Possible to fix low line input gain via software update?
Saw some chatter about an upcoming software update in another thread, which is promising, but one of my biggest annoyances with Maschine as of late is a hardware issue. The input gain on the mk3 and plus is insanely low, even when it’s cranked to the max… it just doesn’t get loud enough when sampling from my phone via stereo 1/4 to 1/8
Normalizing after is not helpful for me since a critical part of my workflow is playing a programmed drum loop while playing a sample source through the input to evaluate whether or not I’ll use it. When i do this, drums are regular volume but incoming sound is too low to get the proper feel..
Yes i could adjust volumes each time, get an amp for my phone, or use a separate interface but id rather just use something else which works as intended.
..Unless increasing input gain can be implemented in software updates.. anyone else have thoughts on this??
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Maschine has quite alot of input headroom and my guess is that your phone is just not outputting enough dBUs ( no surprise, a mobile phone is a power-conscious-to-the-max device). This is not strictly a Maschine hardware issue, its your mobile phone and audio engineering issue (ie physics)
You need to use some sort of amplifying circuit in between
I always monitor my line input via a sound with its input level set to +10dB, which helps a bit
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Thanks for sharing your workaround. Learned about that one recently and curious to try it. What I’ve been doing is running audio through my 404mk2 first, then line in on my mk3. Still, i need to crank the sp to literal max volume to get a decent level for monitoring
Not sure i agree that it’s not a Maschine specific issue because it doesn’t exist on 4 other samplers i own, including the TE ko2 which arguably is of much cheaper build quality.
As much as i defend NI when people nitpick at lack of updates or whatever, this one is quite disappointing because i always thought sampling was a core feature of Maschine and simply recording a sample in/monitoring should be seamless. I find it hard to believe that engineers did not anticipate that in 2024 (even in 2017 when mk3 released) people might be sampling from a phone or some other lower output device. It shouldn’t take an extra amp or software workaround to do that. But here we are lol
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For all type of audio devices then the electrical impedance and level must fit if you want to connect. Some devices are more tolerant than others and some have physical switches to switch the kind of signal that will drive.
The problem appear as if the MK3 line in have a too high or too low impedance for your phone to drive it. That has little to do with the MK3. It's the same if you buy some headphones for your phone. If the headphones that you buy have too high impedance then volume in headphones will be too low ! Or if the impedance is too low it will draw too much current and voltage level will drop if there is a limiter, if there is no current limiter you could get a short circuit ! You probably need a suitable interface as go between (which kind I have no idea , other than some Line level driver unit I think)
You can find the AUDIO INTERFACE SPECIFICATIONS for the MK3 here !
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I appreciate the explanation. I don’t have some sort of specialty phone. It’s an iPhone 12 and i use apple’s lightning to 1/8 adapter.. pretty standard
The output from my phone is fine for any other sampler (i own 4 others besides Maschine right now). All of them have enough gain to monitor at a decent level. Mk3 has gain control on the back of the hardware but even at max it’s too low. So again, I’m confused on how this is not a Maschine issue
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You mentioned stereo 1/4 to 1/8, and now you say there's an adapter at the iPhone end. OK, but what's at the other end? One stereo 1/4" or two mono ones (which is what you actually need)?
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Quote : "Mk3 has gain control on the back of the hardware"
From what I can see (page 30) then the MK3 only has a Mic in gain which should not work for Line in !
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iPhone doesn’t have a 1/8 (headphone) output, only lightning (proprietary to Apple). The adapter converts it to one. The 1/8 output goes to stereo 1/4 (plugged into line inputs on maschine).
This is not a wrong cable issue
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I don’t know if it should or shouldn’t but it does also control the gain on the line inputs. It’s not subtle either so i always thought it was intentional.
Either way it’s still not loud enough to monitor my phone with both my phone and the input/mic gain at max volume. And again this is not an issue with other samplers
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Quote : "I don’t know if it should or shouldn’t but it does also control the gain on the line inputs. It’s not subtle either so i always thought it was intentional."
Then I stand corrected , please accept my apology.
The only other thing that I can suggest is to check if there are any audio or other out-put settings on your phone that could possibly have any influence on the signal level ! , like e.g. Reduce loud headphone sounds. (Which apparently also could depend on phone OS used)(I know next to nothing about iPhones)
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Hey no apology needed! I appreciate the info. Not sure if you saw my earlier post but i am using the sp404mk2 as an amp in between my phone and Maschine which works fine for now.
I am not really looking for a solution, so my apologies if that wasn’t clear. Mostly just wanted to flag an update request
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You don't need to explain what the adapter cable does. I have an iPhone.
Please confirm that you are using two mono jack plugs to connect to the Maschine inputs, not one single stereo jack plug.
You need to use a cable like this, with two mono 1/4" jack plugs.
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exactly this, otherwise you are feeding unbalanced stereo audio into a mono input which expects a balanced or unbalanced mono signal. If you send an unbalanced stereo signal into a mono balanced input, issues will manifest as the input will phase cancel your L with your R, resulting in low volume and possible phasy sound.
All your other samplers might have more input gain on tap, but it might also be that their input specs have less headroom = easier to drive their inputs to close to 0dBFS post ADC. This is just physics
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Maschine input levels ARE low. We can try to attenuate the issues with many suggestions, but this doesn’t change the thing.
As OP says, same sources with same cables used in the same setup have higher volumes with many others devices.
We can be ok with how it is, use Normalize to bring things to the level we want, argue that the signal come in cleaner because not artificially modified… but Maschine’s input ARE low (or at least lower than in many other cases)
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This is the level I'm getting from Maschine+ with my iPhone 14 connected via the correct cable:
Not maxed out, but a quite reasonable level IMO.
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How is the level knob in the back of Maschine? You turned it up to the max, correct?
And the volume of the iPhone is at its max, correct?
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