VARIATION function does not allow you to humanize only timing or only velocity

Mudchild

Hi

Am I right in thinking that the VARIATION function on MK3 does not allow you to humanize only timing or only velocity? You HAVE to do both, right? If I want to humanize a quantized pattern, I can only do it if I'm happy to completely destroy all velocity information? These 2 processes cannot currently be separated?

Thanks

knockafya

You are correct. It is that poorly implemented. Its like you have to sacrifice your performance velocity in order to utilize the timing change. One or the other in 2022?! Plenty of expansions and other things to sell us all the time though. So much potential but they seem to not care. They continue to give us features that many of us won't use while ignore requests for features that have been highly requested for years. I love my mk2 and use it every time I create but my hopes of inspiring new features being released 3 or 4 times a year disappeared long ago when they started releasing updates super infrequently and shifted to a large output of expansions.

It wasn't always like this. They used to be more inspired and engaged with what people wanted and released updates more often. Actually, it seems people do like the expansions that much but Id rather buy records and sample them. Easy money maker for them and much less expensive then paying the amazing coders that develop this software. They are the ones that should get the big budget! Props to you folks that can add features by writing code! I'm on your side and want you to get a raise and let the marketing department lose a person or two. :)

Variation has potential but it feels like the people working on it were hamstrung by the budget and had to give a super basic version of what we know it could be. I have no evidence for this but it just feels half baked and not thought out. To be able to perform the TWO actions separately is the least they could have done. How about a simple random chance % feature on the same page of variation? You could selected a series of notes and then assign them a chance % they will play or not each time a pattern loops. So basic and simple but nope. They STILL haven't released the chord inversion feature that was supposed to be in the 2.15 update. Still no user made chords that have been requested for years. I don't need more 808 samples. HaHa!

basehead617

I believe i made the feature request in the old forum to have the humanize only affect one or the other or both (mode select) and it got a lot of +1s.

Its probably something they could implement in an hour easily, but they long ago stopped doing these sorts of small improvements.

Olihop

So many little things like the one you just mentioned that could greatly improve the user experience with maschine.

All this makes me say that it seems maybe complicated to add new features to the existing code base. This lack of updates could also be justified (and I hope so) by the fact that the team is working on a new code base more scalable and more easily maintainable in the future. I know that kontakt and traktor have and are undergoing major changes in their code base. So maybe it will be the same with maschine.

In any case I hope that their new alliance with izotope and their new soundwide group will also benefit maschine and that it will not be left behind.

TheLoudest

@knockafya wrote:

One or the other in 2022?! 

in 2022, this kind of "variations" that must be applied definitively to a sequence to see the result is outdated anyway...

I would dream of seeing on Maschine the kind of REAL TIME midi effects that we have on the Squarp Pyramid/Hapax or the midi effects in Ableton Live

Murat Kayi

When I first read "Variation" I was super excited, because I thought it was able to spit out variations of what was already in the pattern...ha!

Mudchild

Man, how disappointing. humanizing at the very least is arguably an essential feature for something like Maschine. But if you have to erase your velocities to do it, it's technically broken.

Trevor Meier

Agreed. Maschine needs a complete re-think of modulation / automation / variation / randomization / probability. It would greatly improve the platform. Right now it ends up being a preset player without the life and variation that a modern production system needs

ozon

I have to agree... the name of this feature raises expectations which remain unsatisfied. It neither is capable to produce (musical) variations in a controlled way, nor does it allow for selective randomization like common humanize features in DAWs can do. The only application I found was to create randomizations of existing patterns which suggest or trigger new ideas to try out.

There could be many more (musically sensible) applications if the randomization was highly controllable and could be combined with time and pitch quantization (to scales) and geometric transformations (inversion and stretching in the onset time, duration and pitch domains).

Impermanence

I love it how there is always total radio silence from NI when it comes to this kind of threads.

Feels like the user input is really being listened. Haha.

People are right about this matter. Variation is done poorly. It can be used only for velocity randomization. But hey, nice that it has dedicated button.

There is so much potential for creating and being playful in area of variation. Playing with probability, mutation and stuff like that. Peace.

TheLoudest

I know very little about Reaktor but, on this subject, a user told me once that this shortcoming could be easily filled by NI if they just implemented an output module for Reaktor within Maschine+

Like this, we could have all the MIDI effects (real time) we want..

and recreate what can be seen on the Squarp Hapax (and other sequencers like that) and even more!

Not much to do so.. just need the will to do it.

djadidai

Idk, I tried the variation to inspire me but didn’t work, I didn’t get very inspired tbh. And it’s kinda funny that humans working on machines ask a machine to “humanize” stuff, haha. To me this function seems pretty unnecessary compared to other functions that can be added. I’m a human, so I can humanize my grooves with my human ear instead of telling my maschine to stop being a maschine and start act like a human haha.

No disrespect to all the suggestions here, that’s not what I mean so please don’t read me wrong. I just think it’s a silly thing from the start, a humanizer or a randomizer or a “variations” function.

Mudchild

Fair enough, but I have to say I don't think I've ever popped onto a thread of people requesting a feature or fix, to say - "Hi guys, I don't need this! I don't think it's necessary! Thanks, bye"

TheLoudest

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/16607#Comment_16607

humanizer is just one aspect among others. The goal is to have more creative tools.

And this is precisely what idea generators, scaler, randomizers, etc. allow (at least when they are in real time...)

Otherwise we could say that we wouldn't need an arpeggiator either..?

or Chord mode (we are humans, so we can play our chords ourselves)

not even a sequencer in reality... paper and a pencil is enough :)

Tools have been created (since time immemorial) to facilitate the work of man. And musical tools are no exception to this rule.

Olihop

I agree that this feature is missing some things.

Then, a purely random function without any musical characteristics doesn't make sense to me when it comes to making music.

In order to make things less random it would be much better to be able to apply to a selection a kind of rhythmic or melodic figure like "fill, roll, arp, creshendo, decreshendo, drop, melody etc." and even to be able to select a musical genre to better target something (hiphop, electro, pop/rock, etc.). This would be much more useful, interesting to use and didactic for the one who starts creating music.

This feature should make more use of a music database.

djadidai

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/16642#Comment_16642

Hehe, I wrote something similar on April 5th in another thread, I was being sarcastic and this will be taken out of context but, to quote myself:

“I hope they add a “stardomizer”, a randomizer containing stems from all music ever created and it randomizes hits in any musical category. By using the macros to set genre, sub genre, major/minor, bpm range and so forth and at the end you push “stardomize” and voila. This feature is needed so people can focus on the creative process of looking cool on social platforms, and fulfill every trolls dream, creating PHAT tracks without having to learn anything and become famous without having to sacrifice time and effort or having to experience fatigue in the frontal lobe. I wish they add that feature. it would save so much time! 

;)

Jokes aside, I love maschine and I enjoy every minute I have with it, stand-alone or on the computer, doesn’t really matter. Stability for live sessions. That matters. 

much love to all of y’all!!”

But yeah, a randomizer with different musical parameters so that the randomization creates something similar to music rather than just random notes in the piano roll would be…cool