Maschine + advise before purchase

I was thinking of buying Maschine plus, since i can use it standalone with my modular.

i have the MK3 - which i love

i read a few concerns about the plus being a bit slow ? in stand lone mode .

i wouldn't expect it to be as fast as when hooked up to a computer - but i guess when it is hooked up to A COMPUTER - its just as fast as the controller MK3?

also - i kind quite grasp , if you can stream samples from disk ? i know you can load from an sd card / eternal USB drive , but can it stream from the drives too?

Any pointer would be great :)

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Vic Angelo

I use the Mplus similarly to how you describe. As a standalone MIDI sequencer/hub for all my external midi gear.

It's TRUE when it came out of was slow and had High CPU usage making it hard to use in live performances. But last year the Upgrades in SW and Firmware made the Mplus everything I needed it to be. Faster, More Stable, with less CPU usage.

I got a huge boost in loading and speed once I bought the highest spec'd SD card I could get. Not talking about storage size, I mean Transfer speed SD card classification... U3 A2 C10 etc...

Mplus is pretty much 4 years old yet still super viable IMO

converted

great,

what about in controller mode to the computer -- i guess speed wise its just the same as using the MK3

does that mean that machine + streams samples from the SD card then ? rather just load them into memory

I think you store all content to the sd card?

reffahcs

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/133305#Comment_133305

The biggest limitation is the difference in software that you can run on Maschine+ in standalone mode vs Maschine 2 on a computer. This is something you may want to look into before taking the leap.

As far as Maschine+ as a controller... Yes, in that case it acts the same as a MK3 when connected to a computer. There is no difference. In fact if you take the computer module out of the M+ it turns into a MK3.

Andy Wt

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.

6xes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/133360#Comment_133360

that is a great point!! The CPU inside a standalone unit can inevitably become its limiting factor which can cause buffer underruns, which in turn affects syncing&timing to other units!!

at that point one begins to realise how valuable a powerful CPU is to maintain everything from audio buffering to midi syncing!!

tetsuneko

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/133360#Comment_133360

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 😹

Andy Wt

What interesting is that M+ CPU actually is powerfull enough to drive complex project with 20 groups which uses only internal synths/samplers/FX and zero issues with timing at 70-80% CPU utilization. But project with maybe 12 (i dont remember exactly) groups which contains only notes for external MIDI hardware and no synths/samplers/FX at all have pretty bad midi timing and around 40% CPU utilization.

tetsuneko

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

converted

this is interesting ,

I used to have the akai force - and it never had such issues , external midi timing , even CV and internal instruments - all running at once.

The force was rock solid in the main - just i prefer Maschine - creative work flow , i love my MK3 .

I plan to to use the plus - running a few external synth via midi or midi CV converted - clocked synced with a few other bits, and then potentially use a few internal drum groups or loops from maschine - so not too excessive on a whole ,

But is this this type of set up - case use going to be an issue ??????????

kind of worrying if it couldn't, cope with that errm

Vic Angelo

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/133360#Comment_133360

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.

6xes

heres the reality of what you are purchasing under the hood, of the Maschine+

and yes the CPU is highlighted!!

6xes

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

converted

well its interesting

The Akai force CPU - is 1.8 GHz ARM Cortex A17 Quad-C, which doesn't seem much better than the maschine + CPU. i guess the force has a lot more ram - which helps

tribepop

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

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).
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.
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.
As others have suggested, you might have better luck controlling external devices via the usb ports if your devices support midi-over-usb.

6xes

at least the CPU rating on the Maschine+ is slightly higher than the MPC....

NI can pat themselves on the back for that much LOL

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