Maschine MK3 Mikro + Maschine 3 software for FL Studio drum loops

Hello,

I've got this beautiful controller basically to do the loops of my songs in FL Studio using the VST plugin Maschine 3. In that way I plan to get rid of all FPC's instances I use, and use just the Maschine 3 software for the loops of my songs (techno basically).

I guess it will help me to do loops quicker.

My questions:

1- Am I doing right? I know I already purchased everything, but is it a good approach what I plan to do of switching from FL Studio FPCs to FL Studio Maschine 3 VST? Just to do the drums loops (plus some minimum details and fx within the same pattern).

2- I have two manuals: The hardware manual and the software manual. Each of them is more than 400 pages and to be honest latelly I don't have so much free time. Which parts of each one of these manuals would be helpful tofor my purpose?

I don't plan to do songs, mixes, automations, etc. As I mentioned, only the patterns for the drum loops (adding the samples to the VST).

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Maschine Mikro MK3

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D-One

1- Am I doing right? I know I already purchased everything, but is it a good approach what I plan to do of switching from FL Studio FPCs to FL Studio Maschine 3 VST? Just to do the drums loops (plus some minimum details and fx within the same pattern).

Sure? Maybe? Depends on your taste and workflow.

Just load the Maschine-Plugin, load sounds into the Pads, record your Drums and see how it feels.

I do not advise trying to replace all your FL's FPC (Sample Player Instrument?) straight away, unless you're really experienced with music production and have had samplers/grooveboxes before, the learning curve will make the process very slow and frustrating… Focus on learning the Controller and Maschine-Plug first, maybe by making a bunch of new sketch projects to get a feel for how you can fit Maschine into your workflow.

2- I have two manuals: The hardware manual and the software manual. Each of them is more than 400 pages and to be honest latelly I don't have so much free time. Which parts of each one of these manuals would be helpful tofor my purpose?

Hard to say, it depends how you learn… I'm sort of an expert and never read the manual ever, i just pressed buttons to learn what they did and made some quick googles when stuck. Others like watching tutorials on youtube, depends… We all learn differently.

If you learn well by reading manuals I would try the online manual, it's way less overwhelming than the PDFs and much easier to navigate. The topic order makes sense, so I would follow that. FL Studio's Step Sequencer is very similar to the Maschine Pattern workflow, which helps things.

For your purpose, I would ignore Clips and learn all about Groups (kits), Patterns, and the Sampler first.

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D-One

1- Am I doing right? I know I already purchased everything, but is it a good approach what I plan to do of switching from FL Studio FPCs to FL Studio Maschine 3 VST? Just to do the drums loops (plus some minimum details and fx within the same pattern).

Sure? Maybe? Depends on your taste and workflow.

Just load the Maschine-Plugin, load sounds into the Pads, record your Drums and see how it feels.

2- I have two manuals: The hardware manual and the software manual. Each of them is more than 400 pages and to be honest latelly I don't have so much free time. Which parts of each one of these manuals would be helpful tofor my purpose?

For your purpose, I would ignore Clips and learn all about Groups (kits), Patterns, and the Sampler first.

Viej0

@D-One Thank you for the answer!

Yeah, I will learn before replacing all FPCs. I got Maschine with the idea it would be easier and more powerful than the way I do drum loops currently (like a child pressing buttons and adding them to the pattern when it looks good, beat by beat). I will check how it works but for your answer I think yes, it is a good idea to switch to Maschine.

My learning process (I'm not experienced in music but I have decades of experience in software development) consist in reading the manual, writting a quick manual for myself, and then work, google, and tutorials the times I need them. I have very bad memory and this helps me to store things at mind; This way I also get to know tricks that can be found only in the manual that nobody mention in tutorials. I use to read the whole manual, but the Maschine's one it is too much for me.

I will check the online manual as you suggest, give it an overview, and read the sections you recommend.

Thanks!

D-One

Oh, I see. The MK3 Mikro is fairly simple when compared to the full MK3, for better or worst the lack HW features and small screen means most of the stuff to learn is on the SW side, where your dev experience should help a lot.

Whenever you hit a roadblock and the manual/Google can't help just ask here in the forum, there's not many Mikro users replying but at least for the SW you have a 99,9% chance of getting a quick reply. :)

Viej0

@D-One I understand why you didn't read any manuals. This hardware is one of the smartest devices I've ever seen. Super intuitive. I only needed the short video tutorials to learn everything I needed to create the loops I wanted. 10/10.

The only problem I've found is that Maschine 3 software is a DAW inside my FL Studio DAW, so the loops I do in the M3 VST instance will be pressent in all my FL Studio patterns, not allowing me to create different loops in different patterns for different sections of my song. But I think I can solve this triggering M3 scenes using MIDI notes. I'll check that.

Viej0

Another issue is that FL Studio often crashes when I'm automating effects from the controller 😅 but that's not essential.

Viej0

Yep, I've found the way to make it crash 100% of times. It is automatizing an effect from the hardware and then selecting the next effect from the wheel knob. I'll open a ticket.

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