External Stereo Recording Issue in Maschine 3.6.0
I’m experiencing a reproducible external stereo sampling/recording issue in Maschine 3.6.0.
SYSTEM / SETUP
- MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021)
- Apple M1 Pro
- 16 GB RAM
- macOS Tahoe 26.3
- Maschine 3.6.0
- Maschine Studio controller
- Mackie Big Knob Studio+
- Turntable connected to Analog Inputs 1 and 2 of the Big Knob Studio+
- Big Knob Studio+ connected to the Mac via USB
THE PROBLEM
When recording my turntable into Maschine 3 using External Stereo, the resulting recording sounds severely altered.
Most of the instrumental content disappears or becomes extremely weak, while the vocals become strangely isolated and prominent.
The result sounds similar to severe phase cancellation, incorrect stereo summing, polarity processing, or some kind of incorrect stereo/Mid-Side matrix operation.
The important part is:
This is NOT simply a playback problem after the recording has been made.
The altered sound is actually being printed into the recorded WAV file itself.
IMPORTANT DETAIL: BOTH L AND R ARE ALREADY AFFECTED
I exported one of the faulty recordings created by Maschine 3 and opened it in Logic Pro.
I then separated/inspected the stereo recording as individual Left and Right channels.
Both the Left channel AND the Right channel individually already contain the strange phasey / isolated-vocal sound.
So this is not a situation where Left sounds correct, Right sounds correct, and the problem only appears when they are summed together.
The damage is already present independently in both channels of the file recorded by Maschine 3.
That makes me suspect that something is occurring during Maschine 3’s external stereo capture/recording process itself.
A/B TESTING — SAME HARDWARE, SAME SOURCE
I tested the exact same turntable, cables, Big Knob Studio+, Mac and analog inputs with several applications.
Turntable → Big Knob Studio+ → Logic Pro
CORRECT — full stereo mix
Turntable → Big Knob Studio+ → QuickTime
CORRECT — full audio
Turntable → Big Knob Studio+ → Maschine 2
CORRECT — external stereo sampling works properly
Logic Pro recording → stereo WAV → imported into Maschine 3
CORRECT — Maschine 3 plays the stereo WAV normally
Turntable → Big Knob Studio+ → Maschine 3 External Stereo
INCORRECT — severe phasey / vocal-isolation-like result
This is especially significant because Maschine 2 works correctly using the exact same computer, interface, cables, turntable and inputs.
TROUBLESHOOTING ALREADY PERFORMED
I have already tested all of the following:
- Completely new empty Maschine 3 project
- No plugins or effects
- Verified Maschine 3 input routing
- Verified Analog Input 1 / Analog Input 2
- Verified macOS audio/microphone permission for Maschine 3
- Restarted Maschine and the audio interface
- Reset Maschine 3 preferences
- Removed/reset the Maschine 3 .plist
- Reset the Maschine 3 Application Support/database folder
- Tested a macOS Aggregate Device
- Completely uninstalled Maschine 3
- Removed Maschine 3 application/plugin/preference files
- Restarted the Mac
- Performed a clean reinstall of Maschine 3
- Tested again immediately after reinstalling with a completely empty project
The issue remains exactly the same after the clean reinstall.
WHY I BELIEVE THIS IS SPECIFIC TO MASCHINE 3
The following all work correctly:
Logic Pro
QuickTime
Maschine 2
Imported stereo WAV playback inside Maschine 3
The problem occurs specifically when using:
Maschine 3.6.0 → External Stereo Recording / Sampling
And again, the most important technical detail is:
The faulty/phasey sound is already printed into BOTH individual channels of the WAV created by Maschine 3.
Therefore, this does not appear to be a simple monitoring issue or a case of two otherwise-correct channels cancelling only during playback.
It appears that the signal is being altered during the external stereo recording process itself.
POSSIBLE CAUSE
I can’t confirm the cause, but based on the tests above, I suspect there may be an issue somewhere in Maschine 3.6.0’s external stereo capture path, possibly related to:
- Phase / polarity handling
- Stereo channel summing
- Channel matrix processing
- Mid/Side-style processing
- Or some other difference in how Maschine 3 handles a stereo input pair compared with Maschine 2
QUESTION
Has anyone else experienced this behavior in Maschine 3.6.0, particularly on Apple Silicon / macOS Tahoe?
I would also be very interested to know whether Native Instruments can reproduce this, since Maschine 2 records the exact same external stereo source correctly while Maschine 3.6.0 does not.
