Live Looping from Maschine to Garageband via Blackhole

KatieL1988

oping someone can help after hours spent going in circles.

I am currently using Maschine 2 on a Mac running Tahoe. I'd like to record myself doing a live loop session using my Maschine hardware, as well as vocals with a mic. I want the entire recording, from when I initially create the loops, build on them, and then put vocals over top.

The mic is connected to a Scarlett 6i6 1st gen Interface, and I have downloaded Blackhole at the suggestion of ChatGPT to send the recording to GarageBand.

My current settings are as follows:
Garage Band: Output Scarlett 6i6, Input Aggregate Device
Maschine: Multi-Output Device, with Output in Monitor 1 and 2

When I press record on Garage band, the meter moves if I play a pre-recorded loop from my Maschine pad, and it is also picking up my vocals on a separate track. It is able to record these.

My issue is that when I try to start a new recording from scratch in Maschine, aka start a new 4 bar loop using either an instrument or my vocals, Maschine doesn't pick it up. The input source is External Mono, in 1 L (same as my Scarlett).

Is there anyone able to offer suggestions based on this whack of info? Lol. ChatGPT is sending me in circles and I've already contributed to enough global warming...

KatieL1988

Thanks for help everyone! I was able to achieve a solution using OBS.

Here's my workflow in case anyone comes across a similar issue:

🎛️ Your working Maschine + OBS setup

1. Maschine 2 — Audio settings
   In Maschine → Preferences → Audio:
   Driver: Core Audio
   Device: Multi-Output Device
   Input: Mic 1 / Mic 2
   Output: Monitor 1 / Monitor 2
   Important: We changed the Device from Aggregate Device → Multi-Output Device.
   That's the big change that got Maschine's audio into OBS while keeping it audible through your Scarlett.
2. Mac — Multi-Output Device
   In Audio MIDI Setup → Multi-Output Device, you have:
   ✅ Scarlett USB
   ✅ BlackHole 2ch
   ✅ Drift Correction
   This is what splits the Maschine audio:
   Maschine → Multi-Output Device
   Then:
   → Scarlett → your headphones
   → BlackHole → OBS
   So you can hear everything while OBS records it.
3. Mac — Sound Output
   Your Mac's normal Sound → Output is:
   Scarlett 6i6
   We left this alone because that's what lets you hear the audio through your Scarlett/headphones.
4. OBS — Audio
   OBS is receiving the audio through BlackHole 2ch.
   We also had an Aggregate Device source in OBS from our earlier testing, but once we got the Multi-Output Device working, that wasn't needed for the actual recording and was contributing to confusion/duplication.
   The important working path is:
   Maschine → Multi-Output Device → BlackHole → OBS
   And your vocal is being captured as well.
5. The annoying echo/lag
   When you first got everything into OBS, you heard the audio twice with a delay.
   That was because you were hearing:
   Direct Scarlett audio
   AND
   OBS's monitored/delayed audio
   We checked Advanced Audio Properties → Audio Monitoring, and your monitoring was already Monitor Off.
   So the fix was essentially making sure we weren't using duplicate OBS sources/monitoring the same signal twice.
6. Your vocal was only coming through the left ear
   We fixed that by using:
   OBS → Advanced Audio Properties → Downmix to Mono
   on the vocal source.
   That takes your mono microphone signal and puts it equally into:
   Left + Right
   So your vocal is now centered in both ears.
   Your Maschine music can remain stereo.
7. Your planned vocal reverb
   We found:
   Filters → VST 2.x Plugin
   on your vocal source.
   The only plugins currently appearing there were Native Instruments things like:
   Maschine 2FX
   Maschine 2
   Massive
   Those aren't what we want for your vocal reverb, so we didn't add one of them.
   We started downloading TAL-Reverb-4, a free reverb plugin, so that's the next thing to set up.
   Don't change your current audio routing to install/use it. We'll put the reverb specifically on the vocal.