Feature Request: Warp the grid to the performance, plus Stretch MIDI Selection and Dump Last 5 Minutes of MIDI
When I finger-drum in Maschine, I usually play best without a metronome. I want workflows that let me record freely, capture ideas safely, and shape them afterward without losing the natural feel.
First idea: warp the grid, not the MIDI.
Workflow: I record a long finger-drum performance with no click in 4/4. After recording, I manually mark two downbeats, for example the “1” and the “9” (eight bars later). Maschine calculates the tempo from those two points. Instead of warping the MIDI to fit the grid, Maschine warps the grid to match the performance. That way there’s no quantizing, no stretching of MIDI, the groove stays exactly as I played it, but the tempo and bar lines now line up correctly.
Second idea: optional Stretch MIDI Selection.
Add a tool that lets me select a region of MIDI notes and stretch or compress just that section to fit a target bar length. This would be useful for things like tightening fills, fitting phrases to 4 or 8 bars, or creative timing changes, without globally quantizing everything. It’s optional and works alongside the “warp grid” workflow, not instead of it.
Third idea: Dump last 5 minutes of MIDI to piano roll.
Sometimes the best ideas happen before I hit record. Maschine could constantly buffer the last few minutes of MIDI input and let me dump the last 5 minutes into the piano roll as a pattern. This would help capture spontaneous ideas, happy accidents, and jam sessions without worrying about recording first.
These three features together would make Maschine much friendlier for people who rely on feel first, while still letting us loop, arrange, and work inside a tempo-based environment afterward.
