The livid 8 looks great, but it far out of my price range for what I need, I just need a simple controller really, don’t even need portability, just rotaries and possibly faders.. looks like the BCR 2000 is the only thing that will do the job really!
Kind of surprised that there aren’t a million options for this!
Without question, the PUSH is what you want. Seamless integration with ABLETON aside, it comes damn close to being an instrument in its own right. It’s my 2nd favorite piece of kit of all time.
It’s all just personal opinion, I would like to try out Push, but have to say Maschine is a fantastic bit of kit, and although its not reinventing the wheel, what it does do it does very well.
It is notable that I already have a midi keyboard, so coupled with the Ableton suite I think Maschine may edge out Push for drums/percussion?
I’d love to know what your 1st favourite piece of kit is too!
I own the livid ohm rgb slim and I can vouch for the build quality. Livid builds nice stuff…
Got a used one myself, didn’t have any problems so far. It’s plastic but quite sturdy, and the prices are mostly reasonable.
The BCR is great, but I use by BCF more. Flying faders are fun.
You code also look at Code -
That is my workflow and it is extremely relevant. I usually start in maschine to get ideas down for drums and synths, then when I find something I am relatively happy with I bring the midi into ableton and work on arranging it from there. I mainly do melodies with my keyboard in ableton because 16 pads isnt really that great for chords and such. The actual maschine software has a bit of a learning curve if you are already familiar with ableton’s workflow, but I got it down pretty well in a week or so and there are plenty of youtube videos that will help you get started (and show you how easy it is to bring your midi from maschine into ableton as well).
What I like most about maschine is that I can literally close my laptop and just jam right from the hardware, its just awesome for quickly getting ideas down that turn into full blown songs later.
This is exactly what I’m looking for, I want to get my drums made and played quickly, then I can always substitute drum sounds out if needs be etc, this is perfect.
when you say you export the midi, I’m assuming you keep the drum sounds from Maschine.. is this done through soloing and dragging?
kind of yes, you can bring in a group or just an individual sound. basically you would load maschine as a plugin in ableton, then you would focus either the sound or the group and use the drag and drop icon to drop it on a blank track in ableton. The software creates midi clips in ableton automatically. Then all you have to do is set the channels in both ableton and maschine and you are done. It seems confusing at first but once you’ve done it a couple times its very easy
as a “techno(ish)” producer I kind of need individual tracks for most drums, I’ve seen a way to export each individual selection, so I’ll have to do it this way, as I’ll have to introduce each section in due time etc.
If anyone has any good tutorials or videos on how to do this, hit me up!
Ableton and Maschine - full tutorial:
This is one good way to go.
Maybe my tutorial for maschineskills.com this Friday will cover some different Ableton and Machine integrations…
if you could squeeze in how you’d go about using Maschine in stand alone, but then exporting individual tracks into Ableton (I think done through soloing), in beginner sized chunks, so we can have just - for example - kicks, hats, snares etc all as separate Ableton tracks?
I’ve seen a few videos, but if you can create a comprehensive guide I’d be eternally grateful, and I’d love to spread word to anyone else left wondering!
Thanks if possible!
The easiest way to to this after you did your drum in Maschine would be:
Save the Maschine project.
Load Maschine as a Plug-in in Ableton.
Load the Maschine Project inside the Plug-in, route midi and audio as you need it → done.
Yeah - maybe I could tear through three different methods in 10 minutes… something like that.
yeah the way I told you does route each sample (kick, snare, hat, etc) to a different midi track. you can set them all on the same channel and combine the group if you want to, but its actually easier to do 1 sound per midi track.
I have Maschine as well. Had it long before the PUSH. There are a lot of overlaps, but, if I’m working in Ableton, PUSH is definitely the way to go for me. The pads are just awesome. Having a 2x larger grid for drum sequence is also killer. 'Suppose it depends on if you are using it just for drums/making beats vs taking advantage of the aftertouch and and and… Not bagging on Maschine, at all. I’m not getting rid of mine, by any means. If I were using any other DAW, it’d be the way to go 100%. The way I see it, PUSH can do pretty much everything Maschine can do - the converse is not true in Ableton. Your comment about using it stand alone would lead me to recommend you get the Studio version. As long as you are good with the physical size, it goes a long way toward keeping you away from your laptop.
Oh, my favorite bit of kit is AVID Artist Control.
See this is what keeps me leaning towards the Maschine - I’m primarily a techno producer, so the beats are the most crucial for me at this point really, so once the beats are in Ableton, I think I’m quite happy to control the rest with a mouse/rotary controller. I think I’d be happy for the Maschine workflow and added kits and features, seems this would give me the best of both worlds!
I just spend every day going back and forth in my mind about which I’d rather have, and I just think with a great beat-making groove studio such as the Maschine, I’d be more than happy to program the rest by mouse.
It’s ALSO worth noting that I pretty much only use the arrange view and not the session, although I can see myself recording from session to arrangement when I get one of these two.
You’re wasting precious time on the fence, man. Press the “buy it now” button and put that boner to use making tunes! You’re not going wrong either way.
you’re absolutely right pal, and this is something that I do regularly, I research the shit out of things I like and spend far too many hours just going back and forth, BUT as I won’t have the money til summer, I actually do get kicks out of staring at pictures, watching videos and hearing opinions on these bits of gear before I get my hands on them - keeps the excitement going and tides me over til I can actually afford one of them on my horrific student budget! 