Bitwig Studio & Maschine workflow

[bmcclure]

I have had a Maschine Mk3 for a little while, and am really enjoying learning to streamline my creative process with it. In addition, the NKS browser in Maschine and Komplete Kontrol is a great way for me to organize my instruments and effects and find presets and samples to work with.

I have been a Studio One user for around a year--it was the best DAW I had used at the time and using Maschine and Komplete Kontrol helped get around the fact that there was no good way to categorize or organize plugins in Studio One.

Fast forward to last week, I finally decided to give the Bitwig Studio demo a try, and I instantly fell in love. I don't even want to think about making music in another DAW anymore after using it for only a little while. It feels like it was made for me.

Its plugin browser is more powerful than Studio One's, because I can categorize my own plugins into any collections I want. This doesn't quite reach the power of the NKS browser IMO, but Bitwig has other benefits--supports VST3, has way more powerful and integrated modulation options, supports 32-bit and 64-bit plugins, etc.

So now I'm starting down a journey of learning Bitwig Studio and figuring out the best way to use it as the hub for all of my music production. But I'm trying to figure out where my Maschine fits into this. It's my favorite piece of music hardware and I feel that I don't use it enough, but yet I want to spend as much time in Bitwig Studio as I possibly can, modulating everything with everything else.

I know I can use Maschine as a regular MIDI controller, but then I feel like it's missing out on many of its great features.

Is anyone else here using Bitwig Studio and Maschine in their workflow? If so, how do you fit them together? What are the roles and responsibilities of each DAW? Do you ever open Maschine standalone and create projects there? I'd like to stay in Bitwig and use Maschine as a plugin as much as possible, but I also want to be able to retain as much modulation and routing control within Bitwig as I can, and it saddens me to think about not being able to use the clip launcher when I'm working in Maschine.

Thanks for reading, and sharing your workflow or any advice you've got!

[machinesworking]

An easy guess is all your music is in 4/4 since Maschine has worked well for you. With that in mind look into MIDI Change for Scenes. You can use notes in a MIDI clip in Bitwig to fire off entire Scenes in Maschine loaded as a VSTi. I used Maschine integrated into Live and DP9 for years this way.

[fwsuperhero]

Maschine Jam has native bitwig control script.
But it needs to be updated to be fully compatible with Bitwig 2.x.
There is one or two guys who are expanded the original script but it is still not 100%.

But it is very usable, maybe some of its functionality can be migrated to different maschine + bitwig version.

[bmcclure]

I typically spend most of my time in Studio One (soon to be Bitwig Studio, previously Reaper), but am trying to spend more time with Maschine as well--forcing myself to actually learn all of its features. Nonetheless, your guess is correct in that the majority of my music is 4/4, and any instances where I'm not working in 4/4 I wouldn't mind not having Maschine integration.

MIDI Change for Scenes does look like a fairly good compromise between using the two applications. I would prefer also routing Maschine's tracks to separate tracks in Bitwig to allow for more control in my master DAW, but from what I understand this can be kind of time-consuming and defeats some of the creative workflows of Maschine.

I did read about the Maschine Jam script, and I will most likely pick up a Maschine Jam once I get more familiar with Bitwig Studio and clip launching because that sounds nice.

It would be great IMO if Native Instruments opened up Maschine to have more of an API so that external applications could control all of its features, but that seems kind of doubtful because of how much the Maschine software actually does. In my dream world, the Maschine would be used more directly within Bitwig, utilizing NI's NKS browser and some sort of lightweight intermediate VST that controls the Maschine hardware and makes its features available to the master DAW directly.

But, I won't get my hopes up about that ever happening.

[EnGee]

I thought to integrate Maschine into either Bitwig, Live or S1 but I didn't find the logic of it for me. I think I prefer either using Maschine as a standalone or just use maschine hardware in Midi mode inside other DAWs (just the pads essentially because they are really good).

I also use 4/4 mainly and I'm a new comer for Maschine, but the more I learn it (software and hardware, mikro mk3), the more I feel it is enough for my needs. Yes, it is not easy to integrate other keyboards ..etc, but at least I could Midi Learn some controls in my keyboard as most my soft synths have Midi Learn built in. There are also all the needed effects inside maschine. So far, no show stopper for me in making Maschine 2.7 my main DAW

So, in short, for me now at least, I don't feel the urge to integrate Maschine inside other DAWs (it is just a cumbersome workflow!).
However, I don't know if I need Studio One, for example, for further editing and to make my final mix, but that is a separate process and doesn't need integration.

Damn! Maschine is a trap! But I like it

[bmcclure]

I haven't been able to make Maschine my main DAW yet. It just doesn't feel like a full solution to me. I typically use it for parts of my songs (sometimes several instances in one Studio One session) but I still use Studio One (and soon Bitwig) as my main DAW where I work on my full songs. Maybe I would eventually be able to utilize Maschine as my main DAW if I really focus on mastering that workflow, but for general music production, a slightly more typical DAW workflow seems to suit me better, whereas, for beat production, riffing, and creative inspiration, Maschine kicks ass.

Plus I use several VST3 instruments regularly, and Maschine being VST2-only is kind of a dealbreaker for it being my main DAW in 2018 and beyond. I could use a VST host within Maschine to make it support VST3s, but that kind of defeats the purpose of Maschine's hardware workflow and NKS browser.