NI launching 'stand alone hardware' Maschine + (leak)

[antic604]

1st independent look:

[Atlatnesiti]

If NI managed to finally release stand-alone Machine+, there is no reason why they couldn’t introduce standalone, synth-stuffed Komplete Kontrol keyboard next
I’ll be waiting with baited breath for that one, especially that they haven’t updated Komplete Kontrol keys in 3 years now...

[Fleer]

And I still prefer the look of their first batch.

[BONES]

I think a lot of it comes from people who work IT and have a hard time differentiating their work from their creative hobbies.

I spend 8 or 9 hours a day in front of a computer, doing work that is quite similar to my hobbies, and I don't see any conflict or problem.

The other factor is people who can't stay focused when a computer and Facebook, Snapchat or their favorite porn site is just right there.

If they have their phone in their pocket, those temptations are still there. I think both of these things are excuses people use to justify the otherwise unjustifiable.

Honestly I don't get the whole modular thing, it's pretty cool, if you have a lot of money I guess, but I rarely hear anything I think couldn't be done in Reaktor, Max MSP, or Bitwig etc.

I never hear anything I'd want to listen to, so you're doing better than me.

The hybrid approach is pretty cool though. Maschine Studio when working just in Maschine has big enough screens to not really look at the computer at all, and the hardware is fast, mixing in Maschine is just better.

When you say stuff like that, you make me think that it's not better at all. e.g. I can't see how you can be as accurate with a hardware fader/slider as you can be with a mouse-operated one on screen, where you can hold down shift and change the value in tiny increments using the scroll wheel.* And when you open a new project, your knobs and sliders aren't going to be in the correct positions so what you see isn't what you get. That to me makes it a complete waste of time.

* The scroll wheel is pretty much the one and only way I change a value on a VST or any of my host applications. You don't have to click, just hover and scroll, hover and scroll. It is super quick and easy.

I agree, especially for multi velocity sampled 'realistic' drums. I'm selling the Rise 49, but keeping the Seaboard Block, bought the Linnstrument, like it a lot more for most things, but the Block is fun, has a few great tricks.

I did the same - sold my Rise, kept my Block - but I got the songmaker kit so I have two other blocks as well, which is a pretty strong combo. Even on it's own, the Lightblock is extremely handy. I don't think I'd like a Linnstrument, I watch people playing it in videos and I have no idea what they are doing.

What's fantastic for electronic drums is Push 2, I think one of the reasons I like Bitwig is because os Moss's script for the Push 2, he just did a great job, and it really clicked how redundant my set up was becoming with it around. For other DAWs I have a BeatStep Pro which is great, in fact in some ways better than the Push.

I wouldn't use any of that stuff. I program almost everything with my mouse and definitely all my drums. I've been doing it so long now that when I play I think in terms of beats and bars so I don't have to translate anything to put it in the piano roll. I find it so easy that pressing the record button and waiting for the metronome to count me in feels like too much effort. Sometimes I step-record but I very rarely record parts in live, unless I am struggling to get a specific feel, if you know what I mean.

[LoveEnigma18]

but I very rarely record parts in live, unless I am struggling to get a specific feel, if you know what I mean.

I understand and have an example. While I always prefer to record drum and melody/harmony parts live and then align things as required, I recorded a tom roll recently for a track and it couldn't be easier than recording it live using Maschine Mikro (MK3). Small details, but that's what music production is all about. With Maschine, these kinds of things are easy and fun to do. It's not just great for creating beats, but also for adding small ear-candy or filler things in the arrangements.

[BONES]

Yeah, I don't really do filler things much. With the covers I've been working on lately, for example, the MIDI files often have a dozen or more parts but I always manage to strip it down to just the essential 4 or 5 that you need to keep the identity of the song intact. I'm the same with our own stuff, I like to keep it as simple as I possibly can. I probably spend as much time stripping bits out as I do putting things into an arrangement and often I'll use the same 2 or 4 bar drum pattern through the whole song.

[machinesworking]

I think a lot of it comes from people who work IT and have a hard time differentiating their work from their creative hobbies.

I spend 8 or 9 hours a day in front of a computer, doing work that is quite similar to my hobbies, and I don't see any conflict or problem.

Yeah I don't get it either, I work construction mostly, and I don't get depressed or moody if I have to work on my own house. It's the biggest reason for the whole DAWless thing. That and people who get frozen with too many choices, whittle it down to just two synths and Maschine, MPC etc. and they actually can write music apparently?. IMO it's stupid, choices don't get in your way unless you let them, it's easy to self impose rules to start writing in a direction you want to go in, if you have any sense of what you want to do as a musician. It's why most sucessful musicians have a ton of equipment with a few pieces they use all the time etc.

