Proudly collecting music gear and software for no purpose

[beats me]

Just ordered my 2nd replacement power supply from Subpac because the tip broke off the original and the 1st replacement. I asked if they offer a subscription discount for replacing the power supply every 3 months. It’s only $25, but still.

Poor design for something that is meant to be mobile and I don’t even use it that much. Yes, you have it attached to a chair but odds are you are going to be rolling around in that chair and if you even just slightly tug the cable from a sideways angle it bends and breaks the metal tip of the cable. This is why Apple invented the magsafe connection for their laptops and something strapped to a chair or your body is far more likely to stress the connection than a laptop.

Pains me to say this about an otherwise great innovative product from a small company, but it is sort of a major bullshit problem.

[H20nly]

the magsafe connection

Microsoft have one on the Surface too, so there's no excuse

[beats me]

I received the replacement power cable the day after I contacted them and they didn’t charge me for it.

Oddly it shipped from Gilroy which is an agricultural town known for growing garlic a half hour south of me, not exactly a hub of technology and electronics. I guess Silicon Valley is still bursting at the seams pushing companies further and further out in the quest for affordable property. My parent's house gained about 100k in value in 5 years and they are about an hour south of Silicon Valley.

[Machinesworking]

Just bought Big Kick, because it was on sale. I'm a total sucker for a 50% off sale.
It's pretty cool actually, a plug in designed specifically for hosting and tweaking kick drums. Way more useful in Live with Drum Racks than my other DAW, but that's no big deal for $23.

[beats me]

Just bought Big Kick, because it was on sale. I'm a total sucker for a 50% off sale.
It's pretty cool actually, a plug in designed specifically for hosting and tweaking kick drums. Way more useful in Live with Drum Racks than my other DAW, but that's no big deal for $23.

Hm. Looks like there may be more options but I'm still sticking with Kick.





Tune by actual notes (no math needed) and has easy access to the basic elements of the kick - main (or whatever), click, and sub plus some other goodies.

[Machinesworking]

Tune by actual notes (no math needed) and has easy access to the basic elements of the kick - main (or whatever), click, and sub plus some other goodies.

Except for the layout they have very very similar features. Big Kick might have slightly more features, but Kick has a GUI for the ADSR.

[beats me]

Looking at the Big Kick GUI makes me wish there was something similar for snares that you could add your own samples with some basic tagging and hot swap. Basically it’s just a one shot sample player with common parameters for sample type. Hell, maybe just something similar where you can create your own category per instance – kick, snare, hats, percs, stabs, etc. without the clutter of full multiple sound samplers. Need a snare? Just open your snare instance.

[beats me]

NI just released a new Maschine expansion pack that for once isn’t redundant House or Hip Hop. It’s Middle Eastern percussion. That should be fun to mess with and mix and match.

One thing I don’t understand is with hard hitting Pop House being at peak popularity for quite some time all their House expansion libraries are some variation of Minimal House. I don’t know if that’s because they are German or Vengeance Sound sent them some kind of “don’t you dare” cease and desist order, or both.

[Machinesworking]

NI just released a new Maschine expansion pack that for once isn’t redundant House or Hip Hop. It’s Middle Eastern percussion. That should be fun to mess with and mix and match.

One thing I don’t understand is with hard hitting Pop House being at peak popularity for quite some time all their House expansion libraries are some variation of Minimal House. I don’t know if that’s because they are German or Vengeance Sound sent them some kind of “don’t you dare” cease and desist order, or both.

I'm kind of at a breaking point with Maschine, it amazes me they haven't come up with an efficient way to really use it with a DAW. NI are becoming like Microsoft, they have the best technology for the cheapest, but it's always lacking the final touches and at some level completely misses the plot. Like Microsofts foray recently into AI with their teen Twitter user that learned how to behave from other teens tweeting "her". Teenage boys rule the internet, she became a Hitler loving slut in 24 hours. Similarly NI consult only a select group of users for Maschine, hell, one of the premier users never sequences anything, and NI couldn't be happier to use him as an example of how great Maschine is. He could be using any drum sampler and a pad controller....

Basically programming in slight variations of the patterns requires new Scenes. the whole thing is weak that way. It's just easier to not add in subtle complexity. Compare it to using Drum Racks, or Battery or anything that easily allows 16 drum notes in a single MIDI track.

[Tarekith]

It goes both ways for me. One thing I love about Maschine is that each sound in a group can be a single sample, or a playable instrument. I'd love that sort of functionality in Drum Racks.

[beats me]

That’s probably the main advantage of Maschine over Live with Push 2. But then Live has sample warping. Kind of bizarre Maschine doesn’t have that since NI also makes Traktor. Warping isn’t exactly a completely alien concept to them.

I still mainly use Maschine is an expensive semi-controlled happy accident box. Load up a preset I like with pattern. Disable changing the pattern when you change the group sounds and audition other kits with that pattern. Isolate and audio drag in the pad patterns I like. And repeat. A funk drum pattern with an industrial kit? I say yes.

I occasionally make my own groups but then quickly get meh. So many great kits with the expansion packs already, although as I mentioned I need to make some definitive Vengeance sample house kits. I recently made a kit of disco stabs I got from Splice. I’m sure that will get a lot of traction, especially since I can play each sample melodically.

[Tarekith]

I've used it a few times for sketching out beats, but if I'm going to be ultimately dragging them into Live then I just find Push 2 quicker these days. I like the Maschine Studio for when I want to jam out on a groovebox without having to spend so long trying to get their relatively simple synthesizers to sound amazing. I get sort of that standalone feel but with better sounds to start with.

As much as I prefer Push to Maschine these days, it still has more of an instrument versus groovebox feel to me.

[beats me]

For me Maschine is mostly about the libraries. I don’t make a lot of my own kits or chop up a lot of samples. I feel with Push 2 it would essentially be like a great tool but no great content to begin with.

On that note, if I see one more video of a home producer minimally chopping up an old funk or soul album and then tapping out a predictable minimal beat like it’s the best thing ever…

[Machinesworking]

It goes both ways for me. One thing I love about Maschine is that each sound in a group can be a single sample, or a playable instrument. I'd love that sort of functionality in Drum Racks.

Yeah I like that too, but it shouldn't take away from the ability to write out a song in Maschine.
Compare it to Geist for instance. Geist allows you to use patterns as well as to compose songs with scenes.
So you can fire off a scene that plays a bunch of patterns or fire off a pattern into the Song and it won't overwrite the scene in that same time frame.

Basically Maschine doesn't really have a true song or arrangement, it's just a collection of scenes. Hopefully they figure it out, the $99 Geist shouldn't be more capable in the composing and working with a DAW areas, especially considering how much effort has been put into the rest of Maschine.

When I do use it inside Live or DP it really shines in the mixing, quickly adding FX etc. it's pretty smooth that way, but the whole process of going back over a song to add in variations at different points is IMO dead painful in Maschine compared to Battery, Drum Racks or anything else really. If it actually had an arrangement it would be easier for sure.

[Tarekith]

I never use Scenes in Maschine myself, for me it's just about mkaing cool sounding patterns.