Drum machine advice required
Hi all
I am currently looking to expand my Traktor set up to include a drum machine.
From what I can see, the main options seem to be Maschine, Push 2 or Roland tr8.
I know that the tr8 is a straight up drum machine. What about maschine and push 2? Any advantages / disadvantages? I am pretty clueless when it comes to “studio” equipment. Oh yeah, and what is battery 4? Will this work?
I don’t really have the time to learn full on sound design. I just want something to beat out additional and varied drum and percussion sounds during my mix (Chris Liebing kinda vibe).
Any advice is greatly appreciated
Just get the TR-8. Or the TR-08 Boutique. Ableton Push, and Maschine are software + controllers, so you can do much more complex stuff, but there’s a much steeper learning curve (particularly if you have no desire to learn).
Here’s my Ableton project, for example.
I have been kinda thinking that myself tbh. Only concern I have with the tr8 is lack of velocity sensitive pads and also being limited only to the sounds that come with the tr8.
Is that your project you use with Traktor?
I have Traktor with four decks, Ableton + Push on a fifth using the Audio 10 and a Xone 62/92, with the sixth channel being a S/R with delay/reverb pedals. My Ableton project has capacity for a loop-through to record from the mixer back into the Audio 10, as well as a side-chained white noise generator, some samples and loops I can trigger (spoken word, acapella, drums etc) and some effects on the send bus.
FYI, the TR-8 has some velocity control, but it’s more basic, with only a few levels. I wouldn’t worry about it though. I tend to have accent completely disabled on the Push.
I really like your setup. Plenty of options at your fingertips. Something to ponder 
Does the push give you plenty of control over your your drums? Decay, pitch, volumes etc..? I like the hands on approach of the tr8.
You can set up any of the controls in the drum rack as one of the eight macros along the top of the push. For example, I can change anything from the ADSR, to the filter cutoff, to the resonance and saturation on the white noise instrument rack.
Cool. Thanks for your help, greatly appreciated. Don’t know what to do. The plug and play of the tr8 appeals to me. But using ableton definitely has more options. It would be more future proof also if I do decide to move into production. The learning curve might be worth it in the long run.
What about maschine? Any experience with that?
I have a bit of experience with the Maschine software + Studio. I prefer Ableton. For you, I’d recommend the TR-8. You can always change later on. Rebekah has a TR-8 + Traktor.
Sounds good. Thanks again 
Been meaning to ask you, what way do you have your guitar pedals hooked up? Are you using both sends from the mixer? What pedals?
I have a Boss DD-7, and Biyang Tri-reverb, chained on a single send. The reverb is really great to have on melodic breakdowns.
Do you there’s any way to have a separate send to each pedal coming back to one return channel?
I don’t know. Maybe a splitter? TBH, I just have the reverb running all the time on a lower output, then turn it up for anything that needs it.
