Is it possible to stop and start different scenes of an arrangement in Maschine using a foot switch?

Ryan Christman · 2023-07-03T23:41:05+00:00

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I do live acoustic shows and sometimes the songs start off with no drums with drums needing to come in later. Is it possible to do this with a foot switch? I saw in the Maschine manual something about triggering Scenes with MIDI but there wasn't much detail on how to actually do it.

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Maschine MK3

Accepted answers

D-One

To answer OP directly:

With a normal footswitch no, but if you get a MIDI Footswitch then yes, it's possible thru the use of MIDI change, works for all Maschine's (app and plugin and also M+ in standalone mode). Any MIDI device would work.

Just enable it and make sure your footswitch sends midi starting on C-2, there's not much too it.

All comments

Ryan Christman

Any insight here?

Murat Kayi

You can start and stop Maschine with a Footswitch. Whether or not that helps you noone but you can tell atm

Kubrak

I would recomend Maschine Jam for fast switching of scenes. It is not footswitch, but is fast and easy.

Murat Kayi

OP might be playing the guitar, that makes it hard. But everyone should get a Jam regardless

Ryan Christman

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/82445#Comment_82445

I do play guitar at my shows but also piano. I have the S88 controller, I dont usually bring the MK3 to my shoes. The S88 has two pedal inputs, one of which I use for a sustain pedal. I’m trying to figure out if I can use the other pedal input to start and stop backing tracks as I need. While I don’t bring the MK3, I’m using the S88 to control Maschine while I’m playing.

Murat Kayi

This is surprising, I don't have any of the KK hardware, but afaik they can't control Maschine natively like the Maschine controllers can.

At any rate, I am pretty sure that you have to connect a fitting Footswitch directly to the hardware (Jam or MK3) in order to be able to make it start/stop scenes or (which it can do also) start a recording

Ryan Christman

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/82511#Comment_82511

Because the S88 is simply sending MIDI to Maschine, it would seem that I can also send a MIDI message that tells Maschine to start/stop. I’m already sending a MIDI message with my sustain pedal. I did see that I have that Controller Editor software from NI so I think I need to look around on there a bit.

Kubrak

It would be possible to start and stop playing using pedal. But most probably not switching scenes and so. Still, have a look at Jam. It is not exactly, what you seek for, but on the other side.... It is much more you would ever imagine to seek.

It is really strange, it was not comercially successfull...

Murat Kayi

Maschine handles Midi in surprising ways to say the least. I have the sustain pedal plugged in on my master keyboard and can make tones on VSTs loaded in a Maschine pad hold just fine, but it does not get recorded.

My guess is that it's overcomplicating things to try and get Maschine to read the midi from an external pedal. You have the hardware. Use the force.

Ryan Christman

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/82573#Comment_82573

The problem is that taking my guitar, keys, Maschine, AND interface to open mic is quite the set up. I'm trying to reduce the number of things I'm taking since Kontrol controls Maschine anyways. I'm looking at the MIDI messages that the Kontrol pedal inputs can send and for some reason "start"/"stop" is not one of the them. Not the same problem with Maschine though as it looks like pedals can tell it to start and stop.

Murat Kayi

Could it be that you are misestimating (if that is proper English) the importance of the connection between hardware and software when it comes to Maschine?

It was never designed as being one or the other, but always as a combined setup. That is why things that either go through the controller or come from the controller are sometimes impossible to create any other way. The controller's arpeggiator comes to mind.

I don't know what kind of performance you are aiming at, of course, but it might be interesting to think about what would happen if you left everything but Maschine at home, for example. Sampling your guitar and your Keyes, singing live, resampling parts of your performance on the fly.

Or you go the other route and export everything from Maschine to a conventional DAW and create a full backing track that just runs from start to end.

Both approaches seem to me to be easier than getting Maschine to do things it wasn't meant to be doing, like running without a controller, but being controllable

6xes

im not sure if this has been mentioned....

if you are using the maschine plugin, within a host daw...

you could effectively stop and start maschine playhead by making sure that "host transport control" is ticked inside the controller editor... then assigning your footswitch to the midi assignments of play/stop functions within the daw(assign the green outlined buttons to midi CC/note in midi mode and that will act in parallel with maschine & the host Daw)

effectively what is occurring is the Daw is running in conjunction with the maschine plugin allowing you to assign the play button and alsothe 4 other green outlined buttons within your Daw..but still remaining the same function in maschine... this can be useful, when in maschine plugin mode is focussed and wanting buttons that will still work in the hostDaw!!

another method, but less practical is assigning the footpedal to a midi note value inside the edit/midi change... menu to a blank-scene that has no patterns selected but loops until you decide to activate another scene(the problem with this way... is the midi note value & scene change will have to be consistent across all projects hence not very practical as the foot pedal note assignment becomes fixed)

im also unsure if you can save the midi change... with each project in standalone... i do know that in Reaper i can save the midi-change values per project!

so you would have to test how your daw treats the maschine VST upon loadup... and likewise in standalone re midi change...

note: midi change... requires that you set the same channel assigned on the footcontroller and then

note 0 (C-2) = scene 1,

note 1(C#-2) =scene2,

note 2(D-2) = scene3, etc etc

goodluck sorting it

D-One

To answer OP directly:

Just enable it and make sure your footswitch sends midi starting on C-2, there's not much too it.

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/82883#Comment_82883

I wasn’t answering cause I was trying to find a piece of the puzzle: supposing he has a single button MIDI Footswitch, how do you set it up to change to the next scene at every button push?

I know it is possible since I have an app (Maschine Scene Selector) that do it (it has buttons for jumping to a determined scene but also one button that cycle through them), but I hadn’t the time to discover yet how to set this button up for a single button MIDI Footswitch.

This is the app with a midi monitor to its left showing what it is sending with the circled green button (the 2 lines between the yellow divisors are sent with a single push of the button). The first midi message corresponding to 0 is sent with the first red button top left, which selects the first scene in Maschine, then pushing the rectangular bigger green button with the numbers sends at every push the next midi (1, 2, 3, … ).

I know how to do it with my Maschine Controller template in Loopy Pro (I create one button and tell it to virtually push at every next push the next previously created dedicated button sending the right note for the different scenes), but I’m trying to find out if it is possible with a MIDI Footswitch (which, having only one button sending midi, must have te ability to change the sent midi message at every push to achieve that…or a program on the computer doing this must be used…but with Maschine+ this is not possible)

Do you know how to set it up? Or if it is even possible?

D-One

how do you set it up to change to the next scene at every button push?

You don't, because Maschine has no such feature, so whatever is sending the MIDI Change notes has to handle it for it to be possible.

My guess is the app stores the last Scene you triggered in a variable, then uses that information to toggle next/previous, for example: The user pressed C#-2 and triggered Scene-2, therefor the 'Next' button will trigger D-2 which in turn triggers Scene-3.

You can actually test if that's how the app does it, if right after you launch it and haven't triggered any Scenes yet for it to "remember" than if it uses the method I mentioned it shouldn't be able to do next/previous as it doesn't know where 'it is' yet.

Do you know how to set it up? Or if it is even possible?

With just a MIDI Footswitch i'd say no, it's not possible unless you find one that has that kind of fancy features.

If a computer is involved then anything is possible since you can intercept MIDI Messages and change them, BOME can probably do the next/previous thing very easily, aswell as other apps designed to change MIDI, even apps designed for computer keyboards also can like Karabiner or Keyboard Maestro can.

I've made a couple of custom DIY MIDI devices before, something like this sounds like a great easy idea for a project.

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