Kinda sick of talking to NI about maschine2 + Bitwig routing

[monolithx]

Thanks for sharing your experience with Maschine. If one day they add MPE, it could be useful for me

In the meanwhile...

Dirk Ulrich has left Native Instruments

https://synthanatomy.com/2024/03/dirk-u ... ments.html

[Milkman]

Thanks for sharing your experience with Maschine. If one day they add MPE, it could be useful for me

In the meanwhile...

Dirk Ulrich has left Native Instruments

https://synthanatomy.com/2024/03/dirk-u ... ments.html

omg! Wow! This is surprising, but not really surprising lol.

Im still struggling with this. I have no idea what has changed, and I still dont know if Bitwig or the maschine2 VST3 are responsible for this, but I still cant use maschine2 multi-channel midi in/out of Bitwig 5.1.3 without 1) Bitwig's audio engine crashing, sometimes needing a process kill, 2) occasional silence (bitwig wont play any sounds. This happened 2 times), 3) bizarre midi problems with other devices in the midi network.

I am forced to use the MK3 hardware in midi-mode only, using Bitwig's native MK3 script, but I have to start projects carefully. I have to DISABLE the MK3 controller entirely in Bitwig options, then load a project with maschine, then toggle midi-mode again (maschine2 VST always forces MK3 back into plugin mode), then re-enable the MK3 controller in Bitwig. 99% of the time, this works. One time, all audio was silent.

Bitwig support is still working with me-- they say they have a MK3 to test with me now, but that they dont have.... a license to activate maschine2. As soon as they activate it they will work with me more directly.

[Milkman]

Lmmmmmaaao brand managers are all over that article on Synthanatomy, arguing that this is no big deal, it doesnt mean anything serious, "he was nobody" hahahahah! The comment section under there sounds like its directly from native instruments' own forums or something. "Incredibly biased" rofffl this never gets old.

Im pretty grumpy with NI recently, after decades of appreciation. This anger is well earned and it is rippling across the community, and perhaps at some point lessons will be learned.

[monolithx]

After the last years, I think there is no more space left for arguing. They keep alive some products, at the slightest effort, to be able to sell expansions. I bought a 2nd hand Maschine Studio, mostly for the displays, controls and NKS. But, I would never have thought how many limitations exist in this soft more than 10 years after the latest major release! How can you invest money and time in such a brand!?
At the end, indeed, they do what they want with their business. The problem is that a lot of people that has bought confidently their tools, are now left with them, waiting for updates indefinitely.

[Milkman]

After the last years, I think there is no more space left for arguing. They keep alive some products, at the slightest effort, to be able to sell expansions. I bought a 2nd hand Maschine Studio, mostly for the displays, controls and NKS. But, I would never have thought how many limitations exist in this soft more than 10 years after the latest major release! How can you invest money and time in such a brand!?
At the end, indeed, they do what they want with their business. The problem is that a lot of people that has bought confidently their tools, are now left with them, waiting for updates indefinitely.

Agreed - the argument seems to be over, and NI is just shrinking down into a sample pack peddler who uses kontakt UI to make it look like an instrument.

I guess I just hope I can make the maschine mk3 work in midi-mode for now, and that I can get Bitwig to support me with this strange problem that suddenly happened.

[Milkman]

Bitwig got back to me again - they were able to reproduce one part of the issue Im seeing, where maschine2 wont route multi-channel midi in/out and throws "cycle loop" errors. Im continuing to send them projects with various troubleshooting ideas in them, and I hope to have this resolved sometime soon. I've got to install and learn a Syntakt first, though, which is happily taking me away from endless NI/maschine2 troubleshooting.

[Milkman]

Im still seeing Bitwig start up totally silent about 1 out of every 4 startups. No errors, audio engine running fine, all other sounds working on system, meters inside Bitwig are bouncing when notes are played, but it is 100% silent until I restart the program.

This is happening in projects that have nothing to do with maschine2 or mk3. I have fully disabled maschine, removed Bitwig's controller mapping, and powered off the mk3 because of inconsistencies with it. This is Bitwig with almost zero configurations just going... silent every few startups. This happened to me 2 times in 7-8 months (silence), but is now happening much more often on 5.1.3 on a clean, recently rebuilt win10 machine.

[SmajjL]

I just tried with a Mikro MK2 (that is USB MIDI) and without virtual cables (so far) and >MIDI< outside of the Maschine track works with multiple groups just fine, although it is good to remember to switch groups on the Mikro also when switching tracks ofc.
So, so far it means the all the audio tracks lives inside on the Machine track with add missing chains/groups and i can live with that as we can do our processing thing that way.
Having an Audio Reveiver on those >MIDI< tracks while MIDI still works and are intact at the same time seems a little scoobydoo though and no dice for some reason, wonder if cheating with those virtual MIDI cables *tip* was the point/reason and maby we can go all the way.

