NI Maschine anyone?

[Storms]

ive been offered a $425 price tag from someone local for Maschine and Komplete 8.

Think i should jump on it?

-Sin

Wow! I just bought one used on eBay for $466 without Komplete. You should definitely jump on that deal - it is too good to pass up. Make sure whoever you buy it from unregisters their products through NI support, or else you won't be able to activate them.

[Ether Trogg]

I haven't had a bad experience with Live & Maschine, the only struggle I've had is integrating into my workflow (mainly a sequencer, so i got it do drum out rhythms by hand).

There are some advantages to using the Maschine's sequencing, you can perform some actions quicker, etc. but I've found it fits my workflow best to use it like a MIDI controller - I use the controller & software but I trigger samples that are hosted in Live.

One of the other things to consider is how you work with your samples - do you work with loops often, etc.
To export stuff out, you can export MIDI & aduio via drag & drop - personally, I prefer to sequence via MIDI so I still have control over the samples, etc until ready to print on a bus, etc.

I run it so all the patterns are editable in Maschine but the MIDI is being sent out to Live to the individual samples. Still working through how to streamline how I use it, but this is really particular to the individual and not so much to the product.

Stability wise, no problems.. My only complaint is the Maschine window is not user-sizeable. you have to choose between small medium and large (which unfortunately doesn't fit with my dual monitor - time to upgrade!)

Hope that helps!

[Syncretia]

ive been offered a $425 price tag from someone local for Maschine and Komplete 8.

Think i should jump on it?

-Sin

Do NOT buy it!

Hehe. Just kidding. That's an awesome price if you can get it. You can't really go wrong for that price. But, I have some very, very strong words of wisdom about Maschine integration. I use Ableton, and Maschine.

The first thing you will hear about Maschine is it's "workflow". It's almost as though NI invented this word from thin air in order to market their product. It's like before Maschine was invented, people didn't have a "workflow" and when Maschine was invented, NI somehow attached the word "workflow" to the product and made it stick to the point where people can't talk about "workflow" without talking about Maschine.

To be honest, when you get the box home, install the software, and start playing, you start to think "I see what people are talking about - the 'workflow' is great!". You start training yourself to use the controller and the controller's shortcuts, and you start to think "Wow, I'm getting the hang of this thing". It's quite fun to use. I am a HUGE fan of the non-linear editing with scenes. It's so logical and Ableton really could benefit from something similar. I say this because I'm forever duplicating clips in Ableton, editing one of the dupes and forgetting to edit the other.

As a standalone app, Maschine is great to work with.

Then, when you want to complete a song, reality sets in...

You start to realise "hang on... songs are linear! They have a start, and a finish and I need to be able to sequence that!". You come to realise that Maschine is not a DAW. It's 70% of a DAW.

So, back to square 1 in Ableton. At this point, you start to wonder how the hell you are going ot integrate Maschine in to Ableton. There are several ways, but they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

One way is to write the beats etc. in Maschine as a VST inside Ableton, and then drag the audio in to Ableton as audio clips. This works fine, but when you do this, you are kinda using Maschine as a factory for generating loops etc. This is fine, but the downside is that you may edit something in Maschine and forget to drag it in to Ableton. When you do this, you're not really using much of Maschine's potential as a sequencer though.

Another way is to use the aux outs from Maschine and send them in to channels in Ableton. You can send program changes from Ableton to trigger scene changes in Maschine. This works OK but is fraught with difficulties. Firstly, it makes mixing a nightmare (partly because of some shortcomings in Ableton). You have to leave the recording arm on the track to receive the input, and this is easy to screw up. Also, scenes in Maschine often don't sync properly with sections in Ableton. I found that every scene I triggered was missing the first beat in every case. I had to play with Maschine's settings to avoid this.

At the end of the day, I wasted WAY MORE TIME getting the integration between Maschine and Ableton to work than time I saved with NI's mystical "workflow". I would definitely say that any time I saved with Maschine's workflow went straight down the toilet. Although these days, I've gotten a bit better at avoiding the pitfalls.

Lastly, I'm still not convinced that using the Maschine controller makes anything easier. Actually I find it extremely clunky to do somethings like shifting notes left or right. That stuff is crazy simple with a mouse/keyboard in Ableton.

That's my two cents.

[zvenx]

I think Maschine is a work in progress, and I for my way or working I usually work with it in standalone mode and then export audio files into Cubendo.

by workflow for me I mean two things:
1) I can quickly do beats in it.....wayyyy faster than I could in Cubendo and Reason and whatever else I have ever used (well maybe as well as Studio Vision Pro).....

2) it makes me work in ways out of what had become my comfort zone in Cubendo and that has made me wayyyy more creative.


I think it will only get better.

rsp

[ChestRockwell]

I think most people by now have at least one Native Instruments product. They have really turned into one amazing company with some very essential products.

I own so much of their stuff it's almost embarrassing.

Yes, I own Maschine and once you get used to it you can't go back. It's very addictive, especially if you have been lacking a fresh perspective in your musical workflow.

In my opinion.

[zerocrossing]

I own it and I own Live and I've had no trouble, but I'm on Windows. Here's my take on it. It's super great for banging out beats. It's super great for sampling from hardware or software instruments... but the truth is... it really give you nothing other than the controller (which is very good) that you can't get in just Live alone. In fact, I find it's song mode to be very clumsy. I sure hope they fix it in future updates, as other than that it's pretty capable. Sure, it's own effects are fair to midland, but it's flexibility and ability to host VSTs means any effect you own is available. I also happen to really like it's included library and if you can get it and Komplete for $425, that's an amazing set up.

[soundklinik]

ive been offered a $425 price tag from someone local for Maschine and Komplete 8.
Think i should jump on it?
-Sin

I think you are being misled or you misunderstood...or you made a fantastic deal.
There are Komplete Elements, DVD included, but no one will give you $600 Maschine and $ 500 Komplete 8 for $425. The best deal I have seen is Maschine + Battery 3 for 550 bucks.

Even at that price,(425) you can't go wrong...
I own it and love it too, but it needs some minor improvements like multi core support, improved sampler, time stretch etc...Nothing drastic, it is a great instrument...with good lib.
Edit: I should add that I use maschine mostly standalone, you can make a pattern, load a VST, re-sample it, bounce it on another track in a group, without stopping maschine.
Great just for jamming too...

[deeflash]

I also have Maschine... I love it!

It's really easy to have an idea in your head and bang it out quick. I usually use it standalone to get an idea out and then render the audio and bring it into Ableton to finish up the track.

It's funny, I was working on my album when I bought Maschine and after a few weeks playing with Maschine, I scrapped most of the tracks I was working because the stuff coming out of Maschine was just so much better to me. I find myself making music with my ears much more than with my eyes because I am using the hardware rather than my mouse.

I also use it live for making loops and adding a hits to my live sets... It's really pretty versatile when you start really digging into it.