Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Tarekith
Posts: 19072
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Tarekith » Fri May 29, 2015 3:50 pm

beats me wrote:
Tarekith wrote:I really like the Maschine Studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7V8HvRLXfo
:D

Care to share some of the info on the sounds, plugins, and parameters you are using in the performance? I only scrubbed through some as I don't have time to check it out in its entirety this morning. Maybe some good Friday night viewing/listening tonight.
Here's the full details:

http://innerportalstudio.com/maschine-s ... 5-29-2015/
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

beats me
Posts: 23319
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:39 pm

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by beats me » Fri May 29, 2015 4:11 pm

Tarekith wrote:
beats me wrote:
Tarekith wrote:I really like the Maschine Studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7V8HvRLXfo
:D

Care to share some of the info on the sounds, plugins, and parameters you are using in the performance? I only scrubbed through some as I don't have time to check it out in its entirety this morning. Maybe some good Friday night viewing/listening tonight.
Here's the full details:

http://innerportalstudio.com/maschine-s ... 5-29-2015/


That was a great first trial run (from what I scrubbed). Very inspiring. I don’t think I’ve seen another Maschine performance video of that length and a lot of them make me scratch my head at some point, like there’s an aspect of fakery usually do to them performing parts that are suddenly playing on their own and it doesn’t look like they were live looping, ie: performing some wobble bass part and suddenly its playing on its own but with a lot more intricate wobble then they were performing.

pinkpaint
Posts: 173
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:14 am

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by pinkpaint » Fri May 29, 2015 9:53 pm

I have a friend who just got maschine and got into music production. Its pretty cool he's progressed really quickly and understands a lot of basic music theory from all the new chord functions and stuff. As a result, I think maschine is great for beginners. It comes with samples and instruments now. Really intuitive with the hardware for starting out to.

However, I personally can't stand maschine. As a dance producer I just do way too much automation (esp curves) to use maschine. I am not about pattern based recording I just want to record clips and build out a song in whatever way I want lol. I personally doubt that half the people they show in the native instruments maschine ads actually use maschine standalone. For me, a DAW has all the tools a maschine has, to me its just an over-glorified version of battery when opened up as a plugin in DAW.

My two cents.

beats me
Posts: 23319
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:39 pm

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by beats me » Fri May 29, 2015 10:03 pm

pinkpaint wrote:However, I personally can't stand maschine. As a dance producer I just do way too much automation (esp curves) to use maschine. I am not about pattern based recording I just want to record clips and build out a song in whatever way I want lol. I personally doubt that half the people they show in the native instruments maschine ads actually use maschine standalone. For me, a DAW has all the tools a maschine has, to me its just an over-glorified version of battery when opened up as a plugin in DAW.

Perhaps expectations based on overhyped advertising NI brought on themselves, but I think, as has been mentioned in this thread, it should be compared more to a MPC. If nothing else there is a 8-track limit that nobody seems to get all up in arms about. There are similar track limitations on hardware groove boxes. People would lose their shit if a full DAW had a 8 track limit.

musikmachine
Posts: 628
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:56 am

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by musikmachine » Fri May 29, 2015 10:42 pm

Maybe Push is a missing link with Live but the fundamental difference for me is all my tracks start in Maschine, nothing i've tried beats it for quickly putting tracks together during the creative phase especially with Komplete integration, it's a very fluid workflow with all the integrated controls and you've got different ways of getting the audio out, you can export, drag and drop or record live into a DAW. It integrates well with other DAWs as well as mentioned, there is a Studio template.

It's also very stable, can't remember the last time it crashed.

But yeah the drumsynths are nice, been going through some old patterns and swapping and layering kits which always gets some track ideas going, rarely have a creative block and always have a cache of raw material to draw on in Live.

@beats me groups are unlimited now.

yur2die4
Posts: 7154
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:02 am
Location: Menasha, Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by yur2die4 » Sat May 30, 2015 1:42 am

Plus the sampling and slicing are sleek. The Sampler within it has a lot of conveniently readily available features. This just makes it super quick for the many kinds of sampling people might do.

Then again, if you're in the mood to use the mouse, Live too has it's unique methods.

I keep forgetting that this is primarily a Push vs Maschine thread. I guess one could list the strengths/weaknesses of each and be done with it. Generally, Push gives some control over Live that was previously not available. Aside from that, it is a product Of Live, and in most cases you'll rely on using Live to do most tasks. Maschine has major strengths in sampling and browsing for devices, the hardware is meant for the software and the software is intentionally limited but growing. They each have unique kinds of pads.

Tarekith
Posts: 19072
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Tarekith » Sat May 30, 2015 5:45 am

You can have unlimited groups in Maschine now, so there's no longer an 8 track limit.

Maschine and Push are very different beasts that do drastically different things to me. Push is more about playing and capturing initial ideas for me, where as Maschine is a full on general purpose controller that does a lot of post-recording editing.

It's almost like comparing a guitar to a mixing board to me. Yes you can "play" both, but they were created with vastly different roles in mind.
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Machinesworking » Sat May 30, 2015 6:43 am

Tarekith wrote:You can have unlimited groups in Maschine now, so there's no longer an 8 track limit.

Maschine and Push are very different beasts that do drastically different things to me. Push is more about playing and capturing initial ideas for me, where as Maschine is a full on general purpose controller that does a lot of post-recording editing.

It's almost like comparing a guitar to a mixing board to me. Yes you can "play" both, but they were created with vastly different roles in mind.
Out of curiosity how would you rate Machine as a drum machine? To me the best part of Push is the Drum Machine, but I like to work in other DAWs sometimes.

