Instruments and Maschine + in standalone mode : some questions

ORO_77 · 2022-11-08T20:47:44+00:00

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Hi NI Users,

I will be glad if some of you could help me on the following points _that might be raised by other Maschine plus users. Thank you very much for any answer! 🙏

I've bought my Maschine Plus one week ago and received it four days ago. My initial wish was to be able to record some finger drumming in standalone mode, use it with my band on rehearsal and also to use it as a multitrack recorder due to the availability of the clip function. I've first bought a MaschineMikro MK3 one month ago, was really seduced by it, learn to use Maschine software and how to record clips on the fly and so I've decided to upgrade it to the Plus. I stop this long introduction here.😀

Now, my points :

1- Frankly speaking and when receiving it, I was a bit (not to say highly) disappointed as I was not able to load my bunch of NI instruments in standalone mode. I even bought a 128 Go SD card for this. During one day, I was expecting I was doing something wrong but after some searches and reading this forum, I've understood, at last, I won't be able to launch 90% of my beloved (and paid) NI instruments in standalone. Frankly speaking, the NI Maschine+ webpage is really tricky as they are selling dreams with at least pictures of 9 instruments that are really attractive, with, at last, only one on these 9 working in standalone mode. So, OK, I'll be fair...as seen on this forum, the page is segregating the one for standalone use with a little orange cross on some pictures...recalling that the same page is filled with orange cross as a design pattern!! So, OK, to write that's my own mistake but if the NI webmaster is reading this message, please be fair too and please redesign this page by separating the instruments and effects in explicit isolated sections between controller and standalone use. This will be an appreciated act of making this thing clearer, because this gear is about several banknotes... I've read on this forum I was not the only one "to be fooled" on that...(and it's the same on either English or French issue of such Maschine Plus webpage)...so... 🤨

That said, we only live once ; I will reset my hard feelings and try to found some pleasure by using this piece of gear.

Nonetheless (all my points are about standalone mode use) :

2 - When I tried my first experimentations, trying to make work my Abbey Road collection in standalone mode, I've seen these collections could be loaded on the user sections, but once the kits were selected, there was no sound loaded and so they can't be used. From this forum, I've concluded it was a lost cause... ... ...until I downloaded the TrueSchool Expansion and I've seen some AbbeyRoad drumkits on the factory list!!! So I don't understand the issue... I was thinking it was a former performance issue that prevent to use it or maybe the code wasn't compliant...but now I know these two hypothesis aren't!!!! 🤔 So do any of you succeed to use their own AbbeyRoad libraries on standalone mode? If yes, how did you do that? Thanks a lot for your tricks and advices. NB : On the user manual page and before buying the gear, I've seen a screenshot of AbbeyRoad plugin. I'll be glad if this screenshot is representative of a standalone use (if not, NI team, you know what to do, don't you?).

3 - More or less the same question but in reverse : after downloading the Noire library on the SD card, the whole picture can't be displayed but some list appears ...with working sound preview when selecting items! So at least some sounds can be loaded!! Does anyone was able to make it work in standalone mode (and if yes, how?).

4 - (To be closed?) I've tried to build a drum kit on Maschine Software only with wav files (and without any effects), saved it to group with samples, but it couldn't be loaded on the Maschine Plus (I get some error messages). Yet, when I was rebuilding the same group inside the M+ in standalone, it was working. I guess this was a compliance issue between the releases of Maschine on my Mac and the one on the gear. I've just downloaded the new release (2.16) yesterday on my M+ but didn't retried so I expect this point could be closed. If not, I'll let you know.

5 - Maybe the more opened question (anyone can answer 😀) : does someone owns a list or a kind of Excel file of instruments included in each expansion? I'm looking for instance for some "Rhodes", "Wurli" or other keys (I should have get the ones from my Mark 1 or Vintage Organs if they would have been working... 🤨). If someone knows about such database I'm really interested.

Sorry for this long post, thanks a lot for reading it, a bunch of thanks to anyone who'll answer and sorry for my bad English!!

Thanks again for the appreciated help 🙏 and take care,

Olivier.

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Maschine Plus

Abbey Road

Noire

Accepted answers

D-One

All your questions regarding forcing instruments that are not supported on the M+ can't be answered, they're just not supported, copying the libs to the SD won't make it work. Maybe there's a way, some trick but no one has found it so far. The M+ isn't powerful enough to run complex Kontakt instruments, not yet and possibly not ever.

Those kits are simplified versions of the Abbey Road drums, not even close to the real thing, that's why they work on M+. Think of it as using the Auto-Sampler to get a simplified version of a synth/instrument.

