Thoughts on Maschine software

[gminorcoles]

I set the mashine hardware aside, it doesn't play well with Logic, too much fiddly setup and doesn't output midi into Logic. I am just using the machine software as a plugin in Logic for drum sounds. I might use Battery which seems better for drums.

I am not sure what I was thinking. Expensive impulse mistake.

[babel2]

I get the mashine hardware aside, it doesn't play well with Logic, too much fiddly setup and doesn't output midi into Logic. I am just using the machine software as a plugin in Logic for drum sounds. I might use Battery which seems better for drums.

I am not sure what I was thinking. Expensive impulse mistake.

I’d say it’s definitely worth persevering.
It takes a while to scratch Maschine’s deeper sound sculpting and creative power but in the end it’s far deeper than battery and runs rings around other drum modules I can think of.

You have to set up your templates to get a good workflow between daw and Maschine but once you do you can drag and drop midi from Maschine into logic as needed

Having a fully fledged sampler or any vst instrument on each pad that can in turn use any vst chain to sculpt the sound is fantastic.
Having dedicated hardware control over those features is really awesome.

I often use it to host most of my midi instruments in a daw because it’s easier & more creative /inspiring for me to work that way with everything

Expect to have to use some production skills to get it to sound its best and it takes time to learn the system but it can be very rewarding despite its frustrations.

And to be fair to NI, despite my gripes earlier Maschine is pretty robust and stable for what must be a very complex back end.

[gminorcoles]

I get the mashine hardware aside, it doesn't play well with Logic, too much fiddly setup and doesn't output midi into Logic. I am just using the machine software as a plugin in Logic for drum sounds. I might use Battery which seems better for drums.

I am not sure what I was thinking. Expensive impulse mistake.

I’d say it’s definitely worth persevering.
It takes a while to scratch Maschine’s deeper sound sculpting and creative power but in the end it’s far deeper than battery and runs rings around other drum modules I can think of.

You have to set up your templates to get a good workflow between daw and Maschine but once you do you can drag and drop midi from Maschine into logic as needed

Having a fully fledged sampler or any vst instrument on each pad that can in turn use any vst chain to sculpt the sound is fantastic.
Having dedicated hardware control over those features is really awesome.

I often use it to host most of my midi instruments in a daw because it’s easier & more creative /inspiring for me to work that way with everything

Expect to have to use some production skills to get it to sound its best and it takes time to learn the system but it can be very rewarding despite its frustrations.

And to be fair to NI, despite my gripes earlier Maschine is pretty robust and stable for what must be a very complex back end.

Thanks for your reply. I put the Machine hardware aside because I dont see any value for me in the sequencing features since it doesn't play well with Logic. So I just use a Korg PadKontrol which has good pads and really good flam and roll. I am using the Machine sound content, mainly the drum kits, so that is probably the most value I will extract from it.

I am curious how Battery compares to Machine if all you want is drum sounds?

Another thing I am not quite sure about, is the Machine plugin seems to have noticeable latency when being triggered from the pads, this is not the case with any other plugins in Logic in my short experience.

[ymperial]

I mostly love Maschine but the NI development teams seem incredibly hamstrung and undernourished.
They do a decent job and I greatly appreciate the progress they have made over the last decade but the time frame development takes is ridiculous.
There are a few limitations/omissions users have been crying to have fixed for close to a decade that seem to fall on deaf ears.
Also the fact they jettisoned Jam is very sad.

I love the hands on workflow. I love the playability and creative options.
I don’t understand the complaints re it’s newer daw like features. They were far too long coming and very necessary.

Gripes:
It frustrates me very much that subtle details like truncating samples to the grid is missing (but workroundable)
The humanise midi function destroys velocity info if you use it no matter what you do ?!#*?!?
(This is possibly the single most frustrating thing for me atm)
Moving notes between pads must be done with the software instead of the controller.
Maschine gets weird quickly if you dare work in anything other than 4/4.
As for time sig changes, any attempt will leave you a bumbling mess. Even when integrated into a daw.

Ultimately the list of awesome features generally outways the drawbacks but NI’s tardiness in making progress and the way they abandoned Jam (and Kore) makes me lose faith somewhat.
They created a market leading niche that could make them infinitely more money if they showed as much commitment as many independent developers but they let its development hobble along and fester at a snails pace instead.

Then again the guys complaining above that it isn’t still the same as version 1 leaves NI in a tough situation but they really should be able to find a way forward.
That still doesn’t excuse the lack of refinement in features that are already there.

Still I keep coming back to it because it is ultimately a great and inspiring environment for me to work in.
I just prey NI will attend to the smaller details that make a platform pro rather than only ever work on flashy new development ideas.

Unfortunately they’ve shifted their demographic to Youtubers and Posers who only bought it for the pretty lights and pads. That way they can tune out the few who actually want to see real improvements.

[D-Fusion]

Maschine mk3 is a cool Groovebox but mine has been collecting dust the last year because it only supports vst 2 and some plugins i have are vst 3 only so i moved on.

The day the vst 3 support is in place around 2040-2045 i will be using it again.

[gminorcoles]

I really like the drum sounds, my logic template has a machine track which just outputs to stereo out, and I just use it for drums trigged by the Pad Kontrol. I have an Analog Rytm too and between the Maschine kits and the RYTM it has made my drum sounds much more polished and I dont need to hassle with all the Maschine hardware and software stuff, no dragging midi etc.