Guitar Player Needing Some Advice about Expansion Packs

PK The DJ

@DaGuy007

"There's no obvious way to load the .MXGRP file"

Assuming you're talking about the Blues Drums 1 Maschine kit, There is no MXGRP file. It's an MGRP file, which is Maschine 1 format. Despite the latest Maschine desktop software manual still referring to them, the ability to import them was dropped several versions ago.

They can be converted by following the steps here https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007023578-How-to-Import-MASCHINE-1-Projects-In-MASCHINE-2 but it's probably simpler just to drag each WAV to a slot and create your own group file.

The newer Loop Loft packs do have MXGRP files.

Peter Harris

So do you think if I bought that complete Maschine pack then at least some of the GRPs would be new enough to work? I've tried reaching out to their support but it's like to complete ghost town.

And did the newer ones have any patterns at all or loops? I just don't think that buying the raw samples will be very useful for somebody like me because there's no way I could reproduce in MIDI that kind of performances I would love to be able to study in those specialty packs.

Tony Jones

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/12107#Comment_12107

Some interesting looking stuff at decent prices, but not enough detail on what we get, the Soundcloud links don't work and most things are moderately old. Anywhere I can get more info?

UPDATE: Ahh - I read the rest of the thread. Maybe not so interesting!

Jeremy_NI

Hey @Peter Harris To be honest, I don't know much about The Loop Loft, but I can try to find out. Could you tell me which product you got exactly ?

Peter Harris

Maschine Kit - Brazilian Drums & Percussion 1 - Maschine Kit Only

Appreciate your looking into it but I don't want you to spend time on it if you're super busy. I mostly thought you'd want to know if a company that you bought is still selling out of date and obsolete products with very poor customer service, and how that impacts the brand.

PK The DJ

I don't see how a collection of samples can be out of date...

They're not Maschine Expansions. Yes, some include a group file, but even that isn't strictly necessary to use the sounds. It's easy to assign the sounds to pads yourself.

To answer your question @Peter Harris yes some packs have Maschine 2 group files. I've installed and played them on my M+.

With the Expansions here having a fairly small coverage of genres, it's good to have somewhere that offers older, traditional genres, with the loops actually being played live by real musicians.

Peter Harris

The one I bought I had a group file version that wasn't even compatible enough to be opened in Maschine 2. So when the company says that they are selling M kits, to me that seems at best sloppy and at worst dishonest. And how hard could it possibly have been for them to open up the packs and resave them with the current version of machines so they'd be compatible? That is exactly how they are out of date.

To your point of being able to make my own kit out of the included samples: if I go into a restaurant, look at their menu and choose a sandwich, I would not consider it acceptable if they handed me a bag with a roll, a slice of cheese, a couple of slices of ham and a packet of mustard.

Furthermore I've given the company more than ample opportunity to address my comments (especially because I genuinely did and even still do want to try their products and would have happily bought the entire complete collection if I had any evidence that it was going to be of better quality than what I saw in my purchase) and it's clear they don't care enough to do that. And as a web developer for many years, I think a company that presents itself as still operating and selling quality products has pages that are filled with dead links to demo videos, fix them or take them down.

My point with @Jeremy_NI is that when a company like Native Instruments, who I know on the whole has great customer service and generally cares about their users' satisfaction, has acquired another company that continues to sell a product line that does not meet the same high standards then I figured they might want to know about it and at least have an opportunity to remedy it. I worked in marketing my whole life and if I were in the same situation that's what I would want. It's called reputation management and it's how great companies compete with others that are not

Ironically, you @PK The DJ have given me better customer service than Loop Loft have, with your assurances that some of those products are actually better than the one I got. So they should thank you for that. 😉

D-One

Regarding the OP:

When I am looking for Blues, Rock, Jazz and Funk drum stuff I use Abbey Roads Drum instruments because they are way more realistic sounding than normal Expansion "Kits", each drum hit has multiple samples recorded at different velocities, there's ghost notes, flams, rolls, etc... Very expressive and dynamic.

It also comes with MIDI played by drummers with all the nuances described above, dedicated drums fills for transitions and whatnot... The downside is that instruments are meant to be used in Keyboard Mode, converting them to work with Pad Mode is a bit annoying.

IMO it's worth it if realism is important for more traditional Music genres that are usually played by a band as opposed to the more "Beat" based modern genres where a "programmed" sound is the goal.

PK The DJ

Abbey Roads Drum instruments

My inexperience may be misleading me, but OP said he's using Maschine+ and I don't think the Abbey Road stuff works on M+.

Can the kits and patterns be exported?

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/12871#Comment_12871

Oh, you're correct, I missed that somehow... my bad.

It does not, the auto-sampler that is going to be released soon might help with that tho.

Peter Harris

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/12871#Comment_12871

Hi PK! Yes that's true but for the right tools I don't mind using controller mode.

egjanuary

I'm not sure what level of Komplete you have. But Studio Drummer has a lot of good drum loops for the genres you are looking for.