I've been playing with Maschine 3.0 for a while now and I'm bothered by one thing.
What is Maschine 3.0 for?
Originally the purpose of the Maschine software was simple. It was the software you needed in order for your Maschine hardware to actually work as something that wasn't simply a midi controller.
And, for me at least, the objective of the software was that it was intended to be used by the hardware and not really by a mouse and keyboard.
And that's great. And you can see the ultimate expression of this in the Maschine +, where the software is integrated and you don't need a computer to use the Maschine +.
However, Maschine 3.0 seems to introduce a whole set of functions that don't seem to be controllable from the hardware unit. I can't find a way to use any of the new midi functionality to edit patterns for instance. And Maschine 3.0 seems to be introducing a whole load of other elements that seem far more designed to be used onscreen by a mouse and keyboard than by the actual controllers it was originally made for.
So is the direction of travel that Maschine The Software is trying to become something that exists beyond the restrictions of the hardware rather than something that exclusively enables the hardware to function?
Will it start to have some purpose that exists away from the hardware?
Will NI spend its time trying to make Maschine The Software more like a cut down, limbless version of Ableton at the expense of deepening the things the hardware allows us to do?