Using KK + Maschine with Ableton

NewAux

Hi everyone. I’m new here and I looked around for a bit but I couldn’t find this specific discussion.

I’m a relatively new KK + Maschine user. I picked them up at the same time and have been learning them together. I really love how they work in tandem. The browsing, color, coding, layering sounds, performing, etc.

What I want to know and what I’m trying to figure out is if it is possible to integrate the KK + Maschine workflow inside of Ableton. I know there are tutorials about using Maschine within Ableton by routing it through the External Instrument device. The problem there is that Maschine acts as it’s own thing. I love the way KK and Maschine communicate with each other and it doesn’t seem like there is a way to maintain that workflow within Ableton itself. Or is there?

I have a lot to learn but it seems like one work around is running Maschine in standalone mode while also running Ableton. I can use a program like Loopback to send audio back and forth but it’s far from what I’m ideally trying to achieve.

I hope I’m making sense here. I love Ableton (and also use the Push 2) and I’m trying to figure out a way to integrate everything together seamlessly while maintaining as many of the native features of both. I realize there will probably be compromises with any solution, just trying to get a grasp of what my options are.

Cheers.

Kaiwan_NI

Hi @NewAux depends on what you want to achieve here, but you might find @D-One's answer in this post helpful: https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/1783/using-maschine-mk3-with-kk-s49

D-One

It can be done, not 100% seamless but close, depending on what you require but there are some quirks where you might have to change the MIDI input track in the DAW-MIDI track from the Maschine-VST to the KK keyboard to be able to Record in very specific scenarios, mainly because Ableton only allows 1 MIDI input per MIDI-track.

If you route things the way MoneyPizzle does for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FcqVumQmxU

Then for Drums / Samples you have to change the DrumRack Input like this and make sure your KK keyboard is focused on Maschine (it won't focus automatically and starts on E3 instead of C3, not sure why since I route things differently) :

For instruments it's similar, this needs to change:

From my experience, it's more practical to have KK focused on KK-Plugs for Instruments and Maschine focused on it's own Plug as changing the input all the time became a bit of a hassle.

NewAux

I really appreciate the input guys. I was excited to try this but unless something has changed, it only works with the VST2 version and not the AU. And the VST2 version is not compatible with the M1 Pro. *sigh*

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/24059#Comment_24059

It never worked with AU as AU does not have MIDI Out from Plugins, only AUv3 (which is only used in Ipad?) there's really no reason to use AU in Ableton at all. AU is a Logic/Apple thing.

What about the VST3 version?

NewAux

I’ll have to revisit this. I thought he said it only works on the VST2 version.

I’m on Mac and almost all of the plugins I use are the AU versions. Does this really matter in most situations?

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/25003#Comment_25003

Whos "He"? the guy in the video? At that time (2018) theres was no Maschine in VST3 format, only AU and VST2 so what he said is basically that AU does not work.

If most situations don't require MIDI Out from plugins then it makes no difference, but since MIDI Out from plugs is required for Maschine and KK for many things i'd stick with VST rather than AU, up to you.