Maschine, so who's got one?

[Bananasass]

I have tons and tons of samples tagged into my Maschine library, there really is no machine out now that can give me access to all my samples in the same way, none of them have a hard drive that big, nor do they support enough RAM to load them.

Oh I understand perfectly, but those kinds of arguments only go so far, as no one will use a thousand sounds for just one beat or 300 midi tracks and 60 audio tracks and 50 plug-ins for just one beat.

There's a pretty realistic limit on these kinds of things, even though software plug-ins tend to become ever more demanding.

With Maschine on the computer, I don't have to worry about my ram at all. That's all I'm sayin. A standalone machine will automatically introduce some limitations in order to keep the price reasonable. Unless they build it on top of a dedicated computer platform, then things could get very interesting.

Basically what that really means though is that you probably have another very expensive computer (easily more expensive than the Maschine itself) running it all.

The Maschine in a lot of ways is nothing more but a DAW controller. It can hardly be defined as hardware in my book. In fact, performance and possibilities depend on what computer you have hooked up to it, meaning it doesn't quite have any kind of true stand-aloneness to it.

So... What this means, is that you're basically defending software itself.

I am not against software in a work-flow at all, but the hardware side of things can definitely provide a better integration/compatability, to some extent a true dedicated hybrid is really not going to be a multi-purpose PC also capable of running games or surf the internet with at the same time.

With hardware as sophisticated as the PS3 being sold for only a few hundred bucks, I really don't see why costs would be an issue. In fact, look at Open Labs that sell glorified PCs for 3 grand. I don't see anyone complaining there.

well, we are talking about taking the maschine concept and making it standalone. Which means it will still have to be a sampler, and have it's own internal sounds, which it does now...in addition to be able to be a master sequencer.

It might be difficult to get your head around this, but I think you're thinking too much about how you'd possibly lose access to your current plug-ins and such. But the bottomline is you don't have to. After all, you're using a PC already anyways. Your Maschine objectively seen is not your sampler/sounds/etc., the software and PC is.

Which still means it's not much more than you got already, but you would just get it in a cosmetically different way. My point being that putting all your software in a bigger box, isn't going to make it more dedicated to the tasks at hand.

The sampler market is too small for a development of a dedicated computer platform to be worth it. It's why Open Labs makes machines that are still basically just Windows PCs and it's why the Maschine borrows resources and performance from a PC or Mac as well.

I could write a serious essay on the flaws of software here, but I think it would be quite a few pages long. ;p

 

[saintjoe]

actually I was saying it wouldn't be smart to make maschine standalone lol, I'm not for it, as I think it defeats the purpose of Maschine. Yes it's software, the ONLY thing that makes it better in my eyes, is the tight integration with the controller.

Maschine isn't the controller, it isn't the software, it's both of them together. Either of them alone are nothing special, it's the integration that makes it special.

I'm not worried about losing my plugins, and it's not about using all my sounds at once, it's about having access to all of them instantly without being limited by RAM/Space

It's the same reason I chose the 4k out of all the other mpcs, none of the others could do what I needed. I wanted a hard drive to hold my samples, and at the time it offered the most RAM at 512mb.

I just think making a fully hardware model from what they have now, would be a step backwards, and would also jack the price up. VST instruments can be sequenced with whatever, that's not an issue, it's just the fact that a standalone machine will be limited in terms of space/memory by default, if they did match the specs of a computer, the prices would be out of reach for many...which is also one of the drawing points of Maschine for some.

 

[L.A626]

i just got my maschine today, been messing with it for a hour and its incredible, maschine and my fantom, match made in heaven!!

 

[CavalliCurt]

actually I was saying it wouldn't be smart to make maschine standalone lol, I'm not for it, as I think it defeats the purpose of Maschine. Yes it's software, the ONLY thing that makes it better in my eyes, is the tight integration with the controller.

Maschine isn't the controller, it isn't the software, it's both of them together. Either of them alone are nothing special, it's the integration that makes it special.

I'm not worried about losing my plugins, and it's not about using all my sounds at once, it's about having access to all of them instantly without being limited by RAM/Space

It's the same reason I chose the 4k out of all the other mpcs, none of the others could do what I needed. I wanted a hard drive to hold my samples, and at the time it offered the most RAM at 512mb.

