Live users and Maschine - an observation

[glitchrock-buddha]

I follow the NI forum to keep up with Maschine's development, and I've noticed it seems like most of the people posting there are Live users. I find this curious, for a couple reasons...

First, Live is a giant drum groove machine itself; I would think to see more users from other "trad" daws than Live users. I'm interested in it for Reaper personally, as it would provide missing functionality. But Live arguably has all of Maschine's capability's, minus the control box. Also, with Maschine's (limited) ability to fire off clips and groups and whatnot, it seems a bit redundant to do that in a VSTi inside Live, which can do it in such a deeper way. Contrastingly, for me adding Maschine to Reaper makes perfect sense as it would give a bit of a "Live as VSTi" feel to a traditional linear workflow.

So what is it exactly about Live and it's Drum Racks, beatmaking and clip launching that's lacking and making users flock to Maschine?

I think the reason why you see a lot of live users going for maschine is because it appeals to the same people - the loop based groove folk who are usually into electronic music and like pattern based music creation and the drum machine feel.

As for what it has that Live doesn't, well I've just gotten mine and it's the most fun I've had with music software since Reason 1.0 came out or since I discovered Live. I don't believe it's competition for Live at all. Live is a fully featured DAW that can host plug-ins. Maschine is more like Live was before plug-in support was added. Except that Maschine can be used as a plug-in inside a DAW. Also, you don't have to touch the mouse at all and it's very quick to get things done. And it's just a hell of a lot of fun. It has great feeling pads, seriously better than anything I've used. And you get the visual feedback of the lit pads as well. There are also some really great features like the way the note repeat works with harder pad press yielding higher velocity and lighter pressing meaning less velocity. Add swing to that and note repeat is very useful and a fun way to layer drum patterns.

I don't really like digging through browsers, so in Live I like finding a synth and opening it and either starting from scratch and tweaking from hardware midi control or starting with a presets and tweaking that. But with drums, I don't like using preset kits because it influences the sound of the song too much. You can recognize a pre-made drum kit too easily, so drums are something which you usually want to build yourself. But that's where so much browsing comes in. And then for tweaking there are just so many parameters for drum plug-ins, or drum racks, because every drum hit can have so many settings, which means a lot of mousing- both when building a kit and when tweaking. So maschine is great because it takes that all away. You can browse you sounds and chose them with the controller, even setting sub types as criteria to search to narrow down what you want, and then be tweaking all the sound parameters and playing the pads, all on the same device. It's really great. And then for performance, you can really go in deep and mess you sounds if you want which is cool.

I really think it's a step in a good direction. If NI do something like this for keyboard instruments, like a new Kore Keyboard where literally everything can be loaded and tweaked from the keyboard, I'd be so done with novation automap. Just wouldn't need it. The SL with Kore 2 is a pretty good combo currently but it could be better.

[jamester]

I think the reason why you see a lot of live users going for maschine is because it appeals to the same people - the loop based groove folk who are usually into electronic music and like pattern based music creation and the drum machine feel.

Wow, that's so obvious yet I never even thought of it like that! Of course, this alone makes seeing so many Live users over there make perfect sense. All those home recordists using Sonar or Cubase to record their bands aren't going to have quite the same interest in a new loop slicing groove box as folks like us here...

As for what it has that Live doesn't, well I've just gotten mine and it's the most fun I've had with music software since Reason 1.0 came out or since I discovered Live. I don't believe it's competition for Live at all. Live is a fully featured DAW that can host plug-ins. Maschine is more like Live was before plug-in support was added. Except that Maschine can be used as a plug-in inside a DAW. Also, you don't have to touch the mouse at all and it's very quick to get things done. And it's just a hell of a lot of fun. It has great feeling pads, seriously better than anything I've used. And you get the visual feedback of the lit pads as well. There are also some really great features like the way the note repeat works with harder pad press yielding higher velocity and lighter pressing meaning less velocity. Add swing to that and note repeat is very useful and a fun way to layer drum patterns...

