Ableton Forum

Long story short I purchased an MPD32 and am not happy with the sensitivity of the pads so I'm returning it. I tried messing around with it for a while to map some of the things I was missing on the APC40 to try and make it work and considered replacing the pads, but as I kept messing with it I was just basically trying to recreate the functionality of the APC40. Also having to mod something I just paid good money for to make work just seems stupid to me... Guess that ended up being a long story anyway

I'm either going to replace it with a Maschine or a Maschine Mikro /w an APC40 and was wondering if anyone has a similar setup and how useful it is to have one or the other.

I was thinking Maschine with using the MegaMaschine template would be pretty slick and hold me over until I can get an APC40 later down the road.

http://megatroid.noisepages.com/2012/02/megamaschine/

Maschine Mikro plus APC40 seems like a badass combination and I'm mostly interested in using this with Ableton anyway. Although the Maschine software does intrigue me and I definitely want to check it out. Who knows I might end up liking it a lot and using it all the time, which is what worries me if I just get the Mikro then I'd probably end up wanting the big brother.

So I guess I'm wondering how well Maschine integrates with Ableton? Is the Maschine software actually useful, workflow yadda marking yadda yadda? Mikro is an expensive Midi controller for Drum Racks but at least the pads are nice and sensitive and looks like a nice piece of hardware. Anyway anyone have any thoughts on this?

In my experience, a good drum pad and a good ableton controller are not one in the same.

Ableton Controllers

From what I have read/seen, Maschine has a pretty decent ableton template. The problem I see is that using it would require way too much memorization because it is not properly layed out and labeled for ableton.

I really like the APC40, it is really well thought-out and works great. I haven't tried other ableton controllers but the Novation Launchpad would be my next choice and it is very versatile. The downside to the Launchpad is that it is all pads and no encoders or faders.

I have a couple different apps for the iPad (touchable and livecontrol) that work really well. The main thing I don't like about them is the lack of tactility that you get with the APC40. This is why I still use the APC. One great benefit that touchable has over the APC series is the ability to see all clip names and colour before you launch them, this really minimizes the amount of time you have to look at your screen. If you already have an iPad, I would recommend that you try this app out before buying a ableton controller.


Drum pads

If all you are looking for are sensitive drum pads for controlling your drum rack in ableton, check out the Korg padKontrol. It is discontinued but you can usually pick one up for around $100 used. All the reviews I have read seem to rave about the sensitivity of the pads. Plus they light up and it has a built-in X-Y pad. http://www.korg.com/padkontrol I am currently using it with the APC40. It has tons of other features including 16 selectable scenes. The 16 scenes allow me to set up a drum rack with 8 different sets of 16-pad kits (or whatever the drum rack maxes out at based on the octave range of notes). That means 128 samples, drums, etc in one ableton track. Then you are still left with 8 more scenes to assign to play specific scales, or trigger/toggle different effects, etc. This can all be done with the included editing software.

I also hear the trigger finger is nice but I don't know much about its features.

If you are looking to try something other than ableton for programming and you want new, high-quality sounds, go for the full-sized Maschine. You may end up creating the majority of your productions in Maschine, I know a lot of other people have.


Hope that helps