I just think making a fully hardware model from what they have now, would be a step backwards, and would also jack the price up. VST instruments can be sequenced with whatever, that's not an issue, it's just the fact that a standalone machine will be limited in terms of space/memory by default, if they did match the specs of a computer, the prices would be out of reach for many...which is also one of the drawing points of Maschine for some.

I respect this analysis

 

[CavalliCurt]

With that said, this piece of work is overpriced!!! axiom 25 + reason 4 = like 530

 

[Bananasass]

actually I was saying it wouldn't be smart to make maschine standalone lol, I'm not for it, as I think it defeats the purpose of Maschine. Yes it's software

Good then we agree that you're basically defending software, not a hardware machine. The Maschine could be made into something more stand-alone, in a sense Open Labs did that, but it's still a PC. It's less than a PC too, as I don't think it still serves well as multi-purpose PC. Eliminating the software factor of such a setup would defeat the purpose for you indeed, but that's not what I mean when making such a machine much more stand-alone and dedicated.
Perhaps I should write that essay on the flaws of software after all.

I'm not worried about losing my plugins, and it's not about using all my sounds at once, it's about having access to all of them instantly without being limited by RAM/Space

I have access to all my sounds and I honestly think the 'instantly' part is overrated when you still need to assign, load and sequence stuff. Even in a world where time is money, you're not going to notice that. I'm sure in your setup you've got a harddrive dedicated to samples only. Well in my setup I got the very same thing. Running certain plug-ins through other hardware or even just audio into my sampler directly, I have access to those sounds as 'instantly' as you do.

Everything you do with it next, will take time, regardless of virtual or physical location in your work-flow chain!!

Again if you're only using (premade) sample libraries made by others, I can see your point here, but you must see that you're probably burning RAM and wasting storage space where you don't need to and you're probably not sampling as much as I do.

In many hardware oriented setup, external sound modules will contain the sounds in a similar way as you use your sounds anyways, so it's sort of a false comparison to begin with.

I'm not saying using software as a sequencer or as nearly unlimited source of sound / sound library for storage etc. is bad, but I do think preference of a software-only approach is somewhat silly, when you can get the best of both worlds. The Maschine is still just one of those worlds, hence the Axiom + Reason comment above.

I just think making a fully hardware model from what they have now, would be a step backwards, and would also jack the price up.

You're talking about price, when in reality you did already pay like 500 + at least 1000 on your PC (!!) to be able to technically do what you do now.

Oh wait, that's probably not all you've paid, as you've probably paid for the software and all your plug-ins as well, which not surprisingly would end up in a total price near what people pay for a Neko these days. Except you probably got more bang for your money.

Sure you can go the warez software route, but that's not quite an honest comparison anymore then.

At 1500-2000 bucks, I'd say it's really not impossible to make a hardware equivalent at all, being able to run what your PC can run. Problem will be that such a hardware equivalent must still provide a similar platform for your plug-ins and the like, which was what I said before. I don't think it's feasible for a hardware company to try to clone all those software packages and make new versions, just so they can pack it into their stand-alone hardware machine.

And that's where making it truly dedicated versus creating a software-side platform for such plug-ins will become an issue, when you want to create a fully stand-alone and properly dedicated machine for music production. Just look at the Open Labs stuff.

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Firstly saintjoe, that maschine/reaper combo for sequencing vsts was pretty sick I gotta say, I hooked up my asr to the midi in and used a usb midi cable to go from the maschine to my xp machine first then tried it on my vista notebook, and finally on my macbook and it worked on each-So I can confirm at least that much if you wanna pass that on. I havent been able to get into ableton really with any seriousness and reaper looks pretty cool, I could just as easily jump into that. My girl gave me her copy of live 7 and much to her consternation I just cant rock it. Someday maybe...


Now to the other sillyness.

I'm sorry bananasass, I believe I started the thread initially asking who had one/who was out there. Not so much as a jumpoff for a treatise on why software/hardware/who-gives-a-**** is better, as this wasnt quite the topic for the thread. Ya kind of inserted your views on the equip which is fine, and saintjoe took up the challange and on it goes...

I am, however, assuming that you didn't purchase one and this thread has become why you chose not to. Again, wasnt the point or the topic. As far as the software hardware debate, plenty of room in another thread for that highly subjective foolishness. As to its deficiencies as a sampler, there are still active updates which intend to address some of those issues, and I believe destructive editing is on that list (trim truncate et al.), also as an owner involved with the NI forums you might know that. That is immaterial though.

