Ableton Forum

delicioso wrote:Hey supa, how'd you get on with the MPC2500?

well I sold it after 2-3 months and instantly bought a 2nd hand Machinedrum uw+ mkII

mpc 2500 XL + JJ os was great quality, but far too big and f***in' heavy, and I had forgotten I wasn't a sample guy... and after enjoying maschine and its blinking everything, shortcuts, direct access to anything, the mpc felt too arid... only in the MIDI department the mpc is a beast compared to maschine's minimal midi abilities.

I now fully enjoy the MD for drums, and my synths and few samples with ableton, that's cool.


maschine (big one) + komplete is quite a f***in' beast, but I won't get back to that untill it's actually made a real MIDI workstation (see older maschine threads for my complaints)

Maschine mikkro => for preset guys or people like djadonis who have the real one elsewhere
MAschine classik => for softsynths (preferably NI's ones) and sample tweakers

There seems to be 0 hands on review yet to indicate how badly the lack of knobs etc affects the experience.

I didn't try mikkro. I owned and intensively used maschine for around 6 months. When I bought it I wasn't that much interested in its knobs and screens and navigation shortcuts and customisable library and internal effects, and so on...

then I realised this was actually a MACHINE, like a groovebox, rm1x, electribe, but 1000x powerful and well thought, designed FOR the live machine player above all. then the knobs, then the effects under these knobs, then the quick navigation without stopping the sequencer, the knobs again, and all displayed on the screens, right under or above the physical controller to mod it...

the interface is what makes Maschine a machine. with a truncated interface you get a truncated machine. still powerful, but less alive.


see, it's like comparing the mopho keyboard with the mopho desktop. guess if knobs are that much useful?




and Maschine is not big. APC40 is big and plastic. Maschine is sleak, metal and gets easily into any laptop bag or backpack. I really don"t see what's the point with the mikkro. and mikkro is not that "micro". it's more maschine LITE


cheers

Does Maschine Mikro come with an Ableton Live template like the standard Maschine does?

See ref video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WcbjOm1uhY

I guess as it doesnt have knobs or 'channel buttons' that it'd just be like a 16 pad launchpad, eh?

NI's website says Mikro won't be available until October 1st.

FYI

23kon wrote:Does Maschine Mikro come with an Ableton Live template like the standard Maschine does?

Yes. Everything is the same except the hardware obviously and there's only a few things that you can't do from the Mikro controller. I'd still recommend the full size Maschine though.

23kon wrote:I guess as it doesnt have knobs or 'channel buttons' that it'd just be like a 16 pad launchpad, eh?

Nah, it's still Maschine. The Mikro hardware just has a different workflow and you can still switch scenes, patterns...etc.

delicioso wrote:

23kon wrote:I guess as it doesnt have knobs or 'channel buttons' that it'd just be like a 16 pad launchpad, eh?

Nah, it's still Maschine. The Mikro hardware just has a different workflow and you can still switch scenes, patterns...etc.

I was meaning with the Ableton Live Template on the Mikro
- you wouldnt have knobs to tweak channel volumes to hand
- you wouldnt have buttons to mute/arm/record channels to hand

So essentially all a Maschine Mikro would be able to do with an Ableton Template is to control the Scenes/Clips on the 16 pads.

23kon wrote:I was meaning with the Ableton Live Template on the Mikro
- you wouldnt have knobs to tweak channel volumes to hand
- you wouldnt have buttons to mute/arm/record channels to hand

So essentially all a Maschine Mikro would be able to do with an Ableton Template is to control the Scenes/Clips on the 16 pads.

It's hard to be certain as it's not released yet, but by comparing the physical layout of both Maschine & Maschine Mikro this sounds about right to me.

Everyone is saying it has no knobs. But it does have one knob, I wonder if the knob could be used for other things than navigating the display menu, and go back & forth between several parameters easily. Like controlling the volume of the selected track for example. If you had 8 tracks in your set, the one knob could control 8 volumes depending on what is in focus. If it could do that, the one knob would definitely be sufficient for me.

23kon wrote:I was meaning with the Ableton Live Template on the Mikro
- you wouldnt have knobs to tweak channel volumes to hand
- you wouldnt have buttons to mute/arm/record channels to hand

So essentially all a Maschine Mikro would be able to do with an Ableton Template is to control the Scenes/Clips on the 16 pads.

Well it does have an endless encoder that also acts as a push button and it does have 3 buttons on top of the display and 3 buttons on the bottom of the display that also function as navigation and arrow buttons... So we'll have to see but it looks like it'll still be a very capable MIDI controller.

Also upon closer look, I noticed that the top 8 pads also act as dedicated group buttons.

Yeah, the one knob might end up working like Novation's "Speed Dial" and controls whatever the mouse is focussed on.

Reading around it seems like the Mikro is missing 'auto write' so you cant record automation. This seems crazy - why bother having even the one knob ? :S

projoosa wrote:Reading around it seems like the Mikro is missing 'auto write' so you cant record automation. This seems crazy - why bother having even the one knob ? :S

Have a read around the end of the "To Maschine or not to Maschine" thread on here.
Some interesting stuff and video link that explains why the Mikro may be BETTER than Maschine for some people.

It's also speculated that the 'auto-write' might actually be featured in an update for Mikro as it's an essential thing.

With the introduction of the Mikro it's making me really tempted to go down this route.

23kon wrote:

projoosa wrote:Reading around it seems like the Mikro is missing 'auto write' so you cant record automation. This seems crazy - why bother having even the one knob ? :S

Have a read around the end of the "To Maschine or not to Maschine" thread on here.
Some interesting stuff and video link that explains why the Mikro may be BETTER than Maschine for some people.

It's also speculated that the 'auto-write' might actually be featured in an update for Mikro as it's an essential thing.

With the introduction of the Mikro it's making me really tempted to go down this route.

Don't Buy Anything if you expect the unimplemented feature which is must for you. It's common knowledge. Especially for NI.

pencilrocket wrote: Don't Buy Anything if you expect the unimplemented feature which is must for you. It's common knowledge. Especially for NI.

its fine for me, i dont mind clicking the mouse
it may bother other people who swear by the "mouseless workflow" of maschine though.

Looks like you can actually do pretty much everything on the Mikro controller except for only a few things, most notably recording knob tweaks obviously although I wouldn't be surprised to see an eventual update to accommodate the lone encoder for that purpose. Some videos popping up already including the official NI ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYp2p4MYNP4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQJ1LeBUc0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luq83LJhaiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeDHzUqTC14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaJix18rjRQ

Overall, I'm very impressed that NI seems to have preserved much of what makes Maschine so great even in a much more compact form factor. Reports seem to suggest even nicer feeling pads on the Mikro as well. It's also got a locking USB port. Mikro will definitely hold its own.

too many maschine users are contemplating a mikro as well, ni is on a roll right now.

I already bought one. The music doesn't stop now. edit: the magic doesn't stop