The other factor is people who can't stay focused when a computer and Facebook, Snapchat or their favorite porn site is just right there.

If they have their phone in their pocket, those temptations are still there. I think both of these things are excuses people use to justify the otherwise unjustifiable.

I'm sticking with my guess that it's writers block, and IMO ridiculous ways of dealing with it.

The hybrid approach is pretty cool though. Maschine Studio when working just in Maschine has big enough screens to not really look at the computer at all, and the hardware is fast, mixing in Maschine is just better.

When you say stuff like that, you make me think that it's not better at all. e.g. I can't see how you can be as accurate with a hardware fader/slider as you can be with a mouse-operated one on screen, where you can hold down shift and change the value in tiny increments using the scroll wheel.* And when you open a new project, your knobs and sliders aren't going to be in the correct positions so what you see isn't what you get. That to me makes it a complete waste of time. * The scroll wheel is pretty much the one and only way I change a value on a VST or any of my host applications. You don't have to click, just hover and scroll, hover and scroll. It is super quick and easy.

OK you haven't really used the Studio, no worries, but if you actually take a hybrid approach, then the shift key isn't going to be across your studio away from Maschine, plus the knobs on Maschine are very precise, unlike catch link style faders like you find on Akai, Novation keyboards etc.
DP uses the scroll wheel for mix faders, VSTs etc. it is pretty cool.

I agree, especially for multi velocity sampled 'realistic' drums. I'm selling the Rise 49, but keeping the Seaboard Block, bought the Linnstrument, like it a lot more for most things, but the Block is fun, has a few great tricks.

I did the same - sold my Rise, kept my Block - but I got the songmaker kit so I have two other blocks as well, which is a pretty strong combo. Even on it's own, the Lightblock is extremely handy. I don't think I'd like a Linnstrument, I watch people playing it in videos and I have no idea what they are doing.

Hard to say, I immediately like it more than the Rise, and the Block even for most things. The one action that it's way more sensitive to though is velocity. With the Rise I was always messing with that setting because it would be too quiet, never really like the feel of it, but in the Linnstrument at default settings anyway it's work to go below CC velocity 64, super light touch etc. I appreciate that personally, but like you mentioned, drums are fun on the rubber pads of the Block etc. It's set up in 4ths by default, like a bass guitar.

The videos are usually some dude trying to mimic a "real" instrument and do a raging solo, not why I bought it really, so yeah Roger Linn IMO is trying to market it specifically for bringing back solos into electronic music, not the way I would do it at all.

What's fantastic for electronic drums is Push 2, I think one of the reasons I like Bitwig is because os Moss's script for the Push 2, he just did a great job, and it really clicked how redundant my set up was becoming with it around. For other DAWs I have a BeatStep Pro which is great, in fact in some ways better than the Push.

I wouldn't use any of that stuff. I program almost everything with my mouse and definitely all my drums. I've been doing it so long now that when I play I think in terms of beats and bars so I don't have to translate anything to put it in the piano roll. I find it so easy that pressing the record button and waiting for the metronome to count me in feels like too much effort. Sometimes I step-record but I very rarely record parts in live, unless I am struggling to get a specific feel, if you know what I mean.

I will never knock someones approach. For me I liked the Mackie Control I had in terms of mixing, but I didn't like the one dimensionality of it and the space it took up. Push does the Mackie thing, the 8 faders mapped to soft synths thing, and Clips etc. in Bitwig. I used and still own Live for 15 years, so our workflows that way are vastly different.

In terms of drum programming I agree, I look back at my time in Logic and realized that the way I was fleshing out my patterns in the MIDI editors and the linear timeline, that I got better results than in Maschine or the MPC. IMO it's a sad thing that Arturia is abandoning SparkLe, it's super quick to lay down the basics with the step sequencer drag to the timeline, then add in the random less rigid elements. In the bigger picture though, loading drums into the built in drum plug in, in your DAW, is much much more future proof, and makes the most sense to me.

I don't know if it's your cup of tea or not, but I really like XO, not for the super simple mediocre drum sequencer, but as a drum libraian. I'm not done loading my own collections of drum samples from various DAWs and plug ins I've owned over the last 20 years or so, but I'm already at 90K samples, and the cloud thing XLN did with it is just fanfuckingtastic! The cloud is laid out with the basic percussion elements mapped to various colors, lengths, frequencies etc. The AI engine they use is pretty accurate, which is exactly IMO where I want it to be, the occasional mistake almost always is interesting. So mostly just using it as a librarian, it drags samples seemlessly to other plug ins and your DAW etc. It's too expensive but goes on sale for $100 all the time. If you're like me and have way too many drum libraries, it's perfect. You get all a specific type of snare or kick clustered into a list that you can then preview ultra fast, regardless of manufacturer or where it is on your drives.

