Hello everyone,
So I'm kinda new in the music production, and I have been thinking on doing more investments that could be benfecial for my production in the future. I think I need some new gear because sometimes I feel like there is a boundary between my creativity and what comes out on my instrumentals on Ableton. So the first thing I think on getting is the Maschine Studio, because people says that is a good investment if you want to make good beats, and that Maschine offers a lot.
So I want to hear from you guys.. Is Maschine a good thing to use with Ableton? and will it work with no difficulties?
I hope to hear your opinions from experience!
Maschine Studio
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Division Monarchy
- Posts: 232
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:54 pm
Re: Maschine Studio
I recently picked up a Maschine Mikro and I've only toyed around with it a little within Ableton, but it definitely feels like something to make the creative process more exciting. My only holdback right now is the fact my computer is ancient and I'm waited to get a new one with better processing power. But the Drum Synths within Maschine sound great and although the midi and routing seems a but complex at first, it seems powerful. There are some good videos on YouTube that will explain it. So yeah, Maschine and Ableton are a great combination.
Re: Maschine Studio
I use Maschine Studio with Live all the time, works great here, though I don't do any complex routing or anything.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
Re: Maschine Studio
I use the Maschine 2 VST (with the Studio controller) in Live for 95% of my Drum and Percussion parts.
I made a Group template in Live with 16 Midi tracks: 1 Maschine instance and 15 External Instruments... each track has it's own audio input and will trigger each Maschine channel. 1-16 in both cases). Mainly because I prefer to record and edit drum parts directly from Live (and wanted the flexibility to have more than one note triggered per Maschine pad).
Others might use the 1 sound to 1 pad method (similar to the Drum Rack in Live) when using Maschine as a VST. It is also possible to set this method up in Live so that you can record Maschine into Ableton using the Studio controller pads (which works pretty well).
The Studio controller works nicely with how I'm mostly using Maschine... (almost as a glorified Drum/Perc Library) as the Browser and Custom tagging is very good (certainly easier than in Live) and the larger screens allow for easier navigation/reading but it might be overkill. At the price point you might want to consider a Mk2 over the Studio?
There are also compromises and choices to be made along the way with how Maschine in Live (or any other DAW) work together. It can be frustrating so well worth reading through this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=219534
I made a Group template in Live with 16 Midi tracks: 1 Maschine instance and 15 External Instruments... each track has it's own audio input and will trigger each Maschine channel. 1-16 in both cases). Mainly because I prefer to record and edit drum parts directly from Live (and wanted the flexibility to have more than one note triggered per Maschine pad).
Others might use the 1 sound to 1 pad method (similar to the Drum Rack in Live) when using Maschine as a VST. It is also possible to set this method up in Live so that you can record Maschine into Ableton using the Studio controller pads (which works pretty well).
The Studio controller works nicely with how I'm mostly using Maschine... (almost as a glorified Drum/Perc Library) as the Browser and Custom tagging is very good (certainly easier than in Live) and the larger screens allow for easier navigation/reading but it might be overkill. At the price point you might want to consider a Mk2 over the Studio?
There are also compromises and choices to be made along the way with how Maschine in Live (or any other DAW) work together. It can be frustrating so well worth reading through this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=219534
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Machinesworking
- Posts: 11421
- Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
- Location: Seattle
Re: Maschine Studio
Just stating what I did in the thread taoyoyo linked:
Everyone has their own way of doing things, in my opinion though, if you get Machine Studio working with your drum parts inside Maschine is better than porting stuff to Live etc.
The hands on controllers for mixing etc.
You can write all your parts in Maschine layered in Scenes, then trigger those scenes from clips in Live as if they were audio loops etc. For me this is the best way to use it quickly without any complex routing. of course it's possible to do this and start getting into importing MIDI into Live etc. but if you have say 4-5 groups in Machine that's going to start getting into some serious 'project management' type stuff for what IMO is little tradeoff back.