But yeah, i'm happy enough having separate audio chains and, if you click on either of those chains, don't forget the Inspector Panel also.

[Milkman]

I just tried with a Mikro MK2 (that is USB MIDI) and without virtual cables (so far) and >MIDI< outside of the Maschine track works with multiple groups just fine, although it is good to remember to switch groups on the Mikro also when switching tracks ofc.
So, so far it means the all the audio tracks lives inside on the Machine track with add missing chains/groups and i can live with that as we can do our processing thing that way.
Having an Audio Reveiver on those >MIDI< tracks while MIDI still works and are intact at the same time seems a little scoobydoo though and no dice for some reason, wonder if cheating with those virtual MIDI cables *tip* was the point/reason and maby we can go all the way.

But yeah, i'm happy enough having separate audio chains and, if you click on either of those chains, don't forget the Inspector Panel also.

Bitwig customer support have accepted my issue, reproduced it on their own mk3 + maschine2 inside BWS 5.1.3, and a developer is now working with me. If there are other workarounds or methods to get it working, I am definitely interested in trying!

You are saying you used Bitwig 'audio receiver' devices attached to the MIDI tracks to grab the audio from the instrument track? So you added "missing audio chains" and added all the audio ins from maschine, connected them channel by channel to each "audio receiver", then switched maschine groups by your mikro mk2 buttons? When you hit record, you can record each maschine group into each audio receiver? No midi captured, but multi channel audio captured?

[SmajjL]

I just tried with a Mikro MK2 (that is USB MIDI) and without virtual cables (so far) and >MIDI< outside of the Maschine track works with multiple groups just fine, although it is good to remember to switch groups on the Mikro also when switching tracks ofc.
So, so far it means the all the audio tracks lives inside on the Machine track with add missing chains/groups and i can live with that as we can do our processing thing that way.
Having an Audio Reveiver on those >MIDI< tracks while MIDI still works and are intact at the same time seems a little scoobydoo though and no dice for some reason, wonder if cheating with those virtual MIDI cables *tip* was the point/reason and maby we can go all the way.

But yeah, i'm happy enough having separate audio chains and, if you click on either of those chains, don't forget the Inspector Panel also.

Bitwig customer support have accepted my issue, reproduced it on their own mk3 + maschine2 inside BWS 5.1.3, and a developer is now working with me. If there are other workarounds or methods to get it working, I am definitely interested in trying!

You are saying you used Bitwig 'audio receiver' devices attached to the MIDI tracks to grab the audio from the instrument track? So you added "missing audio chains" and added all the audio ins from maschine, connected them channel by channel to each "audio receiver", then switched maschine groups by your mikro mk2 buttons? When you hit record, you can record each maschine group into each audio receiver? No midi captured, but multi channel audio captured?

That's fantastic! news if Bitwig devs can see there is room for improvements with this, that something is not right and you got their attention.
The Audio Reviever thing is a natural thing to "think" Should! work as a Bitwigger when the Maschine2 (plug-in/track) does actually produce the all missing audio chains/ext1,2,3,4 etc correct if we set that up in the Maschine plug-in and that part is useful and cool already.
But nope, i can't have an Audio Reciever on the MIDI tracks/Hybrid tracks *so far* even if it is obvious that the chains and audio/ext1,2,3,4.. is working inside the first contained Maschine track perfectly fine but can't come out of there into tracks outside of my choice when i have MIDI working at the same time.

On Ableton Live, adding an External Instrument on a MIDI track to grab the Maschine's Group/Ext audio ("Audio Reciever") works so.

It was soooo long time ago but i found the Youtuber who helped me with Maschine stuff and there are several videos that might be of interest maby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMg_AoH ... KF&index=4

Ps, i just said the word contained, please don't say that Bitwig's Plug-In Hosting Mode has anything to do with this *thinking for myself*
Ps2, the future hardware might get MIDI 2.0 (bidirectional communication) if i may play with thoughts in the middle of the night and something like loopMIDI "workaround" might not be needed anymore and, another "workaround" using double groups for Maschine2 with Live is also in one of his videos if that can be helpful for any experiments
https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software.html

[SmajjL]

But nope, i can't have an Audio Reciever on the MIDI tracks/Hybrid tracks *so far* even if it is obvious that the chains and audio/ext1,2,3,4.. is working inside the first contained Maschine track perfectly fine but can't come out of there into tracks outside of my choice when i have MIDI working at the same time.

*correction update* Looks like adding a Note Mod and an Audio Receiver on the Note Mod's (FX-slot) will make it possible to Record MIDI and, grab Ext-Audio but.. after stopping the record and Play it back will fail...
So close!
Ps, also i don't wanna pollute the tread as you are already on to something with a dev.