I really think it's a step in a good direction. If NI do something like this for keyboard instruments, like a new Kore Keyboard where literally everything can be loaded and tweaked from the keyboard, I'd be so done with novation automap. Just wouldn't need it. The SL with Kore 2 is a pretty good combo currently but it could be better.

These are exactly the thoughts and observations drawing me towards it for Reaper. Though if it turns out to be as cool as (most) folks are reporting, it may severely lesson my use of, and interest in, Live. (Of course, this is only a reflection of my personal needs and workflow, and not meant to imply that Maschine can come close to rivaling Live's capabilities overall!)

[bog]

So maschine is great because it takes that all away. You can browse you sounds and chose them with the controller, even setting sub types as criteria to search to narrow down what you want, and then be tweaking all the sound parameters and playing the pads, all on the same device. It's really great. And then for performance, you can really go in deep and mess you sounds if you want which is cool.

Cool, so there's a dedicated control like a button or a knob to scroll through sounds quickly like on hardware drum machines? Damn, now I'm definitely wanting one. Wish it wasn't so pricey.

glitchrock, can you record controller automation of effects or whatever on Maschine's pattern sequencer?

[contakt321]

I think the reason why you see a lot of live users going for maschine is because it appeals to the same people - the loop based groove folk who are usually into electronic music and like pattern based music creation and the drum machine feel.

Wow, that's so obvious yet I never even thought of it like that! Of course, this alone makes seeing so many Live users over there make perfect sense. All those home recordists using Sonar or Cubase to record their bands aren't going to have quite the same interest in a new loop slicing groove box as folks like us here...

Very interesting, I never thought about it like that either.

[glitchrock-buddha]

So maschine is great because it takes that all away. You can browse you sounds and chose them with the controller, even setting sub types as criteria to search to narrow down what you want, and then be tweaking all the sound parameters and playing the pads, all on the same device. It's really great. And then for performance, you can really go in deep and mess you sounds if you want which is cool.

Cool, so there's a dedicated control like a button or a knob to scroll through sounds quickly like on hardware drum machines? Damn, now I'm definitely wanting one. Wish it wasn't so pricey.

glitchrock, can you record controller automation of effects or whatever on Maschine's pattern sequencer?

Yes, you record as much automation as you want directly in the patterns stored in the maschine software. The current drawback of maschine is that you cannot record automation in your DAW for maschine parameters as it's parameters are not visible to the DAW it is in. All automation is recorded directly in the maschine patterns itself. But you can at least use program changes in your DAW to change patterns in maschine (which include automation changes).

For me, I see it as a great way to limit the track count since you can easily do all or most of your drums in maschine as well as loops and fx and stuff. And then just have melodic parts on the the other tracks. I think maschine and the APC40 will be the most versatile combination. It will also make bigger sets easier since you can change kits and patterns in maschine without closing live.

Maschine also works well as a midi controller if you want to control drum racks with it.

Overall the navigation is really good and there aren't many deep layers since there is direct access to most functions with the push of a button or two. I'm also pleasantly finding that the cpu is not as bad as I've sen people making it out to be. An instance of collision will usually hurt your cpu more than even the default songs in maschine.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what improvements they come up with. I know certain things that are planned like battery import, better midi control etc. I'd really like to see them institute some form of macro controls like in Kore. I'm sure they will eventually.

[Suicide Server]

Hello Guys,

i also dont think that Maschine is a threat to Ableton Live. Its the combination of the 2 that really rocks. The great thing about Maschine is also that you have direct feedback on the controller and that you can controll Live too, with your own custom made template. The main problem i have with other controllers like the mpd32 for example, is that i cant directly see which parameters are routed to the knobs. With Maschine you can have the Parameter you tweak in the Display and this makes a huge difference at least for me. Hope this makes sense

Cheers

[poodleface]

Hi poodleface. Do you own Maschine or are just talking about your experience with Kore? Anyway, I don't think anyone in this thread is talking about features that people are waiting for NI to implement but what Maschine can already do out of the box, namely non-linear "session view" style pattern sequencer and the integrated hardware step sequencer.