The versions on the standalone and desktop have to be the same or transferring stuff back and forth won't work, many versions arent backwards compatible especially this one with big changes relating to VST3 and whatnot.

Never heard of such a list. Instrument count (if you're talking about "Sounds") is very low in expansions.

A list sounds quite impractical, if I often used things like Rhodes, Wurli, Clavinet, etc on M+ standalone I would go thru the list on the desktop version, save each I find to a custom lib and tag them with a new specific tag, copy the folder to SD card and this way you can just select for example a "Rhodes" tag on M+ and it will list them all. A bit of work but might be worth it for someone who uses these sounds a lot.

You can use the Auto Sampler on the Mark 1 or Vintage Organs to make your own patches, If you're into this kind of instrument emulation that's what I would do, as you can make it as simple or realistic/complicated as you want.

EDIT: I forgot, you can also try using favorites.

D-One

Your perspective is common among traditional Musicians; folks with a guitar / keyboard / etc background tend to have certain expectations from "a box to make music" type of device in this era, often these expectations don't match the reality of how slow this class of standalone devices has been evolving.

There are not a lot of devices out there similar to M+ and they all have similar very limitations. Perhaps instrument wise the MPC alternative is more focused since they release plugins that are tailored to work efficiently in their standalones, things as a dedicated electric piano plugin, mellotron, mono-bass, etc... while on M+ the plugins are made for real computers and ported over... This means that only the less resource-demanding (or old) NI instruments will work. NI's gigantic catalog and history of instruments might seem like an advantage VS a company like AKAI but depending on your needs it might work against NI since they were never meant to be run on a standalone.

At this point, I doubt NI will put any significant effort into making new instruments especially tailored for M+ and/or developing more Maschine "Internal Plug-in/Modules" (like the Bass Synth, Polysynth, etc), all of the above seems to be something very low on their priority list.

@ORO_77 said:

As you state, I have to go deeper into auto-sampling. Frankly speaking, I have no idea on how to proceed on this...

Just watch the Loopop video, might be a tad outdated but he has the best reviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ZLLiiSLPA

@ORO_77 said:

Yes, but with the MK3 you need to add in the price of the computer it's attached to; the computer inside the M+ was around 350€ at the time of release, add in other HW components that it needs to function + some extra for profit and there's your 1.2k.

I'm not a fan of the M+ so I am a bit biased but even so, I think the price for the HW is kind of fair, and that's what most of your $ pays for, all the problems you mention are software related. Just like most problems people mention on the Maschine desktop version.

If I had known more about such restrictions, I would have bought the MK3.

I guess you fell for their marketing as they do try to market Maschine in general to a very wide target as opposed to back in the day when the main focus was beats, electronic music, finger drumming, etc... I'd say for someone interested in instruments primarily and doesn't mind having to use a laptop an MK3 is a much better choice. If you're still within the 30-day return time then return it and get the MK3... Or give it a few months to get used to the M+, new instruments take a while to get used too.

All comments

ozon

Try to work with what is already available on the M+ instead of trying to make work what is not available.

Helps to keep the frustration level low and to spend your time making music.

D-One

Never heard of such a list. Instrument count (if you're talking about "Sounds") is very low in expansions.

EDIT: I forgot, you can also try using favorites.

Peter Harris

And keep in mind that you can always plug in the Plus to your computer in controller mode and then you have access to everything available that you own licenses for. To me it is really the best of both worlds!

ORO_77

Thank you very much to all of you three! 😉

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/39048#Comment_39048

@D-One : Thank you very much for this very detailed answer. So, reading it, I understand no one was able to find a trick...let's hope NI will be able to bring us some good news regarding this point in a near future.

As you state, I have to go deeper into auto-sampling. Frankly speaking, I have no idea on how to proceed on this...I saw a few days ago a Youtube video on someone performing such function to sample a real keyboard but I couldn't detach time to find some examples of auto-sampling NI instruments. Glad to know it could be possible. Regarding the sounds, what I was highlighting by "list" was an Internet database of which sounds/instrument is included in each NI expansion. Unfortunately, I only own a few of it but I've well understood I guess some Rhodes sounds could be imported from the Marble Rims one (as well as I found some Abbey Road Drums from the True School one). I would have said it could be a win-win to NI to provide such database as I (but I guess a lot of users) could be interested to buy some packs by knowing their contents. My approach is not really the one of beatmakers (I use the M+ connected to my Quad Cortex and small keyboard controllers), so for sure, I'm more interested by instruments/sound than by sample.

