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Maschine - How do you use it?


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I know there's some peeps here that use Maschine. I'm really struggling to get more complete tracks and was wondering how people use it for their productions.

 

I got the fundamentals of whole tracks down that I can kind of play a track live, soloing, muting, changing between patterns etc, filtering etc.

Thing is the 'Scene' arranging seems really, er, shit. The way the longest pattern dictates the length of the scene and you can't have multiple shorter patterns within that is really annoying. And you can't record mutes/soloing. I wish it was like Live and you could effectively record a performance of sorts.

 

So how do you guys use it? Do you put up with the shortcomings of the arrangements or use it as a plugin within a DAW? Wondering if there's a way to have say Maschine standalone and Ableton running separately but synced and recording the mutes and automation as audio and still having the Maschine standalone functionality without it slipping into host mode. Not sure that makes sense.

 

It's really frustrating right now!

 

Cheers gents.

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Guest petesasqwax

I admit I haven't really watched many videos of it being used etc., but I don't really know what it is. It looks like a large MPC controller that runs standalone... sort of (i.e. you don't have to look at a computer monitor in order to use it) and I've seen a video of Numark using one.

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Yeah Doob, it seems NI have made 2.0 worse to use with Ableton :(

 

Wax - yea I'm playing around with that now. It doesn't seem to render it with any effects you have on the sound when you do it that way. Realised you can have the standalone functionality with mutes and all that within Ableton so I might be able to blag what I'm trying to do!

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I use my Mk1 to trigger Traktor Hotcues - just allocate 8 for each deck in your mind. The left top buttons activate the effects, the pots for the amount. I opted for a "hold" method for these as opposed to "toggle", but I am torn as to the right way. The right top buttons are nudge tempo for each deck, the pots control the tempo and loop size.

 

The 3 middle pots (which is why I don't want a mark 2), control the master and channel volumes. The step buttons control play/pause for each deck and the buttons underneath activate the loop function. I will probably use the other 4 buttons in this bank to change the key for each deck and then one of the middle ones for that nifty deck duplicate function but have had no time to do this.

 

Basically I have aimed so you could DJ with Traktor just using this and the fact I have decks to control the vinyl means I get the controllerist button-bashing sound as well as the organic scratching aspect.

 

Eventually I will design myself a skin to go on it so it all makes sense.

 

I'm gonna quit my jibber-jabber now but that is what I use mine for.

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I should probably use the middle buttons to change tracks too. And I have the pads set to maximum sensitivity and they light up when struck, unlike in this advert, where they are always off.

 

 

I will definitely shut up about this now!

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The v1 software was great the v.2 is fucking horrible and I hate it! I think they've really broken the workflow in v2.

 

I sometimes use it stand alone and with the v1 software have made full tracks in it. However I've never made anything other than loops in v2, everything seems so complicated now. I use it as a plugin in live and it works "OK" I can explain the set up if you like?

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Guest rasteri

I own two maschine mikros (an mk1 and an mk2) but I've never even loaded the maschine software once - I just use em as pad controllers for finger drumming. I'll upload some vids when I get a chance.

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I mostly use it for finger drumming and sampling....

 

Much as I like it, I find the pads feel nicer to me than the Akai, it's integration with sequencers is pretty shit. Why I can't just record direct MIDI into PT/Logic/Ableton is beyond me. I don't really like arranging anything in Maschine as I'm used to working a certain way.

 

So it's worse in v2?

 

 

Well at least that means I don't have to fork out any more dosh.

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I've never used v1 but I've read a lot of people aren't happy with some of the changes. I think they've properly buggered up triggering Machine via midi in Live and there's longwinded workarounds you have to do. But from what you're saying assemblyworker, it doesn't work for you properly anyway with v1?!

 

Dan - I'd be interested to know how you use it in Live for sure. I only yesterday loaded it in as a plugin for the first time as I took one look at the 'scene' arrangement in standalone and thought fuck this ;) It's frustrating cos it seems so close in standalone to be able to do everything, maybe aside from proper mixing.

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Here you go: http://imgur.com/a/FQ7MR I did screen shoots!

 

It's take a bit to set up but save it as your default Live template and your always good to go.

 

This set up allows you to do two things, record MIDI into the Maschine VST using the controller and play each groups output on a separate channel in Live. Or record MIDI clips in Live (with the controller in control mode if you like) send it into Maschine to each separate group and have the output play out on the separate channels. It's the most flexible way of doing it as far as i can tell.

 

Hope it helps, any questions send me a pm

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