Maschine - How useful?

[Filthsky]

Maschine has a Keyboard Pad Mode for playing different notes on the pads, some people who are intimidated by keyboards may appreciate that for making their grooves. I personally have both a Maschine and an Akai MPK49 and I love to use both in conjunction but I do find myself using only the Maschine quite often. I did however buy the MPK49 first, and owned it for over a year before I made the decision to add a Maschine. You can create full on songs with Maschine as well without any other plugins, you will find quite a variety of synth and bass sounds and all the effects you could ever dream of to personalize them.

The Maschine software is pretty sweet itself as well, allowing 8 groups with 16 sounds per group, and 16 different possible patterns per group. Once you have your patterns down it's split into "Scenes" where you decide what patterns from what groups are playing during that scene, it's very simple and completely controlled through the Maschine hardware or the software.

Personally I still run the Maschine software as a VST in Ableton where it can work the exact same as standalone but with all the extra goodies Ableton gives you. I went into buying my Maschine completely blind, and couldn't be more pleased with what the Maschine has added to my production.

This is some really good info. Which Maschine product do you have? If I was going to buy one, it'd be the one with the most features on it so I don't have to buy any other kit that's missing.

Thanks for the responses so far!

[GI Trackt]

Can't wait for my Mikro to come in!

[Modern Knight]

Has anyone used a maschine with a S2 or S4? Im thinking about getting one to play loops on then scratch and add other effects and samples with the s2?

[GI Trackt]

Has anyone used a maschine with a S2 or S4? Im thinking about getting one to play loops on then scratch and add other effects and samples with the s2?

This is definitely possible but you shouldn't be buying Maschine to only "play loops" or trigger cues. Any midi controller will do.

A lot of the value in Maschine is in the software and so you definitely want production to be a part of the reason you are spending $$$ on Maschine.