Are you having fun with Maschine?
Some electronic instruments are way more fun than others. What do you think of Maschine, is it a fun instrument to play with? Are you enjoying the time spent making music with it? I believe the fun factor is very important so much so that it's called playing and last but not least, which instrument are you having the most fun playing?
Comments
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With maschine +
Yes, a lot, as a hobby, but I would be afraid to use it in a live performance.
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Ah, I'm happy to answer this question.
I started with Groovebox in 1998 with the mc303, then I had the JX-305, Mc 505, RM1X, MC-808, MC-707, MPC one, and now Maschine plus.
(and some synthesizers to accompany some Groovebox).
I really liked and had a lot of fun with the 303 and the JX-305.
The 707 wasn't bad, I didn't really like the MPC One workflow which I find not simple, not very logical and sometimes unnecessarily complicated
And my favorite, the one with which I think is the most effective, is the Maschine plus, I'm really a fan of its workflow. It's the most suitable for my way of playing, I'm really happy to have it. I bring it with me as much as possible to play on vacation or even at work.
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I still do. Not as much as I’d like since I have a very long work day atm but every time I spend time with it I really have a good time. I spent time to refine my sound palette, customize my instruments and sample bank images, saving my presets etc, and every time I go back to it , it is instant gratification. I just found the tools I missed to achieve few things I was missing to work comp and arranging from start to finish and can’t wait to have free time to come back to it seriously again.
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I am a bass player and guitarist... what I enjoy most ;-)
But: If you talk of playing I really love Maschine. I needed some time to dig into it, but now it is a good tool to create ideas.
Comparing it to Ableton Push Maschine is much more a musical instrument to me. I really have better results playing Maschine compared to Ableton Push.
I wait (and wait) for the upcoming update to make Maschine capable of being a Midi-Out to Ableton again, because I miss the arpeggiator, chords mode and more that makes Maschine such a good tool.
AND: The drumsounds of Maschine are so much better to my ears compared to all Ableton presents...
I am forced to use Ableton, because you cannot play and record with two musicians using Maschine (because als tracks are sort of "armed" all the time... )... this is not a complaint ;-) ... but it made me/us buy Ableton and Push for live-performances with one computer. We still use Maschine though...
Can't wait for the update and using Maschine again on Mac M1...
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I guess we're all waiting for that elusive update... Tomorrow for sure...
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I've been using Maschine for a few years now and to me it's the #1 "Komplete controller" so to speak. I bought into Komplete 12 and Maschine roughly at the same time and when I learned how easy it was to use most of Komplete within Maschine I immediately got myself an upgrade at the first discount period; eventually I even went UC (but that was pure luck, but man..).
I'm not just having fun, I can honestly still get excited about firing up my home studio and .. well, getting to work.
My setup fully focusses around Live & Push together with Maschine & Komplete and to me this is a killer combo because once I've powered up my "studio" I can do pretty much everything I need from behind my 2 controllers which gives me a huge boost for my productivity and motivation, but it also makes things a lot more fun as well. Simply because you truly get the feeling to be messing around with somewhat futuristic synths instead of just using your computer like every other day.
And while it may seem a bit silly (I suppose in a way it is) I still think it's somewhat special that after I fired up Live I can then use my Push to "activate" my Maschine (normally I use NI's remote script for some extra functionality). So once Live is running I can do everything from behind my controllers.
Ever heard the saying that "less is (sometimes) more"? To me that also applies to Maschine vs. Push where playing is concerned. 16 vs 64 pads may seem like an unfair comparison but more than often I can get more melodies out of my Maschine because of the "limited" space, which automatically requires or inspires you to, well, be more creative. At least that's how I'm faring so far.
I wait (and wait) for the upcoming update to make Maschine capable of being a Midi-Out to Ableton again, because I miss the arpeggiator, chords mode and more that makes Maschine such a good tool.
It can already do that, right now:
(errr, fair warning: I did gloss over the fact that you mentioned Mac, as far as I know this functionality should be the same, but... yah, as you can see I'm using Windows myself).
But here I have Maschine loaded into Live. In the software I set it up so that sound 1 sends its MIDI out into the host (which is Live). I then enabled keyboard mode and set up the arpeggiator using the controller. Then I set monitoring for track 2 to 'In' and set it up to grab its MIDI data from Maschine. Well.. the result can be seen above: Maschine is now using its Arp effect to play Live's track 2.
All of this can be fully set up from behind the controllers by the way, but the routing can also be done using the software (as highlighted above).
If you check this forum you'll find one of my threads pinned... hmm, lemme find it for you:
This should give you some hints to make this work.
Which is actually another reason why I think Maschine is a ton of fun: it can really "fit" into the Live workflow together with Push. I can play Maschine from behind my Push (either as instrument or drumrack), but I can also do this the other way around: playing Live from behind Maschine.
The possibilities are nearly endless here.
Hope this can give both of you some ideas! 😎
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@ShelLuser ... thanks a lot... I know what you are doing and I want to try out myself again and check all possibilities. Unfortunately it does not work on Mac M1. We are waiting for the update now since early march. But... better a working update late compared to early and not working... ;-) ...
As it is quite a work to set up a Maschine Drumset within Ableton and I do not want to do it for every project twice I only work with Ableton till the update will come with a VST3... I will check the Midi-In-Out directly because this is what I want... I want to record the Drumsounds of Maschine with Maschine within Ableton using Midi-Out from Maschine and Midi-Into Maschine from Ableton. ...and then other Channels for other instruments... but this will be subject to another threat or I will write something about it using Mac M1 under your essay about the subject.
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As it is quite a work to set up a Maschine Drumset within Ableton and I do not want to do it for every project twice
Look into Live templates as well as the (instrument) racks. See, the fun thing about Live is that it will store the state of a VST with its own saved presets. So if you add Maschine to an instrument rack, then set it up to use a specific routing scheme (like sending MIDI back into the host) then you can save the instrument rack preset after which it will always load Maschine with that very same setup again.
This can save you a lot of time.
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Thank you @ShelLuser … I know … But creating a Drumset now with AU and without Midi Out does not make sense for me.
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With that battery pack do you need one of those special cables (I can't remember the name of the company but I used to have to use one with my MPC if I wanted to use a battery) or can you plug it directly into the AC adapter port on your M+ using one of the plugs that came with the battery pack?
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To answer the original question, I have an absolute blast with mine, especially compared to my MPC One which still drove me crazy. I found it such a convoluted counter-intuitive workflow compared to M+ which I find beautiful and logical and elegant. And especially because of the favorites and tagging system, I spend much more time actually making music instead of just trying to find some expansion pack sound I vaguely remember being perfect but can't find again when I'm subsequently looking for it.
M+ has enabled playing around with musical sketches to be my primary form of recreation.
In fact I haven't touched my Xbox since I got it. No kidding! And for me having all of the Maschine expansions is like having a giant gaming library with an infinite level of replayability, except the ability to replay and remix them gives me a theoretically infinite creative horizon.
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I’m currently using a USB-C PD trigger cable fir 15V.
However, U originally bought a rather expensive battery pack because it offered programmable DC output voltage with sufficient power rating and also a 110/220V AC socket.
AFAIR either used one off my pedal biard power supply or bought one from Thomann, but don’t remember clearly. The connector on the M+ is a bit special.
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