WE did all buy the device knowing that it can do what it says it can and the extra stuff continues to push it towards what our ideal, keeping in mind that everyones ideals are different.

Furthermore this has gotten to look an awful lot like trolling. Of course you may very well take offence to that, but hey if it isnt inline with the original topic, take it elsewhere. Lets try and keep this where the owners can share some experiences etc and not detract from the purpose here.

Native Instruments has become one of my favorite companies, in how it deals with its customers, both in its support and in its continued communication about plans for the device and taking queues from its customers. For what Maschine is, it's pretty futzin cool and useful, and as has been said ones own productivity is all that really matters.

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Has anyone figured out how to copy one bar to another? I am sure its super easy, but still it eludes me. Right now I hit duplicate, but then need to drag it to the proper place across several bars which isn't very cool, but seems to be the only way to do it.

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Oh yeah the stability crashing bit. Yesterday I had maschine on my XP system, crash on me multiple times when importing my own samples. It also wouldnt play the samples in the first row correctly, they were the wrong pitch, at least and they sounded mad distorted.

The issues with the first row of pads I think might be from when I was testing out reaper with it though, like the pads may have been keyed up higher or something, dunno though. I tried to asign the midi track to output more than one pad.

It also gave me that dumb xp error when you remove a volume from the machine and its not aware of it so it asks you to cancel retry continue cause something is missing. It would do that and as soon as I would hit one of my imported samples after assigning to a group it would crash. If I didnt send the send error, just left it up and moved it out of the way, I could actually keep using it and record or do whatever. and when I restarted most of what I did would be there again. I am sorry my xp vernacular has shrank substantially it would seem, hopefully it would make sense.

None of these errors were present in vista or on macbook.

 

[chicitybeats]

You think that the maschine would intergrate good with Fruity loops?

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

It technically will integrate will with most/any daw. You can map all the transport controls, buttons, knobs etc so you can make a template, although I bet money that someone else already has, theres a template thread on the NI Maschine forums about that. I think that the ableton template/combination may be the most well documented/thought out combination, in fact they even give you the template in the 1.1 update. You can use ableton and open Maschine as a VST. I know you can use it as a vst in any daw that can host em too.

 

[Bananasass]

I'm sorry bananasass, I believe I started the thread initially asking who had one/who was out there. Not so much as a jumpoff for a treatise on why software/hardware/who-gives-a-**** is better, as this wasnt quite the topic for the thread. Ya kind of inserted your views on the equip which is fine, and saintjoe took up the challange and on it goes...

True dat. But **** it anyway. Let me just conclude with saying the Maschine isn't the end-all-be-all, but what's new?

I am, however, assuming that you didn't purchase one and this thread has become why you chose not to.

Wrong dawg, in fact I do got me one a while back and still have it.

As far as the software hardware debate, plenty of room in another thread for that highly subjective foolishness.

I already said I wasn't going to go into great detail about that. Stop acting like I did. Perhaps my comment was simply too long for your taste.

As to its deficiencies as a sampler, there are still active updates which intend to address some of those issues, and I believe destructive editing is on that list (trim truncate et al.), also as an owner involved with the NI forums you might know that. That is immaterial though.

Of course I know that, but I am not the kind of person to wait for that when I need it right away. All I am saying and it surely remains valid criticism, especially for those that actually sample!

WE did all buy the device knowing that it can do what it says it can and the extra stuff continues to push it towards what our ideal, keeping in mind that everyones ideals are different.

I've paid money for one and that alone gives me the right to be critical about a product. No offense, but if you're thinking an update which will add truncating and other really basic sampling stuff isn't a true necessity, but a gift from NI, you're clearly delusional.

Furthermore this has gotten to look an awful lot like trolling.

I'm a critical guy and realistic and serious customer at that. I'm by no means a 'troll' and I don't really care what the **** you mean with that. Also.. I'm not easily offended.

Native Instruments has become one of my favorite companies, in how it deals with its customers, both in its support and in its continued communication about plans for the device and taking queues from its customers.

I can get along fine with say the people at Akai too, doesn't mean I am not giving them my critical insights on their latest products. Even if I get them for free.

For what Maschine is, it's pretty futzin cool and useful, and as has been said ones own productivity is all that really matters.

