Beginner's expansion, any recommendation?

jolly Dodger

Hiya Maschine crew.

what expansion is good for a newbie please?Looking for something that is more than a bunch of samples, with a eq and compression. i.e. lots of set up macros for jamming, and maybe tweakable synths, and ducking etc. set up to play.

Impermanence

This is actually really good question.

You could even make educational expansion combined with tutorials. Maybe just few project files with tutorials?

Tony Jones

It would be interesting to get a walk through of exactly why a project is built how it is, effects chain routing and so on. From memory most expansions have a similar number of projects of mixed complexity

jolly Dodger

Ok how about expansions that are sample light and synth heavy?

D-One

Hi. They all seem pretty much the same tbh, none is specially designed to be more educational. Most instruments/synths are fully tweakable and have macros ready to go, you don't even need extra Expansions for that... Massive alone comes with a bunch of stuff out of the box.

I guess you could also load either any library or expansion projects, make a new empty scene, and jam around with all the sounds. At some point, there was a page on the website with an interactive follow-a-long beginner guide, that was cool but I can't find it anymore not sure what happened to that.

Going thru the ThruTorials (no pun intended) series could also help:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/maschine/production-systems/maschine/trutorials/

or this blog post:

https://blog.native-instruments.com/watch-how-to-get-started-with-maschine/

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/5539#Comment_5539

Most have between 10-20 synth presets, some 50-80, give or take but they all have a ton of samples. Expansions more aimed at electronic music genres, or genres where instruments are more common tend to have way more presets for synths.

Some examples:

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/rhythm-source/
• 55 MASSIVE presets
• 10 MONARK presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/neo-boogie/
• 44 MASSIVE presets
• 36 MONARK presets
• 18 PRISM presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/artist-expansion-sasha/
• 65 MASSIVE presets
• 15 MONARK presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/infinite-escape/
• 40 MASSIVE presets
• 30 MONARK presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/anima-ascent/
• 66 MASSIVE presets
• 2 MONARK presets
• 2 REAKTOR PRISM

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/ignition-code/
• 51 MASSIVE presets
• 7 MONARK presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/opaline-drift/
• 40 MASSIVE presets
• 20 MONARK presets

• https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/expansions/midnight-sunset/
• 58 MASSIVE presets
• 3 MONARK presets
• 1 REAKTOR PRISM preset

Schmapps1

Honestly, I feel like they are mostly all very similar in terms of being ‘set up for a beginner’ or not.

they will all have ‘projects’ already in there that you can look at, and sort of reverse-engineer how things were done, which is useful.

I would just listen to a lot of the demos, pick which one sounds like the most like music you want to create, and choose that one.

tetsuneko

Indeed. Just pick the ones which demos you like the most.

IME the best way to learn to use Maschine is by using it, the included factory content is more than satisfactory for learning the basics.

The overwhelming majority of the included content already has processing applied to it (EQ + compression), all you need to do is find the sounds that gel together the best and your stuff should already sound decent.

jolly Dodger

Thanks.. I got lots of expansions in the last 9 for 99 drop to learn from. Thanks for the replies