Playing a full acapella audio track in a maschine + live set

Coflo

I have been messing around with trying to figure out how to add acapellas into my maschine + live sets.

It looks like the only way I could figure this out was to use a "sample" track and just trigger the sample without recording a midi note (in a pattern). Then the track plays until its over. However you cannot "stop" the track from playing or mute it (you have to actually use the mixer to turn down the audio until it has no more audible volume).

I would LOVE to be able to use the actual audio track so I can take advantage of the time stretching and just "trigger" it to start playing. However doesn't look like its possible. Is there a way to put it into a clip then "trigger" the clip to start or something like that?

Im actually really surprised that I couldn't find any answers to this. It seems like most of the internet isn't using Maschine + standalone for performance and def not using it with long form audio (full songs or acapellas). Im guessing because it seems to barf after only a few tracks or efx in standalone mode lol.

Would be great to hear if anyone has any advice or does something similar with their setups (use long form audio or acapellas etc..).

peace!

Uwe303

Hello,

you can mute the track, you just have to set it to audio mute, standard is midi mute within maschine software. Audio track will not work the way you want, audio will just play and you can mute or midi gate it. Audio mute is under "track setting\output\audio".

Coflo

Hey Uwe, thanks for the response.

I dont see such an option on Maschine Plus. Again I am using Maschine Plus (+) in standalone, no software...no computer.

Uwe303

MHH OK but it must be the same on m+, if I'm back on my computer i can tell you how to reach it from hardware.

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53900#Comment_53900

Are you sure? it would be right there on the 2nd screen...

Coflo

Ahhh i was looking at the maschine settings not the actual track settings. Thanks Uwe and D-one, appreciate it.

Any ideas around work arounds for actually "trigger" something time-stretched without a loop/gate function? Or a similar approach?

6xes

standalone with Maschine+ is always going to be tricky if attempting to use acapella's... theres always preparing the acapellas but thats extra work behind the scenes....

have you looked at using ipad DJ apps that have stem separation and recall markers??

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/53985#Comment_53985

No prob. It's as 6xes said, it's tricky because there's really no specific function designed for it, and you will also need to prepare the acapella, like for example making sure it starts on the downbeat, this usually requires external editing.

1. With the Sampler you can trigger audio anytime but you have to be very precise because if you are off by a little bit (which is normal) it will become very noticeable towards the end of a long sample, not to mention the Sampler has no real-time time-stretch.
2. With the Audio Plug, you get RT time-stretch and have sync but... you can't freely trigger it.

If your project is simple, you can work around it, for example, if you can work with having all Sections having the same length then you can use a Clip with an Audio-Plug to hold the acapella and just set up a bunch of temporary Sections over it, this means working in sort of a linear way:

As long as you always replace Sections instead of inserting new ones you should be fine, but if you change the length then it will split the Clip. Using the "Unique" function will be helpful as stuff like Section "Duplicate" also breaks up the Clip.

For me, this works for performing a song because I have all my Section lengths pre-defined but it limits my freedom of experimentation.

Another option is to split your acapella into smaller bits, like chorus, bridge, verse1-A, verse1-B, verse1-C, etc... so they fit inside your Scenes/Sections using the sampler or in a Group with a bunch of Audio Modules. There's other ways but it really depends a lot on how you build up your projects.

Coflo

thanks 6xes and D-one, I appreciate the insight and tips!

I have a hand full of options for using "other equipment" to run acapellas, but so far none of the equipment I want to "include" as I was hoping Maschine plus would provide a better solution. Meaning, I dont want to include 1 piece of gear just to do one simple thing; but that may end up being what I have to do in the end :(