Focus on the good, ignore the bad. Not my style, sorry. I tend to get irritated by the bad, especially if a different setup gives me what I need. (Yes, without losing access to DAWs or plug-ins).

 

[dazeja]

Hey Angry Mohawk,,, What did you finally decide to do and how is it working for you?. I'm in the same boat now. I'm a hardware guy that up until now used Quasimid units. I bought a Spectralis and then sold it because I was terribly disappointed. So now that money is waiting for my next purchase. I've narrowed it down to MPC5000 vs. Abelton Suite 8/ Maschine

I'm just curious to what you experienced since posted this thread.

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Well I gotta say I love it. And using it with live is not only easy, but works really well, you can switch back and forth using the Maschine as a plugin inside of live, and then switch to using the Maschine as just a controller for live. The integration is flawless, but for me the big bottle neck on my productivity is learning live. I initially didnt like it, but I am growing to love it more and more.

I was rockin an ASR that I was mainly using as a controller, and not sampling too much into it, as I have been using samples less and less. ALthough every once in a great while I would use it. And I have an MPC 2000. together I could do much *note i said much but not all* of what the maschine standalone can do. Although bringing live into adds a whole other level of depth. Using other vst synths right along with the maschine has been fun, and at this point because I know and understand so little of Live, I am playing around more than anything else. The knucklehead method, click, twist, or slide till it does what I want.

To replace the ASR, that was called to duty elsewhere, on a studio recording, I got an edirol pcr-500 midi controller, its on clearance at guitar center for 169! Cant. Beat. That. Price. ANYWHERE! If you can find a guitar center that still has one and you're gonna make the move to software, its a nice companion to the maschine.

I really dont like the 5000, I have spent maybe three to four hours with it over 5 or 6 sessions, and I just dont dig it. Its just a preference thing, I like the 2500 more, and the price was much less. I see people flying on em(5000), but its just too big and too much stuff going on with it to really work for me. You may have different experiences and for sure will have different expectations with it however, i think they say ymmv. That may be why I disliked live initially too, but I am figuring stuff out as I go along and discovering that it is really quite simple and a lot more in line with the way I initially approached making music. When Live coupled with Maschine it got a whole lot simpler. Way simpler than even using the pcr with live is.

Not to mention I saved a boatload of space and money on the deal. I think I will get familliar with the copy of version 7 that I have on hand and then upgrade to 8.

So to bring it back, as I got off on a few tangents and a little has changed since I initially bought it, I really really like using Maschine with Live. You need to have a fairly beefy windows machine, or any intel mac will do the trick. I am astounded at how well all of this works on a macbook 2.0ghz with 4 gigs of ram *no* audio interface, just the core audio drivers I think on the macbook, but on my xp desktop machine I use in conjunction with a delta 66 interface, because quite frankly its unusable with the asio4all drivers on windows xp or vista, and my vista laptop also really doesnt work well without an interface even though it has a faster processor and same ram, I think I am going to make it into a hackintosh fakebook pro and see how it does.

Currently when I sample things, I am sampling right from the soundcard using sound flower, I route the sound back into maschine. I can use audacity, or recycle to spice it up if I want something other than what maschine offers for wav manipulation.

I find in the standalone mode, I very very often turn the temp knob instead of one of the top 8 knobs. That a small annoyance. The next update which includes a boatload of fixes, and improved features, which by some peoples estimations ought to have been in there at product launch, are going to be in there. In their forums they are saying that update should be mid feb. Oh yeah both NI and Ableton have great forums full of helpful people. My preference being with NI's forums. They tend to listen to their customers as evidenced by their comprehensive updates.

So yeah man, Do It! Get the Maschine and Ableton. It's the German Connection, lol. This was a very unordered and strictly off the top of my head overview of my experiences, but if you have any other questions, by all means ask, I am pretty eager to offer my two cents.

I sincerely don't think you will be dissapointed with Maschine + live, its a very capable and well matched solution!

 

[dazeja]

, but on my xp desktop machine I use in conjunction with a delta 66 interface, because quite frankly its unusable with the asio4all drivers on windows xp or vista, and my vista laptop also really doesnt work well without an interface even though it has a faster processor and same ram, I think I am going to make it into a hackintosh fakebook pro and see how it does.


So yeah man, Do It! Get the Maschine and Ableton. It's the German Connection, lol. This was a very unordered and strictly off the top of my head overview of my experiences, but if you have any other questions, by all means ask, I am pretty eager to offer my two cents.