Having used hardware step sequencers like the electribe, being able to quickly tap notes on and off with your fingers on tactile pads makes it more like a musical instrument whereas using a mouse to click around is not as inspiring and feels quite tedious for me.

Sure, I don't doubt having the tactile interface makes all the difference. I don't own Maschine, but I did try it. Personally, it just seems to duplicate functionality that I can already accomplish in Live. Then again, I'm perfectly comfortable using a mouse, so this is just a matter of personal taste.

A few people did mention wanting to control Drum Racks with the Maschine controller. Based on my experience with Kore, I do not think that is going to happen. The "MIDI in/out" designation is a bit of a misnomer to an uneducated consumer, who is going to assume this means they can use the controller to control other software elements via software MIDI control alongside an instance of the Maschine software. Granted, I'm pretty sure that the tight integration of the controller and software might not work as well if one could do this. I guess I just expect more out of my pricy controllers. :-p

[poodleface]

i also dont think that Maschine is a threat to Ableton Live. Its the combination of the 2 that really rocks. The great thing about Maschine is also that you have direct feedback on the controller and that you can controll Live too, with your own custom made template.

Ah, well, I stand corrected.

[glitchrock-buddha]

Hi poodleface. Do you own Maschine or are just talking about your experience with Kore? Anyway, I don't think anyone in this thread is talking about features that people are waiting for NI to implement but what Maschine can already do out of the box, namely non-linear "session view" style pattern sequencer and the integrated hardware step sequencer.

Having used hardware step sequencers like the electribe, being able to quickly tap notes on and off with your fingers on tactile pads makes it more like a musical instrument whereas using a mouse to click around is not as inspiring and feels quite tedious for me.

Sure, I don't doubt having the tactile interface makes all the difference. I don't own Maschine, but I did try it. Personally, it just seems to duplicate functionality that I can already accomplish in Live. Then again, I'm perfectly comfortable using a mouse, so this is just a matter of personal taste.

A few people did mention wanting to control Drum Racks with the Maschine controller. Based on my experience with Kore, I do not think that is going to happen. The "MIDI in/out" designation is a bit of a misnomer to an uneducated consumer, who is going to assume this means they can use the controller to control other software elements via software MIDI control alongside an instance of the Maschine software. Granted, I'm pretty sure that the tight integration of the controller and software might not work as well if one could do this. I guess I just expect more out of my pricy controllers. :-p

Actually midi out in the software is planned for a later update, so the sequencer should someday be able to send it's sequence data to another plug-in or track. And as it is now, you can control drum racks with maschine in general midi mode, which basically turns it into a generic assignable midi controller like a padkontrol. So you can use the pads and knobs like any other controller at the push of a button, it just doesn't send it's sequencer data out.

[Leon Tricker]

One observation on NI's record of providing updates: I am convinced they wont drop Maschine support, and I think they will update it frequently. Why? Because the potential for stealing the MPC market is too HUGE for NI to pass up If they can fine tune Maschine, I can envisage "MPC Killer" packages being sold with Maschine coupled with a correctly specified laptop at a far lower price than the flagship MPC.

I am saving for Maschine and have considered selling my Live and Operator licences to help fund the purchase. The thing that has sold Maschine to me is the hardware/software integration: having all the FX parameters, for example, map to the controls automatically... certainly beats the Automap headaches I've had Pretty much everything seems to be able to be controlled from the hardware: that is very appealing.

And am I missing something (I probably am!), but with an MPC, the number of realtime controls is limited compared to Maschine? On Maschine you get 8 knobs for example: I haven't seen an MPC with this many on it.

[Hardtoe]

Let's not forget the "new toy" excitement that always accompanies new gear lust purchases - I have often thought "If I only had that making music would be so much easier" - or course I have now come to realize that it is your brain that is the main groove machine - the toys are fun, but they do not do the job for you - Maschine is cool - Live is cool - once the hype wears off, it will be just another tool, not some kind of Live "killer" (though it may be pretty hard on Akai - the mpc is classic, but not up to modern standards - good for them that they threw in their lot with Live at this juncture).