[BONES]

Yeah I don't get it either, I work construction mostly, and I don't get depressed or moody if I have to work on my own house. It's the biggest reason for the whole DAWless thing. That and people who get frozen with too many choices, whittle it down to just two synths and Maschine, MPC etc. and they actually can write music apparently?. IMO it's stupid, choices don't get in your way unless you let them, it's easy to self impose rules to start writing in a direction you want to go in, if you have any sense of what you want to do as a musician. It's why most sucessful musicians have a ton of equipment with a few pieces they use all the time etc.

Yeah, it's weird alright. I use my instruments for inspiration so the more, the merrier as far as I'm concerned. Even something that doesn't make the cut in the end can be hugely inspiring at the beginning of the process. I also usually end up with the same handful of synths by the time I'm done but I often start with something I haven't touched in ages or that I only just got. If we were still working in hardware, it's hard to imagine we'd be five albums down now. We'd probably still be working on our third.

I'm sticking with my guess that it's writers block, and IMO ridiculous ways of dealing with it.

Or a lack of desire and/or discipline. I'm going through a phase now where I can't concentrate on anything else. I haven't done any housework in a month, beyond what I need to keep functioning, and if I try to sit and watch TV, it will only be 10 minutes before I'm back at the music and the TV is just on in the background. Even in the morning when I get up, instead of putting the Walkman on through my speakers, I fire up the laptop and listen to the things I've been working on while I have breakfast.

OK you haven't really used the Studio

Last time I was in a studio it was an analog desk (because they were all analog desks) recording to ADAT and it cost me $500 a day. I can't think of anything that doesn't have a separate control room as a studio.

Hard to say, I immediately like it more than the Rise, and the Block even for most things.

Do you play guitar? I've never so much as picked one up in my life so the Linnstrument looks about as useful as a spreadsheet to me.

The one action that it's way more sensitive to though is velocity. With the Rise I was always messing with that setting because it would be too quiet, never really like the feel of it, but in the Linnstrument at default settings anyway it's work to go below CC velocity 64, super light touch etc.

Depends on your technique. I was playing a line with Generate last night and when I went to put it into a pattern, I have to drop the velocity to about 20 to match what I was hearing with the Block .I tend to rest my fingers on the "waves" and press very gently to get it to trigger. If I try it on any of my normal keyboards I get no sound (especially the Analog Keys).

I don't know if it's your cup of tea or not, but I really like XO, not for the super simple mediocre drum sequencer, but as a drum libraian.

My favourite drum machines are the Ujam ones because they have such a limited range of sounds. I put very little effort into my drums so those things are perfect for me. For a while it felt great having 400 different kick drum samples for Battery but you find the one or two that work and keep going back to them, because it's soul-destroying previewing 100 different kicks, 98 of which are absolute rubbish. But the Ujam machines have great sounding drums and you can find a kit that works in a flash. I was thinking when I got the first one, Eden, that we'd only use them live (because Battery takes way too long to load) but I can definitely see us using them in production now, especially as the v2 plugins have separate outs.

I'm not done loading my own collections of drum samples from various DAWs and plug ins I've owned over the last 20 years or so, but I'm already at 90K samples, and the cloud thing XLN did with it is just fanfuckingtastic!

I don't want 9,000 samples, I just want the right kick and snare and, because they are embedded in the plugin, I don't have have them organised or go looking for them. It's very liberating and I am confident it will actually improve our sound, not detract from it.

If you're like me and have way too many drum libraries, it's perfect. You get all a specific type of snare or kick clustered into a list that you can then preview ultra fast, regardless of manufacturer or where it is on your drives.

I just spent several hours downloading the 30-odd gigs of content I get with Studio One. Now I have to find somewhere to put it on my laptop, along with all the NI samples and the stuff that came with Cubase. Thank Dog my laptop has two drives or I'd be screwed.

If Studio One works out, and it won't have to be too spectacular to work better than Orion and Cubase, I will probably save the kits I've been using in Battery (there is an option to copy the samples with the preset) and then archive off all the NI and Steinberg stuff onto a microSD card. I have plenty of 3rd party Kontakt stuff I use but the factory stuff never gets a look in.