I sincerely don't think you will be dissapointed with Maschine + live, its a very capable and well matched solution!

I currently have the Lexicon Omega interface. Would that suffice to bypass the windows software? I think I'm going to find a store to mess around with the machine and go from there. I think I'm leaning towards getting the maschine. it's such a cheaper solution. I already have the PC, Abelton.

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Yeah, that would work just fine, in fact I was going to get one myself, except I got that Delta 66 for 50$ brand new in box, so that decision was kind of easy. I think that Guitar Center has a display set up usually, my local gc had it hooked up on a mac with logic, but it was workable. You want to save even more money on, look into getting an educational version. That is, if your a student, of course, but I mean comon, aren't we all?

 

[dazeja]

ok second question,, and I hope I'm not be annoying with all the questions. It sounds like you have the maschine and a keyboard controller. That's exactly the set up I'm going for. at first I was thinking of adding it with the apc40 but then I thought that would be overkill . My keyboard controller is Midi only ,,,no usb and the Lexicon Omega only has 1 midi-in. Can I just connect the Maschine through USB and set it up as a control surface?

 

[An Angry Mohawk]

Na don't sweat it, I just happened to be the kinda guy to learn everything I can about my given situation, and then when I try it my experimentation goes that much further. Which is what your doing so I respect that. So, yes you can in fact use the maschine as a controller, although just think of that as a function, or perhaps a feature but not its intended purpose. The apc40 was built exactly for this purpose so there will be differences, but I agree its overkill and that opinion is based solely on my purposes.

I used an ASR 10 as my Keyboard and I did that with the Maschine being connected via USB and the ASR by straight midi-usb interface, as well as the maschine and asr connected via midi and the maschine connected via usb. Both work. Right now the midi support for external devices isnt perfect yet, or rather it is lacking something in its implimentation. For instance: pitch bend and mod wheel do nothing within the Maschine software, but does accept keys, and ableton will accept it all so its a wash really, so eh... that should be fixed before the month ends. New update beta is due pretty soon.

So yep you certainly can use the maschine in conjunction with a strictly midi keyboard, vive le ASR 10! In fact given what you have that is the best possible way to use the stuff you have together. The Maschine will go back and forth from running as a vst with dedicated controls, to being a controller operating in midi mode for use with ableton outside of the maschine vst/program. When using just the Maschine standalone, without ableton, you can use the keyboard with the Maschine software and play out your melodies, or even play your samples at different pitches if you set it up that way. But, as I said earlier, you will be missing some basic midi things, like cc's program changes, mod and pitch bend, etc. You can however assign those to alternate knobs etc.

You might be supprised what you can do with just the maschine software alone too! It's scenes are just like abletons clips, so you will quickly see the similarities.

So yeah if you have any other questions dont worry just ask, I mean worst case No one will be able to answer, but I imagine one of us ought to. Not to mention a "tony the tiger" grrrrreat resource is the NI Maschine forums. Basically the easiest thing to do is conceptualize what you want to do and search for questions containing that + maschine + midi, etc I am sure you get the drift.

On the FP boards there isnt an extremely huge Maschine Contingency, and some people hate on it too, but I mean seriously for me and for what it does, the price is right and it feels right and I can get a lot done.

I now have an edirol pcr-500 which is without a lot of the headaches that come with midi, and has a slew of other sliders and knobs. it also has 18 pads, well velocity sensitive buttons really. So between the two I have a lot of control in ableton and seldom have to mouse around for much of anything, except the stuff I dont know how to do yet.

So get that and get busy!

 

[dazeja]

Well I went and played around with one at the local store.

WOW, I was impressed. And Like I said this is coming from a strictly hardware guy. I ordered an educational version off of AMAZON for 399. Should be here soon. I also decided to just get another controller. I found a used X-station for 265 on ebay. I have a love affair with novation controllers. I even use them on my hardware equipment. I know the x-station doesn't have automapping with abelton but it has a built in audio interface so i can use it when playing live and leave my omega at home.

I can't wait. I'll keep you up to date on my prgress. I have a way to go on Abelton also.

maybe we'll make this thread the UnOfficial/Official Abelton/Maschine Thread

 

[Mrsvinsum]

The min I saw one it really grabbed me...I like the way it's designed...I LOVE the lights on it! lol