I've just got Maschine and i'm looking to select a few plugs that are particularly Maschine 'friendly'. By that I mean perhaps a few knobs (or if it is complicated, macro knobs or preset morphing) so i can work entirely on the hardware and reduce mouse usage. It can auto assign all knobs on many, many pages of 8, but having the important 8 on the first page is ideal for quick sketching.
oh and ideally quite light CPU (I dont think maschine is very optimised as a host)

From what i can see so far, these would be ideal:

Instruments:
-Alchemy Player (8 important knobs per prest and morphing)
- Massive (currently on sale, 8 macro's)
- Rhino? (i've never really got inspired by this, but has 6 defined controls and I dont have to look at the UI!)


Effects:
- Turnado - perfect 8 knob simplicity
- Philta CM (few knobs)


what I have and love, but isnt very simple to tweak on the hardware:

-Zeta2 (great but very mouse needy)
-Harmor (absolutely no chance of editing!)
-Camelspace (again great but absolutely tons of controls)

any ideas for other possible Instrument options? Or any creative FX thats well suited to Maschine?
cheers!

Just make your own templates for them - that's what I had to do for Kore (including for all those you mentioned). Bit of work but you end up being able to use the hardware as intended.

oh, Kore was one I was considering but forgot to mention. the 8 macro knobs and big preset library would have been perfect. I still cant understand why they dropped it (even if it did mean Maschine got more support). Its not even in Komplete 'players' anymore, theres no sign of any massive/absyth/fm8 in there anymore...

NI Massive, once loaded is "Integrated" into Maschine. (So is Absynth and FM8, etc). You can browse the presets from the Maschine browser. This makes them super easy to use. Additionally, the most important parameters for each sound comes already mapped to the Maschine knobs. If you can swing it, I would just go with Komplete 8. All of the plugins run well inside Maschine (including Reaktor).

I have a problem running Fabfilter timeless inside Maschine. When I reopen a project, it doesn't remember the preset I had selected. This can be worked around by reselecting it, but it can be a pain.

I run the full version of CA Alchemy inside Maschine no problem. Izotope Ozone and Alloy run inside it no problem. Valhalla Room runs fine inside it. U-he Zebra does as well.

I would say that NI products are the best bet to begin with (because of the integration). Thats my two cents.

yeah I was getting that impression with the latest update thats seems entirely komplete based. The integration is becoming more attractive each update.
Sadly i'm still getting an ear bashing from 'she who must be obeyed' about Maschine which I attempted to sneak under the radar (failed!) so theres no chance of that going unnoticed!
The current massive sale is tempting in the meantime..

LOL. "She who must be obeyed" is not aware of my new moog minitaur. It is small enough to hide though...

Oh the guilt is killing me!

Anyways,

Massive is a great soft synth. There are plenty of great presets. Commercial Soundbanks are very available as well. A good site for Massive presets;

http://xenossoundworks.com/massive.html

Oh and Massive, FM8 and Razor are 50% off at the NI Website right now;

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/specials/bass-invader s/

Happy hunting!

Steven.