Thanks a lot again @D-One for having spending that time on such help. 😀👍️

@ozon and @Peter Harris : Thanks, I understand your messages. I'm in a constructive mood and for sure I will try to use this gear as it is to make something a little bit new on "my musical works" (a little bit presumptuous, but due to my low English level, let's call it like that!). Yet I wanted to express a certain level of frustration towards such gear as I usually love a lot my NI purchase (such as Noire, Mark I and Abbey Road) and frankly speaking, if I had to note my Mikro Mk 3, I would have put a 5 stars on 5. In French, we use to say "Qui aime bien, châtie bien"

Yet, and that's what I wanted to state, Maschine MK3 is @649€ vs 1329€ for M+!! It's easy to understand that for someone who wants to take benefit of the standalone mode, we would have expected more for the double of the price. If I had known more about such restrictions, I would have bought the MK3. For my personal use to get a portable multitrack recorder integrating some synths, this gear was really near to gain its target, but, let's admit it, fails today with such listed incompatibilities. For old-school bassists/guitarist like me, an integration of module such as Guitar Rig would have been a game changer on such market and would open this product to a "new production" mode. Puns apart, having a guitar rig, synths and standalone drums in a single bag would have been something every "organic" musician is dreaming about. I want to be able to record ideas on some locations I can't bring my computer. As you said, some things are already possible so I will focus on these and maybe find some fresh ideas with these restrictions and sounds I was not first interested about. But it's really frustrating as all the ingredients were here to build the perfect product. 🙄 And the current state of the M+ doesn't justify not to prefer its little brother for music production (for half the price). But maybe I will change my mind in a near future. I'm OK to try it! 😉

D-One

@ORO_77 said:

As you state, I have to go deeper into auto-sampling. Frankly speaking, I have no idea on how to proceed on this...

Just watch the Loopop video, might be a tad outdated but he has the best reviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ZLLiiSLPA

@ORO_77 said:

If I had known more about such restrictions, I would have bought the MK3.

ORO_77

Hi @D-One!

Sorry for the delay in answering, I admit I didn't have a lot of "free time" these last days...but juste some little sentence to share (and I hope to the community) :

Thanks for the Youtube Link! 😀👍️
From my side, I've found the following one : https://youtu.be/KQZdOm8aefo

This last one is very good in order to understand the use of auto-sampling from our "loved" libraries and so I've tried to sample my preferred "Noire" Preset with steps of 10 in velocity from 0 to 127 and from C-1 to C7...and it's now closing my frustrations! 😁

This point has solved my issues : so all the NI libraries are usable...

From this "Noire" sampling it took me around 2 Go of SD Card and I was fearing the use as it took 10 seconds to load...but once loaded...it's totally usable without any latency (on pads or usb keyboard) and only take 2 or 3% of CPU (my preset already embed a slight reverb). With this velocity recording, the feeling is totally natural...as if I was using Noire from my computer!!! I wasn't expecting that!!

So next steps will be to "encode" my others keyboards banks, and then bass... 😁

Now, I know I want a 256 Go SD card for Christmas!! 😂

Thanks again @D-One

And to the people that are as frustrated as I was at the beginning, please know that there is an easy possible and usable workaround without any additional fees. New chapters will be to rebuild my own sound banks.

Have a nice week.

Kind regards,

Olivier.

Komfort Vice

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/39069#Comment_39069

How can I do this? I bought maschine plus but I can't figure out how I can connect it to a computer and have the software like the previous version.

Nico_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/41138#Comment_41138

Check out How to Use MASCHINE+ as a Controller 👈

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/41138#Comment_41138

If it's already installed follow Nico's support page if not then install Native Acess and install the software on your computer. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/support/downloads/

Weezie28

If only someone can make a conversion App or Program that will covert NI instruments to be used in Maschine Plus..You'd make a killing...are you listening KitMaker...

Psyearth5

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/39046#Comment_39046

Exactly, it's the way to get creative and to do " impossible" finding solutions.

I feel like I have to say but I don't want to offend anyone but Main focus for Learning would be based from my experience reading and reading of Manual but at the same time it's exercise for brain muscle and strength of memory. I agree with you 100%

tetsuneko

For what its worth, I am able to load up "Past 2 Future Samples" rhodes Kontakt patches on my Maschine+ standalone:

https://pasttofuturesamples.gumroad.com/ (scroll way down the page past the drum kits and you'll see the rhodes/wurli etc patches listed)

I do have a licence for Kontakt 6 on my Native Access account, this might be required.. Also bear in mind that User content for Kontakt & Reaktor is not officially supported by Maschine+ in standalone, so if you run into problems, you're on your own

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