Biggest gripe concerns them arrow buttons...

Sparaoh

Been loving my Maschine+ for the most part but I'm torn. Rant or be constructive? How is it like this? Tell me it isn't so...

Ok, the problem is the left and right buttons to navigate through pages of encoder parameters are a complete hassle for two inexplicable reasons:

1. They can't be held down to navigate quickly; only one page per press
2. The pages don't wrap around; when you've pressed the arrow button 16 times to get to the last page, the only way back to the first page is pressing the other arrow button 16 times!!! Huh?!!

Really though, why is it like this? It makes the whole feature so clumsy. I'd even go so far as to say it makes the unit feel more like a preset browser than the standalone instrument I expected. There's so much to love about Maschine+, but this is a huge letdown that extends down the whole product like (I have a mikro mk3 and an komplete s49 as well).

I could overlook all of this though if someone could please tell me how to go about reassigning the encoders so I never have to go past page 1. Is it possible to do from the hardware? I don't find anything in the manual about it...

Anyone find 16 pages of abbreviated controls usable like this?

Sparaoh

I figured out how macros work, so the paging thing is less painful...

macchinista

You can try hitting Shift"+Variation (Navigate) and then pin the "Page Nav" button. This way you have access to each (labelled) page of controls at the press of a pad. It used to be faster when the Navigate button was just for that (before Variation was introduced). It was just a button press with no need to hit Shift.

In any case, I hope this is an area where the rumored new Maschine software/hardware will provide some improvements (with parameter groupings in NKS2 as well). Fingers crossed.

Sparaoh

Great tip! Yea navigate is far more useful than Variation IMO. Silly how they changed it and even left the print off the button like they want people to forget it exists (which I did). Variation is useless to me and I guess probably anyone else who can play music...

macchinista

I had not realized that on the M+ they removed the “Navigate” print. That’s an odd move, although it might be explained by the fact that in the beginning this button was introduced to navigate different parts of the computer GUI which of course is not as important in a standalone.

It’s likely that not a lot of people are aware of the control pages navigation, so they don’t use it much and this might be another example of removing stuff based on the analytics they get from tracking users data.

But of course the question remains, is the function not used because it is not useful or because users don’t know about it? And more generally, do people tend to use presets because they don’t want to program their own sounds or because it is a PITA to do so with all the tedious page navigation and weirdly or incompletely mapped parameters?

Sparaoh

I was wondering about those analytics... When I upgraded from mk1 to mk3 I noticed a lot of workflow improvements, but also some strange things. Are people really adjusting swing so much we need a dedicated button?

The M+ is way more equipped to browse presets than to build sounds from scratch. That much is clear. But once I realized I can have different macros per sound and group, suddenly those 8 encoders become a lot more powerful. I'll just have to spend some time setting them up in my templates.

Btw, know of any way to change the names of the assigned encoders? Sometimes I'll just have a bunch with the same name "volume" or so.

emavoow

One approach you can explore is pressing Shift and then selecting "Variation (Navigate)" and pinning the "Page Nav" button. This method grants you immediate access to labeled control pages at the touch of a pad. In the past, when the Navigate button served this purpose exclusively (prior to the introduction of Variation), it was a quicker process. Back then, a simple button press sufficed, without the need for the Shift key.

Regardless, I'm optimistic that the anticipated new Maschine software/hardware will offer enhancements in this aspect, potentially featuring improved parameter groupings in NKS2. Let's keep our fingers crossed for these developments.

jt maher

^ NI burner account for sure 😂 ^

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/95884#Comment_95884

When you assign something on a Macro button (on the computer) you can double click on the label and rename it