Lets face it - we can do pretty much any thing conceivable with the technology available now - just get in there and make some music!

[starving student]

some good points about maschine, but i think they're far from capturing the mpc market until they make maschine something you can use with out the computer, and that's just the beginning of what it would need to capture the mpc market, see if Ni where not extremely out of touch with the mpc market in the first place they would have not designed maschine the way they have. some things to think about are this, most mpc users aren't buying the flagship mpc the 5000 because it's not the right mpc so to say, if Ni can figure out the reason for this they might have a chance but right now they're just another company putting lights on everything...............wich mpc users would never use as well, and competing with the mpc 5000 which is a severe miss step

[Leon Tricker]

some good points about maschine, but i think they're far from capturing the mpc market until they make maschine something you can use with out the computer, and that's just the beginning of what it would need to capture the mpc market, see if Ni where not extremely out of touch with the mpc market in the first place they would have not designed maschine the way they have. some things to think about are this, most mpc users aren't buying the flagship mpc the 5000 because it's not the right mpc so to say, if Ni can figure out the reason for this they might have a chance but right now they're just another company putting lights on everything...............wich mpc users would never use as well, and competing with the mpc 5000 which is a severe miss step

I didn't explain myself fully. I am aware MPC users aren't buying the new MPC5000. My point was that if NI can perfect Maschine, then they could sell it with a laptop for FAR less than the current street price of an MPC5000.

My (badly expressed, and not well explained) view is that the MPC market is there for the taking right now. As for being tied to a computer... personally, I would rather have the option of editing stuff on a 15" laptop screen than any hardware display out there But I appreciate I'm not a MPC user so my opinion is probably invalid

[starving student]

some good points about maschine, but i think they're far from capturing the mpc market until they make maschine something you can use with out the computer, and that's just the beginning of what it would need to capture the mpc market, see if Ni where not extremely out of touch with the mpc market in the first place they would have not designed maschine the way they have. some things to think about are this, most mpc users aren't buying the flagship mpc the 5000 because it's not the right mpc so to say, if Ni can figure out the reason for this they might have a chance but right now they're just another company putting lights on everything...............wich mpc users would never use as well, and competing with the mpc 5000 which is a severe miss step

I didn't explain myself fully. I am aware MPC users aren't buying the new MPC5000. My point was that if NI can perfect Maschine, then they could sell it with a laptop for FAR less than the current street price of an MPC5000.

My (badly expressed, and not well explained) view is that the MPC market is there for the taking right now. As for being tied to a computer... personally, I would rather have the option of editing stuff on a 15" laptop screen than any hardware display out there But I appreciate I'm not a MPC user so my opinion is probably invalid

thats the issue with Ni, they're not mpc users either so they don't get it, they might be able to sell maschine for far less than an mpc 5000 street price but if no one is intrested in the 5000 then using that as the model to compet against doesn't make sense. and you might prefer editing on a 15" screen but there is a reason that mpc users haven't flocked to the roland mv series which I think still is better than maschine cause you can connect a monitor or detatch and take the MV with you but i digress

Ni needs to compete with the mpc 2500, mpc 1000, and mpc 500 and they need to understand why people use these machines in droves as oppose to the mpc 5000 and maschine + laptop.
the answer is not really mysterious, these beatmachines make you feel like you are internalizing the music making experience, they make you feel like you're using an instrument like a guitar or bass, they are a more introverted exeprience. mpc fans aren't looking for 20 inch monitors and a gammut of blinking lights, they make music with their eyes closed and know where everything is on the mpc.

[contakt321]

these beatmachines make you feel like you are internalizing the music making experience, they make you feel like you're using an instrument like a guitar or bass, they are a more introverted exeprience. mpc fans aren't looking for 20 inch monitors and a gammut of blinking lights, they make music with their eyes closed and know where everything is on the mpc.

I agree with this as being a huge draw of the MPC line, in addition to the reputation/legacy/industry standard, for sure.

J-Zone for example - his MPC2000 display is all f-ed up to the point you can't even use it, and he can chop samples, make beats, etc with ease because he truly knows it inside and out.