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IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 8:50 pm
by nowaysj
Was just wondering.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:13 pm
by staticcast
I got mine free, otherwise I'd probably use it more.

These days I use it only occasionally as a MIDI controller. I really like Maschine as a product/DAW (the whole point is the hardware/software integration -- it'd be pretty expensive for just a MIDI controller), but rely too much on synths and more advanced routing options to make the switch from Ableton. If you work mostly with samples (or come from an MPC background) then this probably wouldn't be an issue for you.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:24 pm
by GRAYSKALE
Whilst I dont own Maschine - If i was thinking of spending that amount of money on a piece of kit Id make sure I was using it!! Saying that though Ive heard its dead buggy and if you get off a dodgy site suppose people might not be able to return it.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:34 pm
by staticcast
GRAYSKALE wrote:Whilst I dont own Maschine - If i was thinking of spending that amount of money on a piece of kit Id make sure I was using it!! Saying that though Ive heard its dead buggy and if you get off a dodgy site suppose people might not be able to return it.
1.0.3 was very buggy; it's on 1.5 now and pretty solid. Quite CPU heavy though.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:39 pm
by samurai
when team air cracks this i'll be all over it
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:48 pm
by GRAYSKALE
samurai wrote:when team air cracks this i'll be all over it
I thought it was cardinal sin to admit such illegalities on the forum!! lol - Team AiR will probably crack you a better working version as well to be fair though!
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 11:58 pm
by staticcast
GRAYSKALE wrote:samurai wrote:when team air cracks this i'll be all over it
I thought it was cardinal sin to admit such illegalities on the forum!! lol - Team AiR will probably crack you a better working version as well to be fair though!
Yeah, good luck - Maschine without the controller is like dubstep on laptop speakers.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:00 am
by samurai
i'm making my own controller out of a calculator that i've converted into a monome.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:07 am
by nowaysj
Why can't you use maschnie in conjunction with your daw? In my fantasy use (I have no intention of buying) I'd be making beats and bass in maschine, and maybe synth sound design kind of stuff in my daw...
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:22 am
by staticcast
nowaysj wrote:Why can't you use maschnie in conjunction with your daw? In my fantasy use (I have no intention of buying) I'd be making beats and bass in maschine, and maybe synth sound design kind of stuff in my daw...
You can, and a lot of people do, but there's several reasons why I wouldn't:
1) Workflow: The beauty of Maschine is that it's blindingly fast to get around once you get used to the hardware, because you have two hands and lots of fingers. You literally don't have to touch the keyboard and mouse if you don't want to. If you're running shit on your DAW too, it interrupts this workflow because you have to keep flicking back between windows. Still, maybe you'd get used to that too - I didn't try for very long (see last point).
2) Sequencing: Maschine has its own sequencer and it's a bit pointless not to use it, so things get confusing when you're running two sequencers at once.
3) Lack of VST hosting support: This has been a much-requested feature since day one, but AFAIK there's no official word from NI on this one. I'm not sure whether it's planned at all, but if at some point in the future Maschine can host VSTs I think I may well give it another go.
4) Keystrokes: A lot of DAWs have some difficulty transferring keystrokes to plugins properly, and I found this to be the case with Ableton and Maschine. Example: if you hit delete in (what you think is) Maschine to delete a note in the sequencer, instead of deleting the note it deletes the whole plugin instance, including unsaved changes. Total dealbreaker for me. This is more of an Ableton bug than a Maschine one, since it's to do with how the host routes keystrokes to its plugins, but for me it made Maschine practically unusable as a plugin within Live because I'd keep accidentally deleting everything. There's an Ableton workaround that forces all keystrokes to the plugin window, but unfortunately it only works on Windows.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 1:32 am
by nowaysj
Nice.
See I have kind of a bipolar workflow, and seems like maschine would be good for 1/2 of that ordeal, just that wild creative part where you throw shit together. Being really fast in that stage is essential, and I find monitor and mouse to nearly completely negate this positive zone.
I don't know, I tried to work an mpc into my workflow, and that didn't really work.
But that 4th point, is indeed a deal breaker. I wonder how fruity handles that. By default plugins steal the keystrokes, but I don't know if they do for less common keys like 'delete' I bet that all kestrokes go to the plugin. Any fl users have experience with this?
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:04 am
by AnalGangstaHo
I hear you on the delete part, pissed me off a few times that! Have gotten used to using right click to get rid of stuff now or hold down shift (on the hardware) and undo so no longer a prob.
Ive Had Maschine since it first came out but stopped using it after a bit, mainly due to being a lazy bastard and not being bothered to get up out of me chair and walk [about a metre

] across to where it was. Recently gotten hold of a Stanton Laptop stand which has enabled me to place Maschine right in front of me and in doing so has made me realise what I've been missing and what a boring, ballache of a task placing notes on a grid with my mouse was! I'm using with Live and just find it fast as fuck, especially being able to drag and drop from Maschine into Live, or any DAW.
I'm also using it to control Traktor, which I'll be making a template for when I get chance and also getting into sampling with it which is as easy as it is enjoyable, i.e Loads!!
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:24 am
by nowaysj
Nice
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 1:00 pm
by darigan
I was think about this myself, I'd love to get it but I know I'd probably never use it if i had it
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 7:34 pm
by anclove
Had mine a month or so, its totally changed the way I write stuff. I think it has its problems (lack of VST support in maschine software being the biggest one) but i wouldn't change it for the world.
Nowaysj: I'm an FL man normally, but I've found myself barely touching it since. Having said that, when i have done it it runs like a dream. Very little latency and not much of a resource hog either. I've built complex stuff in Maschine AND had other vsts/beats going in FL and never noticed and skipping or anything. Hope that helps.
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 7:48 pm
by nowaysj
Maybe at the 2.0 level I'll pick one of these up used. I bet there are a lot of dusty maschines out there.

Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 7:51 pm
by nowaysj
ahhh fack, just added a poll option and it wiped out the poll results... revote?
Re: IF you own Maschine, do you use it?
Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 7:52 pm
by contakt321
static_cast wrote:
4) Keystrokes: A lot of DAWs have some difficulty transferring keystrokes to plugins properly, and I found this to be the case with Ableton and Maschine. Example: if you hit delete in (what you think is) Maschine to delete a note in the sequencer, instead of deleting the note it deletes the whole plugin instance, including unsaved changes. Total dealbreaker for me. This is more of an Ableton bug than a Maschine one, since it's to do with how the host routes keystrokes to its plugins, but for me it made Maschine practically unusable as a plugin within Live because I'd keep accidentally deleting everything. There's an Ableton workaround that forces all keystrokes to the plugin window, but unfortunately it only works on Windows.
This was a huge issue with me as well.
The way you handle midi editing and the keys you use in Ableton compared to Maschine are similar, so I would constantly accidentally do the wrong thing and not realize it for a bit. It also slowed me down a lot.