Maschine + advise before purchase

Tip from disappointed owner: if you are planning to use M+ standalone with external gear its better to test how it works before making purchase. You probably will not have issues with midi timing while driving external hardware using only one or two M+ groups (MIDI channels) but after increasing project complexity to 6-8 or more groups (channels) timing deteriorates to the point it sounds quite awful.

This has not been my experience. I regularly utilize 4-8 groups and no sync issues here. OTOH I do not use prebaked Groups from Maschine Expansions that much, and when I do, I always delete all redundant sounds from the groups I am not using.

It is a known issue that the Maschine Expansion Groups are very bloated with redundant fx etc, and loading and using them as is will make M+ run out of CPU fast. On the desktop people dont notice/care about this, since on modern computers, CPU is in plentiful supply.

I sometimes wonder if most of the Expansion builders were stoned when they made their "content" for the packs.. some Groups might have dozens of fx plugins on the sounds which make barely any audible difference to the end result 😹

Oh, were you talking about MIDI only? I only use one or two MIDI targets at a time and resample, so am not experienced with regards to that

This hasn't been my case either, for me everything in sync when using larger projects.

The only time I have had Timing issues is when daisy chaining too many devices via the single MIDI 5 pin on the back of Maschine. I have since switched to using a 4 port USB hub on the maschine to connect multiple MIDI devices (via USB obv). Perfect timing.

i will say this!!

The Maschine software is well optimised and intergration with hardware is top notch!!

but one doesnt put a 2 stroke engine inside of a porsche, and attempt to pass it off as a car LOL

I have a M+ and a bunch of external hardware and here are my thoughts after going down this path a few months back:

1. Controlling multiple midi devices via midi out port on the device has bugs. I haven’t ran into the issue as often in standalone mode but it definitely gets hung up consistently in the software mode. There is a post in the forum about a registry hack you can use on windows but it doesn’t work for me (Windows 10).
2. If you want to send program change messages to automatically select patches on your external gear for a given pattern, it’s not practical to do that on the M+. You can do it in the software but it’s still kind of janky because of how Maschine implements midi automation.
3. Ableton Live is 1000% better equipped to handle sequencing of multiple midi devices. It has an External Device instrument that handles sending midi data to a given midi channel and accepting audio input from a given input all in one. Live also has the PDC and latency controls which can help offset any weird sequencing delays. In Maschine, you have to use a new sound slot each time you want to record something coming in externally.
4. As others have suggested, you might have better luck controlling external devices via the usb ports if your devices support midi-over-usb.