Why is NI hell bent on preventing it's users from using Maschine as a main DAW?
I'm serious. As someone who's been waiting my whole life for a company to make a powerful production studio in a box, ever since I bought Maschine mk3 I've been on a mission to make it my one and only DAW. I've ditched Cubase, and have been using Maschine only, and ONLY the hardware (as much as humanly possible).
The reason? I, like many others, stared my music making experience on a PlayStation, of all things. Yes, Music 2000 app for PlayStation 1. Over 25 years ago.
And since then, I've bought a PC, built a studio, released albums, played all over the world, bought hardware synths... and all the wile never really re-creating the simplicity and pure inspiration I've experienced making music using a PS1 controller and a well-built (for the time and system used) piece of software.
And then I got the machine mk1 and I just knew... this was it. It was not there yet, but all the essentials were here. And with the mk3, I was hooked.
So for the last 2 years I've only been using the maschine and a midi keyboard to make my tracks. From start to finish. Mutiple genres of music. And I made some of the most inspired, creative music I've ever made, and more importantly, I've had the most fun ever... but it's also been extremely frustrating at times, as I've had to find slow and painful workarounds for functions which take a split second in all other DAWs. And some are completely undoable, and I had to let them go. And it take so little to add these few features, I'm starting to wonder if NI's doing this on purpose.
Which to me begs the question; Why does NI not address the few glaring issues and capitalize on getting maschine to be the first actually fully fledged HARDWARE DAW controller. I think this would be much more popular and exiting, not to mention lucrative than say.... Komplete v36.5 or whatever the number is today. Do you have any idea how many people like me spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to create a simple, powerful and inspiring hardware studio that we would actually use in full capacity, and get professional level results?
Are there no visionaries left there? C'mon NI, think big!
If you ever want a list of small features that would make a huge impact towards that goal, feel free to P.M. me.
Anyway, not expecting a reply from NI, but you never know...
I've said what I had to say. Now back to making music.
Comments
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"Why does NI not address the few glaring issues"
"If you ever want a list of small features that would make a huge impact towards that goal, feel free to P.M. me"
Your glaring issues will not be my glaring issues, your list of small features will not be my list of small features, and that is just two users.
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That is true. Not everybody would agree on which small feature is most important. However, it’s also true that there would likely be a huge consensus on a lot of them. And there have been enough “feature request” threads that keep saying the exact same things over the years, that there really isn’t an excuse to not have implemented more of them by now. IMO 🤷♂️
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Like you said, you've been using it as your main DAW for 2 years, so it's possible. There's not much you can't do. Adapt to your tools, limitations lead to creativity. It will help you develop your own sound.
I would like a lot of small updates too, but I've basically given up and accepted it for what it is.
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I never used another DAW then Maschine and I'm really happy with it. Tried Ableton last week and this workflow is really horrible for me comparing with Maschine. The only thing I'm currently really missing is the ability to copy modulations and automations for example to another track.
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I doubt there would be a consensus, too many people want their feature, not things like all dials moving in the same direction with mousewheel (Most are backward) Mousewheel speed in the insert list being normal, not ridiculously slow.
These are basic things that have needed fixing since its very first release (and there are lots more) and make people looking in think Maschine is coded very sloppily, but nobody cares seemingly.
I desperately need PDC, which is a standard basic feature in all hosts, and when I mention it, other users think I am mad because they can't notice plugin latency.
There would be very little consensus on basic features.
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There is really not much missing to make it a basic daw comfortable to use. So far, what I miss the most are draw tools (curve, line etc.) for automations.
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Maybe - maybe not. My bet would be that there would be lots of things that everyone would agree on.
Either way, it wouldn’t be too hard to find out. They could simply create a poll with a list of potential specific improvements and let people vote on the order of importance. Maybe even let people add things to the poll if their “pet request” isn’t there, and then see if others vote for it too. Boom.
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OK here are some basics, ignoring the issues that need fixing.
Sampler - Round Robin, Disk Streaming, Multiple LFOs, Multiple Envelopes, Vastly expanded Modulation targets.
Pattern Editor - Usable automation editing, Desktop Scales/Chords.
Arranger - Linear recording of multiple audio or MIDI tracks.
Macros - Much more robust Macro system with ranging and multiple targets across groups.
Routing - More than two Aux, Better MIDI Routing.
Plugins - VST3, PDC, MIDI Generators.
Export - A much more robust Renderer.
Those would just make Maschine a DAW to consider over other budget/esoteric DAWs, and each and every one has been requested many times since Maschine existed, of course non of that is needed for it to be a great groovebox, which is what it is, and likely to be ;)
And the only consensus we would get so far is better automation.
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I’d definitely agree with most of those - that would be killer!
In addition to better automation, I’d say there would definitely be a consensus for: some type of song mode (more linear arranging like you mentioned), performance recording, and better midi implementation. (Like you mentioned).
But again, I really wish they’d create some type of poll like I mentioned and then we could really see what users prioritize. And then NI would in turn know what they should prioritize.
but that would make too much sense 😛
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Kind of... There is some consensus, if you would make a poll thru the whole user base some stuff would easily rise to the top and PDC is one of those; tons of people ask for it, trust me, I keep track of these things... Personally, I don't need it but I totally understand why others need / value it, I would be happy for others if it was to be implemented simply because a lot of people want it. This would be the ideal and fair way to go about it IMO, whatever gets the most votes gets to be a top priority for development, that ain't never happening tho...
I would not wait around for anything, accept it as is or move to another platform for your own good.
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To be fair, with the Soundwide thing, PDC is probably much higher priority now, most of Sounwides plugins via Izotope and PA have a bunch of latency, so that should give it a shove.
Then again, Reaktor doesn't even report latency to the host, so what do I know.
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All I need are envelopes and I would be happy for the most part. Being able to apply quick fade-in-out curves on Audio modules set to trigger would be great for taming artifacts when working with pitch changes in formant mode, for example.
But I get how NI wants to keep everything accessible from the hardware so maybe it isn’t possible.
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