Tarekith
Posts: 19072
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Tarekith » Sat May 30, 2015 6:56 am

I think it's amazing myself. The pads are the best out there, nice features with arps, note retriggering, swing on mulitple levels (sound, group, master), and of course an amazing sample library too. I don't know how easy it is on the regular controllers, but with the Studio's displays it's simple to move notes around, change velocity, etc after the fact too.
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Machinesworking » Sun May 31, 2015 7:00 am

Tarekith wrote:I think it's amazing myself. The pads are the best out there, nice features with arps, note retriggering, swing on mulitple levels (sound, group, master), and of course an amazing sample library too. I don't know how easy it is on the regular controllers, but with the Studio's displays it's simple to move notes around, change velocity, etc after the fact too.
Thanks, your good and bad reviews from years ago also reinforce that it's solid and a good buy now.

You think you're done with purchases and something else comes up. Omnisphere 2 completely convinces me that I've been too set in my ways about it being a glorified rompler, that and the unanimous positive reviews of it.

So between Omni2, Machine and my desire to get Altiverb I think I'm gonna need to rob a bank. :x

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Machinesworking » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:23 pm

Luck would have it that someone on craigslist was selling a pristine Maschine Studio for $500! 1/2 the price in stores!
Dude looked like Mike Tyson, even sounded like him! :)

Just got it registered this morning, so far I'm impressed. I think waiting until they had a monster like this out was the right idea for me.
Tarekith is correct I think in assuming that some the usability comes from the screens.
The two large color screens pretty much guarantee you're not going to be staring at the computer much, well done NI!
Relieves some of sodomy feeling I get finally buying Maschine after being annoyed that it knocked out Kore,
and lo and behold Komplete keyboards come out with software similar to Kore. :x
Anyway I'll see if Maschine in the long run is going to work for me, and at that price, I'm able to recoup all the money if I sell it. 8)

beats me
Posts: 23319
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 6:39 pm

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by beats me » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:48 pm

Machinesworking wrote:Luck would have it that someone on craigslist was selling a pristine Maschine Studio for $500! 1/2 the price in stores!
Dude looked like Mike Tyson, even sounded like him! :)

Just got it registered this morning, so far I'm impressed. I think waiting until they had a monster like this out was the right idea for me.
Tarekith is correct I think in assuming that some the usability comes from the screens.
The two large color screens pretty much guarantee you're not going to be staring at the computer much, well done NI!
Relieves some of sodomy feeling I get finally buying Maschine after being annoyed that it knocked out Kore,
and lo and behold Komplete keyboards come out with software similar to Kore. :x
Anyway I'll see if Maschine in the long run is going to work for me, and at that price, I'm able to recoup all the money if I sell it. 8)

Congrats. :)

I’d recommend using it in standalone mode for a while first before you go using it in a DAW and trying to wrap your head around routing and triggering things. You can still get plenty of work done or even an entire song before you start using it in a DAW.

Looks like NI is really stepping up their efforts to have Maschine with Kontrol keyboard and plugin combo replacing Kore. Native third party plugin mapping coming soon. Plus look at all the hardware controls you have access to over the Kore controller. Tons more possibilities.

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Machinesworking » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:20 pm

beats me wrote: Congrats. :)

I’d recommend using it in standalone mode for a while first before you go using it in a DAW and trying to wrap your head around routing and triggering things. You can still get plenty of work done or even an entire song before you start using it in a DAW.

Looks like NI is really stepping up their efforts to have Maschine with Kontrol keyboard and plugin combo replacing Kore. Native third party plugin mapping coming soon. Plus look at all the hardware controls you have access to over the Kore controller. Tons more possibilities.
Thanks! GURU was my goto drum machine plug in for year, but I kinda hate Geist, for a few reasons.
Plus Push doesn't work as a drum machine in anything but Live...

Yeah that sounds smart to mess around in stand alone for at least a couple days, I'm looking at how it integrates in Live and DP and I'm lost already.
Better to get used to Maschine's workflow first for sure.

[erm]
Site Admin
Posts: 284
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:05 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by [erm] » Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:52 am

Good find on the Studio, nice one. Definitely takes a bit learning Maschine, but it's not so bad as long as you remember it's not a DAW. :)
Ableton Forum Administrator

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Just tried Maschine again after a few years

Post by Machinesworking » Wed Jun 03, 2015 7:29 am

[erm] wrote:Good find on the Studio, nice one. Definitely takes a bit learning Maschine, but it's not so bad as long as you remember it's not a DAW. :)
Yeah, it's definitely more like an MPC or dedicated sequencer. I couldn't see using it for audio mangling like Live? and it's not going to save presets in my hardware synths like DP. Mainly it gives a rigid step sequenced grid to DP and a great rhythm machine to Live for me. The integration between the color LCDs and tweaking FX in a track is about the best I've seen in controller/software integration though. It's something the Push developers at Ableton should be looking at with envy. There's a lot to be said for Push, but right away the tight integration in Maschine is outstanding.

Plus, Push is way too freaking dimly lit! especially the buttons, that's a blatant faux pas in design that should have never happened.
Seriously, about half the electronic musicians I know wear glasses, and they thought small thin font on dimly lit buttons of uniform size was a good idea?
I'm not trying to roast anyone, but it's a blatant example of design over function. FYI I've never even thought of using Push without the power supply because of this... :x

Post Reply