Machine Mk3 Transport Controls

SuperTRev
SuperTRev Member Posts: 122 Helper
edited October 2024 in Maschine

These are very bad.

The Stop button doesn't return the play header to the start of the pattern. So you have a pause button right beside a pause button. Why does the Stop button exist at all?

Why is the Metronome under a shift layer but the Tap tempo isn't? That is backwards. How often does someone toggle the metronome, as opposed to create a custom tempo? Ya, a thousand times to one. Tap tempo should be under the shift layer and Metronome the direct button press.

Why does the loop button not stop the pattern from looping when it's disabled?

Why do I have to hold shift to erase things, when holding shift and pushing that button is supposed to make things replace?

What is happening with these basic functions? How did you manage to mangle this so badly? Big Yikes!

Comments

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 3,627 mod
    edited January 2024

    I've said this before: Pressing Stop literally toggles "Play" if the playhead is moving... The Play button on the SW both Plays and Pauses, it's a dual-function button that cames from the era when controllers did not have a physical Stop Button. NI never revisited this, so yes... it makes no sense. 😢

    One doesn't need to be a dev to understand the code since it's pretty readable:

    Further discussion here:


    Why is the Metronome under a shift layer but the Tap tempo isn't? That is backwards. How often does someone toggle the metronome, as opposed to create a custom tempo? Ya, a thousand times to one. Tap tempo should be under the shift layer and Metronome the direct button press.

    It's an arbitrary decision, those never please everyone. For example, I toggle the metronome way more often than I use the tap tempo. It wouldn't bother me if it changed tho.


    Why does the loop button not stop the pattern from looping when it's disabled?

    It does, in Song Mode... But Ideas View doesn't have an "end" so it cant stop looping. It could play once and stop I guess, not sure how many people need that and it would make it messy to jump in between Ideas to Song I believe.


    Why do I have to hold shift to erase things, when holding shift and pushing that button is supposed to make things replace?

    Erase+Pad deletes MIDI notes as the project plays without needing Shift.

    If you're talking about things like deleting Groups then I assume it's to prevent people from accidentally deleting, it avoids an "are you sure you ant to delete?" dialog.

  • SuperTRev
    SuperTRev Member Posts: 122 Helper

    Thank you for your responses.

    I know that you've discussed the stop button already. I wanted to make mention to you about it, and also make my own thread to express my own dissatisfaction about it. I always try to find a pre-existing post to solve an issue before creating a new one, so that is why you see me talking about this in two places.

    The 'pause' Stop button behavior comes from another era. Cool, so can someone please tell NI that this new mk3 is NOT from another era? It blows my mind that they actually got a stop button wrong.

    In their defense the restart button is pretty cool. I used NI's restart button idea to make my own for my Akai Fire controller: https://youtu.be/2RjCxKOOCog

    Yea, you use the metronome more often than the tap tempo. Everyone does. No idea what they were thinking there. If someone is in the habit of making a custom tempo for every song, then using two hands for that is easy. Having to use two hands (two actions) for the metronome over and over again drives me up the wall, when the button is right there, but being reserved for something that's used a thousand times less. I have the metro set for auto-rec but it still bugs me.

    Yes the loop button should stop looping in every circumstance. Otherwise it literally has no purpose in existing. This reminds me of when Image Line removed the loop button from FL Studio. What did they do that for? How did they possibly make the daw better by taking that away? (But at least the loop button that they used to have actually stopped the looping! Doing what it was there to do.)

    For the 'Erase' ya I did mean things like groups. You're telling me they made it harder to use the device that exists to make music creation easier to do; putting training wheels on it? What are we twelve years old? Can't people undo an erase anyway? Another reminder, of when Image Line took away the ability to link the volume knob to a controller because too many people were complaining about their renders. Wow. I have to suffer the consequences of companies catering to beginners? That design is bad doctrine. Beginners need to put in the work, to no longer beginners, without the device holding their hand, to keep the device having as tight a workflow as possible.

  • SuperTRev
    SuperTRev Member Posts: 122 Helper

    Another gripe about the device, is when we do File/New, it should jump to the browser, where we were last. I don't know why it doesn't. What does NI think we are going to do when we start a new project? We are going to use the browser to load something new. Obviously.

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