Maschine sequencing VSTS in Live (video)

[saintjoe]

I know quite a few folks around here use Maschine and Live together and many may not like how Maschine works as a plugin. I know for myself, I hate that you can't control the start/stop of Maschine when it's a plugin, this small feature is a huge part of how I work on building up drums/grooves and patterns. Starting and stopping, etc.

Anyway, I just couldn't get away from Live's session view, it's the absolute greatest tool for working out song arrangements I've ever used, no other hardware/software can compare. Ableton is what took me away from my mpc, but I always felt something was still missing from my hardware days, then I got Maschine, and I found what I was missing.

That said, I tried multiple different ways to integrate Maschine with my other software. Using various programs as "vst racks" for Maschine. Reaper, Studio One, even Live. But the problem always came when I wanted to actually get the data from Maschine into the daw, or start arranging. Reaper has reroute, so I could record the midi into Reaper and stream the audio into it as well....but it didn't "feel right". Studio One had no way to receive the audio unless I exported it, nor could I quickly set which midi channel to receive from (had to create a midi device for each channel input!) but there was really no reason for me to export everything into there because I prefer arranging my songs in Live's session view.

Then, NI came with the 1.5 update and the ability to drag and drop midi data....now I've found my workflow.

Basically what I'm doing is using Maschine as a standalone, and Live as a vist rack. Thing is, I can sync Live via midi clock to Maschine if I want to, but really I just workout my tracks in Maschine, let Live hold all my vsts and such, then when I'm done I just drag the midi out and put it in Live.

It automatically creates a new clip to go with each of my instruments

I'm not one of those that feel Maschine replaces Live, though I was using Maschine more than Live for a while do to the workflow and hands on approach, however I really wanted to find a way to use Live and Maschine together, without using Maschine as a plugin.

LoopBe1 internal midi allows me to send the virtual midi from Maschine to Live. If you don't have a multiclient audio card, download the free multiclient asio server from steinberg to use both programs at once.

I really don't see a better workflow personally, I use Maschine for drums/chops/samples etc, and run all my instruments in Live.

Now I just need the ability to drag audio OUT of Live directly onto Maschine's pads oh yeah...and for Live to go 64bit lol.

Anyway, this is long but I just wanted to share my workflow, and show that it's not an either or type of thing, but I really like using them together and the audio/midi drag and drop makes it very simple. Maschine is the master sequencer, Live is the master arranger...I don't think any other combo can touch it personally

here's a video I made, please share your thoughts if ya like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmU6Yl2cg7U

[SubFunk]

oops, just forget what i posted.

[squelcht]

I look foward to seeing this video later (can't stream YouTube from my work) I too have been considering using a workflow with Maschine in "stand-alone" mode. Mainly because I HATE how I can't using the Maschines "play/stop" to control my sequencing. If only I can work within Live using Maschine as a plugin & use Maschine's "play/stop" to control Lives clock as well as Maschines - WITHOUT changing templates on Maschine.

[SubFunk]

I look foward to seeing this video later (can't stream YouTube from my work) I too have been considering using a workflow with Maschine in "stand-alone" mode. Mainly because I HATE how I can't using the Maschines "play/stop" to control my sequencing. If only I can work within Live using Maschine as a plugin & use Maschine's "play/stop" to control Lives clock as well as Maschines - WITHOUT changing templates on Maschine.

you don't need to change templates, you just need to switch between maschine and controller mode, which is something weird to me that it is not already a built in nature in every maschine user, i do that without even thinking in less then a second. back and forth. it's like cmd+s for nay software used... goes automatically in a split second.

my2cents.

but anyhow i also like maschine standalone simply better.

[saintjoe]

I think by template he meant modes but it's all good. It works for some and others don't like it, no big

Just like everyone doesn't use all the key commands in a daw, it just depends on how you like to work.

Another thing when using Maschine as a plugin, getting multiple midi channels out of the plug to control other plugins in Live is not really working properly, it's the same way in Studio One. There are some workarounds for that, it works fine in reaper though.

That is another gripe people have with Maschine as a plugin in Live, because they want to use Maschine as the sequencer instead of Live's sequencer. Personally when I used it as a plugin, I just sequenced internal Maschine stuff in Maschine, and my plugins along side Maschine in Live clips, so that issue wasn't really a big one for me.

It's just little things like this that I keep seeing around about Maschine/Live together, so I just wanted to show a different workflow that may help people see there is more than one way for these two to work together.

[SubFunk]

Yeah, and that's cool!

i know there are still some gripes with maschinebleton, that are not an issue in a maschine/logic combo for instance (clear that it is limitations on abletons side)

also i like to see improvements, sure.
seeing how much NI is listening to users and their testing team already...
be assured that a hell lot of killer stuff in no time will come...

[saintjoe]

I agree man, it's just exciting to see it grow. They've proven that they actually listen to us, which is awesome.

[ze2be]

Again, i hope Ableton and the usable midi controller companies are listening.

[saintjoe]

you thinking something that could bring even more hands on integration to live than the apc? That could get interesting.

[supamonsta]

nice testimony

there was a thread where to share our maschinelovers workflows, but it must have been lost in the present +1000 new maschine threads!!!

cheers

[saintjoe]

lol

MWO!

[supamonsta]

SaintJoe,

just looking your video, I find this setup really interesting, I'll give it a try, this may solve my setup problems I'm working on since ages...

I'm just wondering why do you use LoopBe instead of Maschine Virtual midi output?

cheers

[SubFunk]

I'm just wondering why do you use LoopBe instead of Maschine Virtual midi output?

he is on a PC? no?

the virtual midi out only exists under OSX.

[supamonsta]

the virtual midi out only exists under OSX.

no shit?

does NI work with apple?

[Machinesworking]

the virtual midi out only exists under OSX.

no shit?

does NI work with apple?

Nope, on Macs the IAC driver built into the OS handles inter application MIDI.
There's also built in computer to computer network MIDI, over ethernet.

So in Maschine and Live's MIDI section you can select the IAC driver just like your hardware MIDI controllers and boxes.