Maschine

Ive been a Native Instruments customer for close to 20 years, and I had a brief 4 year love affair with the Maschine2/3 + mk3 hardware workflow in plugin mode inside my DAWs. I think that affair is probably over, although Native Instruments and their new private equity bosses could probably earn me back if they put minimal effort into smart decisions.

Maschine3 was just released, and Ive been waiting patiently for promised updates to maschine for many years now while I used 2.xx. At first routing inside a DAW was clumsy and difficult, then as time passed it improved and reached a place where I thought it was maximal yet acceptable. Then, as more time passed, the integration seemed to get worse and more problem-prone, and I found myself using the mk3 hardware in "midi mode" (without the plugin) because of those problems, and ultimately choosing new drum machine/sampler software.

Then I saw the message about Maschine3 and I rejoiced! I couldnt believe it, and I assumed the update would solve many long-standing issues, such as the lack of polyphonic AT control on the mk3 hardware despite having polyphonic AT pads, the routing struggles, maybe an update to transport control, etc etc. That's why the update costs me money, right?

Wrong. They added stem separation, a new color scheme, a handful of minor changes that mean nothing to people who use maschine inside a DAW, some stuff for marketplace support, and they ignored a list of like 20 frustrations that people have had with maschine for the better part of a decade.

Ive tried very hard to continue using this product + my NI hardware in my workflow, and I honestly *love* the mk3 control surface and workflow, but NI continue to let me down when it comes to basic stuff- and this is on TOP of all the other fires raging in my relationship with NI as a brand (their killing of important software like Absynth, ongoing scheduled obsolescence of so much hardware, etc). I wont be spending any amount of money on Maschine3, and if some day NI pull out of this tailspin and improve just a couple things here (many others have many more concerns than I do - Im only worried about like 2 things), then I can come back and try again. 2 stars for the MK3 hardware itself, which is still pretty rad, 0 stars for NI.