[machinesworking]

My favourite drum machines are the Ujam ones because they have such a limited range of sounds. I put very little effort into my drums so those things are perfect for me. For a while it felt great having 400 different kick drum samples for Battery but you find the one or two that work and keep going back to them, because it's soul-destroying previewing 100 different kicks, 98 of which are absolute rubbish.

That's the whole point of XO really though, sorting quickly out what you do not want. You sound like you found a solution that works for you, and that's great, but the point of XO is that the cloud is super fast to narrow down hundreds of the same type of kick to the one you want. Battery is a great example of a drum library that has ZERO organization to it, in fact most of them don't. XO sorts by attack, tone, length etc. so it's ridiculously quick to sort down to a section that has sounds you want. I'm sold. It has an 8 slot sequencer that's not too bad, but that's not at all why I like it. It's not having to play random search hell with drum libraries.

[machinesworking]

I just spent several hours downloading the 30-odd gigs of content I get with Studio One. Now I have to find somewhere to put it on my laptop, along with all the NI samples and the stuff that came with Cubase. Thank Dog my laptop has two drives or I'd be screwed.

If Studio One works out, and it won't have to be too spectacular to work better than Orion and Cubase, I will probably save the kits I've been using in Battery (there is an option to copy the samples with the preset) and then archive off all the NI and Steinberg stuff onto a microSD card. I have plenty of 3rd party Kontakt stuff I use but the factory stuff never gets a look in.

I'm missing something with Studio One I guess, beyond the GUI, which is great, I don't see any features that grab me. Cubase has always interested me, but early on I went with Logic and DP at various turns, and those three were close enough to where I couldn't see jumping over.

What in particular is making you look at it over Cubase?

[antic604]

...That and people who get frozen with too many choices, whittle it down to just two synths and Maschine, MPC etc. and they actually can write music apparently?. IMO it's stupid, choices don't get in your way unless you let them, it's easy to self impose rules to start writing in a direction you want to go in, if you have any sense of what you want to do as a musician. It's why most sucessful musicians have a ton of equipment with a few pieces they use all the time etc.

I know you said "IMO", but this is very inconsiderate and sound like something @BONES would write. Not all people are the same, I think it depends on temperament a lot. It's like if you called introvert people "stupid", because they don't thrive at parties or prefer to sit down alone to solve a problem rather that throw around dozens of ideas hoping something will stick

[antic604]

Yet another one, this time with more actual software shown:

[machinesworking]

...That and people who get frozen with too many choices, whittle it down to just two synths and Maschine, MPC etc. and they actually can write music apparently?. IMO it's stupid, choices don't get in your way unless you let them, it's easy to self impose rules to start writing in a direction you want to go in, if you have any sense of what you want to do as a musician. It's why most sucessful musicians have a ton of equipment with a few pieces they use all the time etc.

I know you said "IMO", but this is very inconsiderate and sound like something @BONES would write. Not all people are the same, I think it depends on temperament a lot. It's like if you called introvert people "stupid", because they don't thrive at parties or prefer to sit down alone to solve a problem rather that throw around dozens of ideas hoping something will stick

I think this deserves it's own thread. Doesn't seem like this gets discussed enough considering how many people here on KVR seem to experience issues with writing etc.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=552273

[BONES]

What in particular is making you look at it over Cubase?

I find Cubase quite unreliable. e.g. I have some songs that work perfectly but others have an extra half-second latency for no apparent reason. It also crashes more than I am comfortable with. I've spent time with their tech support guys in Melbourne and we sorted a few things out but there are still a couple of showstoppers that mean I could never use it live.

Depending how it pans out, I will possibly keep using Cubase in production, I see S1 more as a replacement for Orion on stage than anything else. Orion has all kinds of weird issues lately, as development stopped a few years ago. It's mostly graphics-related but it also seems to have issues with the latest drivers for my various I/O devices which often require restarts. At least I never lose any work with Orion, unlike Cubase, it's just getting too clunky to rely on in a live situation.

Obviously, though, if I can use S1 for everything, then I will definitely stop using Cubase. So far it's looking really good - it works a lot like Cubase but with little improvements here and there. I've installed it, watched a few videos and had a play around and I think I will adapt to it easily enough, even though most of the videos are clearly not aimed at people who work the way I do. Over the weekend I will try moving a song or two over from Orion, as I did with Cubase last year, and see how it goes. It should be easier this time around as I now have versions of most of our songs that don't use any Orion-native instruments or effects, so I won't have to waste time trying to find replacements for the irreplaceable (Wasp basslines, mostly).

[excuse me please]

Ok, I just woke at 4:00. Is this new hw or Mk3+?