the 4x4 grid, the lit up samples will move as well. I believe you are limited to 8 channels on the template though. I don't recall there being a way of arrowing that over. Each knob will work for each of the first 8 channels.

[23kon]

Cheers guys. very helpful.
I'll speak to the guys in the shop to see if they know their stuff about maschine and answer any questions too.

Adonis,
I've already got knobs (nocturn + ipad with touchable/miditouch) so that's why i'm trying to work out the advantages of having them on my maschine controller.

[skatr2]

The real benefit is more with the maschine software. While it does act well as a basic ableton controller, it will serve you no better than the gear you already have...presuming you don't have a more capable setup in live already.

[djadonis206]

Also, the guys at the shop have an incentive to up sell you. I don't. But I do have both Maschines, plus a couple of controllers such as the APC20 and the LPK series.

As Skatr2 said, you'll get the most bang for your buck with using the bigger Maschine with the Maschine software. All the parameters are mapped and you really don't have to do any extra configurations or set ups.

If at some point in the future you find yourself with too many controllers, sell the M1 and buy the Mikro

[Nav]

Maschine arrived..I'm in love

[23kon]

Maschine arrived..I'm in love

Nice one! Which did you opt for?

[Nav]

Full version... Well EDU version

[Ryanmf]

Touchmasch - iPad controller for Maschine:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum ... p?t=150916

I saw this on the NI forum. Hope a PC one gets created

Hey, I made that.

Fwiw, I hope a PC version gets created too.

You have to understand, almost everything in that template is tied to a keyboard shortcut rather than a MIDI note/CC. That's why I had to use OSCulator, which is why it only works on a Mac atm. It really comes down to the fact that Machine's MIDI capabilities aren't so robust.

Moving forward I'm more likely to sink a lot of time into making something for Live's drum rack (which I don't believe I've used since I bought Maschine) or Geist (which I only have a demo for, but looks to be the most mappable of the three, which is appealing). Fairly certain I'll also be using Charlie Roberts' Control, both because Android users can actually load custom templates, and because its interface is more flexible so it won't necessarily look like every TouchOSC layout ever made.

[23kon]

Checked out the "Charlie Roberts' Control" app. Looks good.
It's a shame that there isn't a template editor though like TouchOSC (external program on pc) or MidiTouch (internal in app).
I prefer the internal editor so it can all be done on the fly as you need controls.

[STRATEGY_510]

There's no reason, other than money, you can't have both. I'm surprised at how fast I can maneuver through the Mikro. Perhaps cause I've had some time to learn the flagship Maschine.

You can also just use Live as a mixing board for Maschine, sequencing in Maschine which is really easy and fast. It takes a minute to get it but once you do, damn.

Damn, you just got the Maschine and now you have a Mikro? Are you getting rid of the v1 or are using both together?

STRATEGY

[starving student]

some random maschine ableton mackie control info

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL5DQvkD_Qg

[djadonis206]

There's no reason, other than money, you can't have both. I'm surprised at how fast I can maneuver through the Mikro. Perhaps cause I've had some time to learn the flagship Maschine.

You can also just use Live as a mixing board for Maschine, sequencing in Maschine which is really easy and fast. It takes a minute to get it but once you do, damn.

Damn, you just got the Maschine and now you have a Mikro? Are you getting rid of the v1 or are using both together?

STRATEGY

I keep one in the studio and another in my living room. The maschine learning curve is pretty quick, granted I'm still picking up little time savers and techniques here and there.

The M1 conmtroller by far out performs the Mikro.

[Syncretia]

I felt I should come back to this thread now after using Maschine for quite a while. I am going to go back on anything I have said in the past. I will say that the jury is still out for me on whether or not I would recommend buying Maschine. I want to further attempt to allay some of the hype that floats around about this hardware/software combo. Bare in mind I am only going to talk about production here; not performance.

What I Got From Maschine
-A great sketchpad for beats
-A great controller
-Lessons learned
-Lots of great samples pre-loaded in to useful kits

What Sucks About Maschine
-Wastes time on workflow
-Desk space
-Expensive

I'm not going to talk too much about the pros of Maschine. Obviously it's a great tool for jamming out a beat. For me, that it is its real function and strong point. There's nothing else like it as far as I know. However, the other issues involved with integrating it in Ableton encroach heavily on its usefulness. I wanted to explain why.

