Hands down best drum machine I’ve ever had. The quickness you get gratifying sounds just gives me a nerd boner. Right now my setup is the machinedrum, apc40 controlling ableton, hosting machine. I’ve got my MD as my tempo master, everything on its own channel in ableton, once I get around to setting up grid for my iPad it’s game over for my computer monitor. Since I got this setup I only look at the computer or touch it for setting up kits in maschine. I’ll post pics later when I get home
Nice. I’m really jealous. I plan on getting one eventually- maschine is cool and all but it’s nothing like the instant gratification of a real 16 step sequencer with switches. I find using the step mode on maschine’s pads kind of annoying and unintuitive compared to how good it is on x0x style sequencers- and considering I never use it like an MPC pads are not important.
How are the included sounds and kits on the MD? Also how intuitive is it to use with the menus and stuff- any annoying menu diving?
The MD is awesome, awesome , awesome. There’s no real presets in the MD, your sounds are unique to each kit you make, and they all start as raw basic waveforms to some extent. There’s not a list of kicks you can chose from for instance.
Very intuitive too. Just packing mine up now for a gig
I have a non uw MD and it has maybe 15 kits on it and 4 banks of patterns after a factory reset, they’re pretty simple and kinda just there to give you an idea of what it’s capable of or act as basic templates for making your own customized kits. There’s very little menu diving, the little there is is mostly for global parameters (midi clock out for one). I like that it makes up for deficiencies in the apc40s tempo control, I’ve only had it a few days and I already feel confident to say that it’s the centerpiece, I think maschine compliments it very well and that ableton really pulls the two together with a decent template. My apc40 is configured simply as a digital mixer with each channel only having a uhbik eq plugin on each channel. each group in maschine has its own corresponding channel in ableton, and my MD on its own channel. I’ll get a better card next month so each out put on the md will also have its own channel. Once I get some more ins and outs I want to put some real fx units on my ableton sends. For right now it’s just a kaoss pad. I’m so fucking geeked about this right now because after booting everything up I was jamming last night for hours without looking at my laptop or even touching it. I just can’t wait to get griid setup and then I can set my template up to have a channel of just vinyl loops I lifted.
Then i will have a completely hands off the laptop production set up… Drool
bought griid like a week ago, just been too lazy to figure out how to set it up with my pc. went with griid over touchable because of the piano roll. fits perfectly over the grid on the apc40 and all i really wanted was labeled clips and some meters, it does both pretty nicely. not really interested in touchables native support.
damn I really want one and will probably get one at some point since it seems to make more sense than other drum machine options (acidlab miami, tempest, etc.). If the tempest didn’t have pads and had switch sequencers I would be all over it but I really don’t like pads when all I’m doing is using the sequencer.
how easy is it to create drum sounds with it? I don’t really want to have to sit down for hours and hours on end staring at a small screen making drum kits. I’m sure at some point I will want to but I would like to have some solid kits to be able to browse though to start for- are there any you can download or is there a place where users share them?
Not that I know of. If you want pre-made sounds, the Elektron stuff definitely is not it. Not saying it takes weeks, but it’s definitely geared towards people who want to make their own drum sounds.
yeah its got some basic kits setup but theres like maybe 12 kits after a factory reset, 4 of them are just kits with each of the base machines setup across all parts. i dont think you should let that be daunting, its pretty easy to program even if it does take a while to know the machine well enough to program with a set “destination”. thats part of the fun though.
Yeah I guess I’m just not sure how programming sounds works on it- I tried searching around on youtube to get an idea but didn’t find much. If it is easy to create sounds then that’s no problem I’m just not sure how it works in practice- I would have to do more research. Are there any videos showing sound design on it?
Think of it more like a synth than anything to do with drums. You’re going to basically start out with a very raw sound, and it’s up to you to shape it into something you like. Theres basically 5 different synthesis types you can use for all the drum sounds:
FM
TRX (think 808)
E12 (emu sp1200 style samples)
physical modeling.
user samples
So for FM for instance, the Machinedrum has a basic starting point for kicks, snares, cymbals, percussion, etc. Ditto with each of the other synthesis types.
the patch programming is basically 3 pages of up to 8 controls - youve got “synthesis”, “effects”, and “routing”. there is also assignable lfo’s which i know are saved as patch info but really havent gotten deep with that so cant comment much on that.
dont let its capability seem daunting, i would definitely recommend this drum machine.
I wanna ask this since you use them both. I can’t decide between nı Maschine and Machinedrum MKII (or Octatrack). The price difference is huge. 400€ vs 1440€ here in Vienna, you can literally buy 3 NI Maschines and you still have 240€ left
I admit I haven’t watch a lot of video about Maschine but as far as I know you can tweak awful lot with Machinedrum. Like you can get a “signature” sound. I can’t be sure if you can play with your “samples” that much on Maschine.
What do you say that huge amount of price difference is really woth it. Is Machinedrum a lot more pro gear?
Well, I’m not sure I’d say it’s more pro or not, and really they are very different types of machines. The MD is based on a drum synth structure, and while you can load your own samples in the UW versions, everything will be converted to 12bit mono. Personally I think both units can work in terms of performance, but I’d have to say the MD is a lot more hands on and streamlined on that front.
I think it’s probably more fair to compare the OT and Maschine, since both are samplers. On that note, I had Maschine and sold it for an OT and I couldn’t be happier. But I’m pretty used to the Elektron way of doing things, and it can be a bit much for some people. Some more thoughts on the two:
Thanks a lot for the reviews I’m gonna read them for sure. Its really gives me headaches to create a drumline at Ableton (impulse or drumrack) that’s why I’m looking for a gear to create it. What I saw and liked about MD is that you can chane the sounds however you like and create a different sound that you can’t even believe it’s coming from THAT sample. I’m not sure If I’m able to do it with the Maschine. I really hate to stick the samples.
The big difference is that on the MD there’s really no presets to start from per se. So each time you create new beats, you’re going to be starting from a very basic and boring starting point. If you want a bunch of really nice sounds at your fingertips with little tweaking, Maschine is the way to go. If you want to shape and sculpt your own sounds from scratch, the MD is the ticket.
Depends what youre after, what you already have and your experience. Me personally the more I use maschine the more I just use it as basically a vst synth rack and the more I want to buy another mpc1000 and just use that for sample duty. The more I mess with computers the more I just want my laptop to be a “wild card” and the more I appreciate having dedicated hardware surfaces for certain tasks
Damn OT is 1200€ and the UW version of MD is 1440€. If I had to choose between these two I would probably go with the MD. I’ll read Tarekith’s review check out some more Youtube videos maybe I can be more comfortable about buying the Maschine.