Anyway, one thing is true, Maschine does not simplify the process, it's a whole nother beast to learn, fairly intuitive with a few NI caveats where you're like WTF? why did they do it that way?
Everyone has their own way of doing things, in my opinion though, if you get Machine Studio working with your drum parts inside Maschine is better than porting stuff to Live etc.
The hands on controllers for mixing etc.
You can write all your parts in Maschine layered in Scenes, then trigger those scenes from clips in Live as if they were audio loops etc. For me this is the best way to use it quickly without any complex routing. of course it's possible to do this and start getting into importing MIDI into Live etc. but if you have say 4-5 groups in Machine that's going to start getting into some serious 'project management' type stuff for what IMO is little tradeoff back.
Anyway, one thing is true, Maschine does not simplify the process, it's a whole nother beast to learn, fairly intuitive with a few NI caveats where you're like WTF? why did they do it that way?
Re: Maschine Studio
andre-coyac wrote:Hello everyone,
So I'm kinda new in the music production, and I have been thinking on doing more investments that could be benfecial for my production in the future. I think I need some new gear because sometimes I feel like there is a boundary between my creativity and what comes out on my instrumentals on Ableton. So the first thing I think on getting is the Maschine Studio, because people says that is a good investment if you want to make good beats, and that Maschine offers a lot.
So I want to hear from you guys.. Is Maschine a good thing to use with Ableton? and will it work with no difficulties?
I hope to hear your opinions from experience!
Yes/No. It depends on your workflow. I have Maschine Mk1 and while it is nice it is definitely not necessary. I'll list some pros though:
Pros:
Great drum library (better than Live Suites) (from a Rap perspective)
Integrates nicely with Komplete
Great Pads (some of the best pads I've seen in any drum controller for that matter)
Serves as a great controller for Live
Note Repeat
Some people like sampling and chopping in here better than Ableton
Deep fully featured browser
Cons:
Different workflow than Ableton's (not necessarily a bad thing but something to get used to)
Clunky midi editing IMO
Integration with Live can be a little unintuitive at times
Its sample and chopping isn't really better than Live's just different
Arguably Push is probably a better controller for Ableton than Maschine.
Bottom line it depends a lot on exactly what you think Maschine will help you in. In some cases it can prove to be redundant. Overall though it has great sounds but you can get great sounds many different ways.
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Mikhailmusic
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2014 8:32 am
Re: Maschine Studio
I've been using Maschine Studio in Logic Pro X for the past year. Best way it worked for me was using Maschine Studio Standalone then drag and drop audio into Logic Pro X.
I recently switched to Live 9.5 and Push 2. From using this setup with Maschine Studio, you can route Maschine to record MIDI into Live but it can get a bit confusing after your dealing with 4-5 groups as one other person said. Also I like to use Keyboard mode (Breaking a pad down to chromatic samples) in Maschine and thats a whole other thing to specifically (and oddly) route. After all that I have a messed up Live template.
It seems NI wants to force you to use Maschine as a DAW and not really as a plugin. All in All I still love Maschine Studio, using it in standalone is a drag but there is some things in Maschine I can't get away from.
In a perfect world Maschine Studio would seemlessly work in Live (Like most other NI Virtual Instruments) and now with Push 2 I wont even have to touch my keyboard and mouse.
I recently switched to Live 9.5 and Push 2. From using this setup with Maschine Studio, you can route Maschine to record MIDI into Live but it can get a bit confusing after your dealing with 4-5 groups as one other person said. Also I like to use Keyboard mode (Breaking a pad down to chromatic samples) in Maschine and thats a whole other thing to specifically (and oddly) route. After all that I have a messed up Live template.
It seems NI wants to force you to use Maschine as a DAW and not really as a plugin. All in All I still love Maschine Studio, using it in standalone is a drag but there is some things in Maschine I can't get away from.
In a perfect world Maschine Studio would seemlessly work in Live (Like most other NI Virtual Instruments) and now with Push 2 I wont even have to touch my keyboard and mouse.