Workflow
Don't get sucked in by all the garbage about workflow. Yes, Maschine has a great workflow, but integrating it in to Ableton quickly negates any advantages that you would otherwise gain from Maschine. What I mean by this is that there are so many little things that you have to attend to in the integration between Maschine and Ableton, that any time you would save in Maschine is wiped out by this. Maschine is NOT a DAW. It looks like a DAW, it smells like a DAW, but it isn't a DAW. While it has some features that are lacking in Ableton, it lacks loads of features that make Ableton a powerful workspace for music production. Remember, how you use Maschine will determine the types of issues you will encounter with the integration. Let me outline just a few of the issues. Note, I am not saying that these issues can't be worked around - the point is that you have to be careful about these issues and they often trip you up without you realising. The might cause a problem in your song, or waste hours of your time trying to figure out how to work around the problem.

Beat Syncing (This is mainly an issue when programming scenes in Maschine from Ableton)
There is a setting in Maschine that determines whether or not a loop should be sync'd in to Ableton's sequencer. If you turn this off, fills etc. can appear randomly in a section of your music. If you leave it on, beats often disappear from the start of a section.

No Instrument Racks Etc.
One of the greatest strengths of Ableton is the chain and rack structure. Maschine lacks this functionality. So, if you have built a track in Maschine but want to stack it up with something else, or other effects, bad luck. You have to do something like drag the midi in to Ableton, and then bring across your instrument instance by reloading a preset or whatever.

Confusion
I often get confused between Ableton and Maschine's workflow. It requires you to literally switch your mindset and hand position when working. Sometimes it takes me 30 seconds or more just to remember which shortcut or whatever to use for the overlapping functions.

Mixing
There are numerous issues around mixing. But, for me, the thing is that Maschine adds complexity and removes visibility of the mixing process. If you have spent time mixing in Ableton, you will know where everything is. You will know where to see your levels, you will know how to get rid of clipping and so on. However, you might find that something is clipping inside Maschine, and then you have to go and hunt around inside Maschine even before you can mix the track in to the rest of your Ableton project. The problem could be tucked away on a sound inside a group for example.

Learning Curve
There are plusses to learning Maschine. It makes you think in a difference way and that is a good thing. However, you really need to focus on Maschine to learn it properly. In my opinion this really detracts from the time you should be spending on learning Ableton. At the end of the day, there is nothing much that you can do in Maschine that you can't do in Ableton, with the exception of jamming out beats.

Having To Remember Shortcuts Slows You Down
Some things in Maschine speeds up workflow. This is not doubted. However, some things are really slow and actually slow me down when I need to look all over the place for a simple function that would be easy to find in Ableton. There are no tooltips on anything so it's really hard to guess what you are supposed to do.

Anyway, saying all this - I'm glad I bought Maschine. It's been something that has improved my production but not for the reasons purported by Native Instruments and their incessant fan boy club that keeps spraying the "workflow" crap all over the net. The main reason I'm glad is that I've jammed out some cool beats that I wouldn't have written in Ableton, and the samples are pretty good. But, I am bit by bit phasing Maschine out of my workflow, and I will probably end up just using it as a midi controller. At that point I'll probably sell it and replace it with and MPD. Or, perhaps M-Audio/Ableton might actually fix the controller script from my Axiom 25 which they have acknowledged as a bug.

[JuanSOLO]

I agree

[djadonis206]

Interesting. I was just re inspired by some new revelation I had with Maschine today, melodys. I started using Maschine for playing back sliced melodys and loops, not drums. I use Geist for that.

I drag the melody or loop into Live. Record it into Maschine at my tempo. Slice it in Maschine and record the new sequences back into Live's sequencer. I really like showing off my Live start up template, so here

Maschines a VST with outs 2 and 3 linked to groups B and C. I create more if needed. The APC or TouchAble allow me to keep the beat going when inspiration strikes.