nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Machine capture individual group midi to ableton sequencer

thecubasekida

Hi Folks,

as the title suggests, i am looking to integrate Maschine in to Ableton so i can capture individual Maschine groups to their own midi tracks in Ableton. i am also a long time cubase user, and have that set up following Jef Gibons excellent tutorials on how to do that in cubase. i am hoping to achieve much the same in Ableton.

i have googled lots, and watched a ton of youtubes, but not been able to find a clean way, and am starting to think it is not possible given Ableton strips midi channel info when routing inside the mixer, so i will end up will all Maschine's midi for all midi channels captured on each individual channel in Ableton, not just the midi from the from the group i want associated with that groups channel in Ableton, so….

i am wondering if anyone came up with some creative way to achieve this?

Thanks!

Find more posts tagged with

Maschine MK3

Accepted answers

All comments

LostInFoundation

You can find many discussions here on the forum about that.

In this one I posted a video that, imo, is one of the clearest explaining step by step (and in a short time) how to set up things. It is for Maschine 2, but the procedure is the same.

And it’s in French, but, if you don’t speak it, with captions (although full of errors) you can understand the procedure

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/86256#Comment_86256

thecubasekida

Thanks i will give it a go

LostInFoundation

You’re very welcome 👍🏼

Hope it is useful for your case

thecubasekida

Thanks again, I watched it, but is not really what i am looking for, i got further than that already using what i learnt from the Cubase integration i did. what i am hoping in achieve, is if i have say 8 groups in Maschine, drums, lead, bass and more stuff etc, i want each group to record its midi output to its own specific midi channel only in Ableton (so for this example, in Ableton i would have Maschine on track 1, and then 8 separate midi tracks per group so 9 tracks in total in Ableton.).

so i would set record in Ableton on the midi track linked to drums group in Maschine and play a beat on Maschine. Ableton records the midi from Maschine (i can do this already no probs) next in Ableton i loop my beat and have Ableton trigger it from Maschine (again so far so good, i have this working already).

While the beat is looping, in Ableton i enable and start recording some lead on the track related group 2 / lead in Maschine, and play something, however, this i where it falls down, as in Ableton, in the track related to the lead' group in Maschine, i get the midi notes for the lead i am playing, and also midi notes from the drum drum loop that is playing, so two 'instruments' midi on that single midi track, not just the lead midi. In Cubase integration, this is easy to deal with, i just set different midi channel per group in Maschine, and use input midi transformer on the related midi track in Cubase to listen / pass only the notes from the channel i set for the group in Maschine, and i capture only the midi from that group, and nothing from any other groups that may be playing stuff at the time as Maschine is sending those notes on channels i filtered on the recording tacks midi import transformer plugin in Cubase.

starting to think this cant be done with Ableton but hope to be proved wrong! Who thought it would be a good idea at Ableton to strip out midi channel info when routing in the mixer lol

LostInFoundation

Wait… maybe I see what is your issue. And don’t worry… it CAN be done.

It is not an Ableton problem… more a Maschine one.

You have to change some settings in Maschine. In the groups, at the SOUND level you must set up in the MIDI tab and Input the Source as Host and the Channel corresponding to the channel out you selected for the various midi out on the tracks in Ableton.

In case that a group in Maschine is a Group and not an Instrument, you must set up things at GROUP level, selecting Manual as the Key Mode (otherwise only first sound will be played by all notes).

Tell me if you need more guidance and I will provide some screenshots

thecubasekida

thanks, that is what i have set, and is exactly how i have it working in when integrated with Cubase, the issue with Ableton, is that when you route internally in the mixer, it strips Midi channel information, so for example in Maschine i have group 1,2,3 set to send on midi channel 1,2 and 3 respectively, when this midi is routed inside the mixer in Ableton from Macshine track to separate Midi track, the channel info for 2 & 3 gets stripped and all arrives on midi channel 1. in the receiving track in Ableton, you cant select a midi channel to listen on, like you can when you are receiving midi from an external device, a keyboard for example. As soon as you select a device from elsewhere in the Mixer, the Midi channel option gets replaced with pre / post and instrument options, channel selection is gone.

i may have found a workaround but it is messy, i would prefer not to have to use some third party VST to send Midi out and back in to retain midi channel info - see below link which explains the limitation in Ableton, and how to overcome with their plug in. (not sure if you are allowed working external links in forum, so i change it, replace hxxps with https..)

hxxps://www.bluecataudio.com/Blog/tip-of-the-day/ableton-live-simple-midi-multi-channel-routing-with-patchwork/

thecubasekida

Actually… there plug in does not give me what i would like to achieve either, but the post does a good job of explaining the limitation / challenge i face.

thecubasekida

on further viewing, patchwork probably would do it, but still , if i had 8 groups in Maschine, i would need 9 instances of patchwork in my set, not sure what the overhead or latency would be like, i see they have a free trial that has enough functionality to test and also see what kind of overhead it introduces, and what latency looks like, i guess i will keep that in my back pocket as backup plan as there is cost (inst it always about the moola!), for sure i hope someone will know a cleaner way

Quick links

Unanswered questions