Is there a simple way of sidechaining a track to the kick within Maschine 2?

Ofuskate · 2022-06-01T20:12:40+00:00

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I have found the Maschine Mk3 and Maschine 2 software incredibly frustrating to use. I have not been able to figure out how to integrate it into my workflow, and it currently sits next to my computer as a glorified midi controller that I use to audition sounds when I do sound design. It hardly seems worth the price that was paid for it. The software is not intuitive, and without the software, the Mk3 loses most of its functionality. Is there an easy way to pull the midi out, and sidechain to the kick, or even sidechain to the kick with the pattern still in Maschine 2, without having to pull it out, duplicate the track, and have the kick on one track, and everything else on another track? I use Ableton 11 Suite.

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D-One

@Ofuskate said:

Is there an easy way to pull the midi out, and sidechain to the kick, or even sidechain to the kick with the pattern still in Maschine 2, without having to pull it out, duplicate the track, and have the kick on one track, and everything else on another track? I use Ableton 11 Suite.

Not sure what you mean by "pulling MIDI/Audio out" but sidechaining is as simple as this:

To me this looks exactly the same as it does in Ableton:

without the software, the Mk3 loses most of its functionality.

The same goes for nearly every dedicated controller, it's built to control its own software as opposed to a generic MIDI controller. The same goes for Push-2 or MPCs to a varying degree of nuances when used to control other stuff. For generic control, you're better off buying an MPD or Atom like controller.

Ofuskate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/19330#Comment_19330

It was purchased as a gift from my partner, and I just find myself frustrated because it was something I had asked for, and I'm upset that I'm not really getting any use out of it. By the time I realized that I couldn't figure out how to incorporate it into my workflow, it was too late to return it. It looks like the sidechain method you gave me requires me to do everything in Maschine 2, but I do all of my track design in Ableton, and I only use Maschine 2 for drums, so that doesn't work for me. Let's say I have an instance of serum on a track, and Maschine 2 on a different track, how can I sidechain the bass to the kick? If I just sidechain to the instance of Maschine 2, it's going to sidechain to the whole drum loop, and not just the kick.

What I mean by pulling MIDI out is after I create a drum pattern, how do I take that drum pattern out of Maschine 2 and put it into my DAW. I prefer to edit my drum patterns in Ableton, I find Maschine 2 clunky and not enjoyable to work with. I usually use XO from XLN Audio, and if I have a drum pattern, all I need to do is drag and drop either the MIDI or WAV patterns.

Screen Shot 2022-06-01 at 7.28.40 PM.png

Here is the MIDI dragged and dropped into Ableton, where I am can easily edit the pattern, or even pull out a piece of the pattern for sidechain purposes.

Screen Shot 2022-06-01 at 7.30.20 PM.png

With Maschine 2, if I drag and drop the MIDI into my daw, it puts each piece of my drum pattern onto its own MIDI track, but none of the sounds are being routed to it. That is really the only way I can see sidechaining an instrument track to a kick in Maschine 2, but I can't even get that to work.

Screen Shot 2022-06-01 at 7.54.59 PM.png

Jo.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/19343#Comment_19343

Hello,

"how can I sidechain the bass to the kick? If I just sidechain to the instance of Maschine 2, it's going to sidechain to the whole drum loop, and not just the kick."

Maybe you can spread your drums to different groups and midi channels in Maschine VST to work with in Live (or work with bounced audio, maybe the easiest way when you're happy with your sound design). If you want to edit your midi notes into Live (I understand why ✨), there are so many possibilities for midi routing Maschine VST to Daws according what you want to achieve.

I personally have no problem to sidechain a track from Live to my kick(s) from maschine, as my kick group has its own channel. Take a time to build your perfect ready-to-start template with maschine groups (or sounds) routed as you want into Live 🤟

Flexi

1 Use multiple audio outputs in the VST, then the kick can be put on its own audio channel.

https://youtu.be/ExKvtTeVi10

2 Right click on a groups name, change MIDI from Channels to Notes, now when you drag the MIDI it should be notes on one track not multiple tracks.

D-One

@Ofuskate said:

It looks like the sidechain method you gave me requires me to do everything in Maschine 2, but I do all of my track design in Ableton

Oh, OK, no problem. In that case, I would assume you want an audio track for each Maschine Pad in Ableton so you can mix the drums from the DAW, you just set the output of each PAD to a different External Audio channel, then create an Ableton Audio track for each and set them as inputs:

Now since you have an Audio Track per Maschine Pad you can use the sidechain normally, exactly how it works by default in Ableton. The 1st external Audio output from Maschine is the track where the Plugin is loaded, that's why the name on the sidechain pic above is "2Maschine Plugin", that's where my Kick is.

As for the MIDI it depends on what you want, Maschine by default has each Pad in a different MIDI Channel, that's why it creates a bunch of Tracks when you drag and drop the MIDI, to fix it right-click the Group and select:

Group MIDI batch Setup> Sounds to MIDI Notes

Now if you drag and drop it will only use one track, where each note triggers a different Pad. Now head over to the Group Input Settings and change it to Manual and you're done, save the Group or Project as a template so you never have to do this again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPMM3aXt_1s

XLN XO is way simpler because it's only designed for drums, while maschine can also have instruments, groups, sequencing, etc... It's a far more complex SW, therefore it needs routing flexibility which complicates things for new users, this topic is where I see the most confusion... so you're not alone.

D-One

Oh I forgot, here's the project in case you have questions and want to have a look:

Sidechain.zip

Ofuskate

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/19458#Comment_19458

Thank you so much, this is really helpful. I'm sorry, I didn't get a notification that I had a new reply, so I just now noticed.

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