Maschine Plus has a bad UX experience, particularly if you have poor eyesight.

S Righteous
S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper
edited November 2022 in Maschine

Of the smallest things I think NI could do to make Maschine Plus easier to use, is clean up the interface to make things more obvious and accessible. I have bad eyes, but even if I didn't, I would still think this area could use improvement. A performance tool should always make all states super obvious, and Maschine Plus does not.

For example, there is no indication in the screen as to which groups are muted. You have to hold mute to see this, and even then, I find the slight differences in color a stupid way to indicate mute, because I can't remember what color it was previously. The groups which are muted have their pads lit slightly less - which I can never tell in a darker environment - again, useless for performance to someone like me whose eyes are not what they used to be!

Throw a grid on top of muted groups in the display, or add something really obvious.

Selected pads are indicated with a solid color, and because the other pads around it are not that color, it stands out. Groups don't have that context. But also in pad mode, if you select all pads, they get a thick border, and that is really eye catching - I wish they did that for Groups in the display.

Give all muted groups a thick border so it's obvious they are muted, and don't make me have to hold the mute button to see that - why not just show it at all times?

This is probably a useless rant, as NI has zero history of listening to customers, and there is so much basic stuff Maschine should have by now, this isn't going to be a top priority for most users.

Anyway, I am thinking of buying a midi controller just for use with muting groups during a performance. Something with pads that are either lit, or not lit so I clearly know at a glance (in the dark) what the mute state of all groups are.

Is anyone using a second midi controller with Maschine Plus, for this kind of thing?

I'm looking for recommendations.

Do most users just have eagle eye vision?

Shouldn't NI make their software and hardware accessible ?

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Comments

  • tribepop
    tribepop Member Posts: 160 Advisor
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/7977/maschine-plus-has-a-bad-ux-experience-particularly-if-you-have-poor-eyesight

    Jokes on you, I don’t even look up at the screen when using Maschine because I can pretty much do everything from the controller.

    But in all seriousness, it would be nice if they had some UI scaling options and more customization like color themes, hiding/showing certain functions, etc.

  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/41361#Comment_41361

    just to clarify, I'm using Maschine Plug in stand alone, so when I mention 'the screen', I'm talking about the LCD on the controller. This is where they could use some better UX.

  • D-One
    D-One Moderator Posts: 2,879 mod
    edited November 2022

    This sort of stuff doesn't really get tweaked to maturity over time, unfortunately, the last time I remember the GUI on the HW Screens changing was when the top info bar changed from dark grey to black or vice versa.

    I can't say I have trouble determining what Group is muted while in the Mute Menu, the color is quite darker, and the text gets a color inversion aswell but I wouldn't mind if it was even more obvious because in some environments like under daylight or stage lights things can get tricky. I think I could easily modify the SW that controls the HW to make the change more obvious but on a M+ I have no access to the files.

    I would prefer if the 8x2 Group mini-pads that control Group's used white as a Mute indication, there's no point in having the white for a new Group to me, I could just press the next unlit Group-Pad if I want a new group. Doubt this will ever change since it's been like this since the MK2.

    @S Righteous said:

    Anyway, I am thinking of buying a midi controller just for use with muting groups during a performance. Something with pads that are either lit, or not lit so I clearly know at a glance (in the dark) what the mute state of all groups are.

    Is anyone using a second midi controller with Maschine Plus, for this kind of thing?

    Yes, I've used external MIDI for some stuff, but not exactly for this purpose.

    The problem is Mute's arent MIDI mappable. So you need workarounds like mapping the Output Lvl, for that, you need a MIDI controller capable of sending CC's in toggle mode thru it's pads (and use lit unlit for each state), the specific values are 0 and 95 to toggle between -infinity to -0.1db... This hypothetical controller needs to be able to store the MIDI settings internally and not depend on computer SW tho, like for example, a Mikro-MK3 does.

  • S Righteous
    S Righteous Member Posts: 148 Helper

    This makes total sense:

    I would prefer if the 8x2 Group mini-pads that control Group's used white as a Mute indication, there's no point in having the white for a new Group to me, I could just press the next unlit Group-Pad if I want a new group.

    Thanks for the info that mute states are not directly midi-mappable.

    It's a real shame NI doesn't take a step back and just listen to customers for a 'ease of use' update.

  • darkwaves
    darkwaves Member Posts: 342 Guru

    Out of curiosity, how is this handled with jam

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