Any reason you want to do that with midi?
Maschine has 16 discrete stereo outputs that Logic can use…and you can put plugins on each of them. Why not just use the audio and work with that?
That’s my first suggestion, since I’m not sure it’s clear what you mean by tracks in this instance. I think you mean that you want each sound’s midi information on a separate track in Logic…though honestly IHNFC how that would work unless you want to replace the plugin at a later date. But I have not done it that way.
Honestly, I think working with audio is your best bet for what you’re trying to do. I’ve done that, and it’s remarkably straightforward…despite looking daunting at first.
If you need more than 16 stereo signals…it take a bit longer, but it’s still halfway straightforward. Basically, what you do is record the first 16 to audio, then the next 16, etc.. Here’s how you do it.
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Make sure you’re running the 16-output version of the Maschine plugin…which you select when you load it to an input slot in Logic. Choose Mono or Stereo wisely…and by that, I mean maschine defaults to stereo sounds…so you probably want 16xStereo.
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In the Maschine plugin, Assign the first 16 sounds you want to record to discrete outputs (not Master or Group, but Output 1, Output 2, etc.).
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In Maschine, turn all of the Master and Group output volumes to -infinity.
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In Logic, open the mix window and find the instrument track that Maschine is using.
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Press the + button at the bottom (near Mute and Solo switches) fifteen times, and you’ll see what looks like 16 mixer channels all attached to Maschine.
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Now is a good time to press play and make sure that you’re getting the sounds that you want and that they’re on the right channels. Also, make notes somewhere on what sound is going to which channel.
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In Logic, change the output of each of those 16 mixer channels to the first 16 available busses…or some other contiguous block of 16 buses that you’ll remember. I use 1 to 16 for this purpose.
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Delete the Aux tracks that Logic creates for those buses and ignore the warning…you don’t need or want them.
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Go back to the Arrange window and create 16 new Audio tracks with the first bus you used 2 steps ago as the input for the first one and “Ascending” clicked next to it. Leave the output settings alone, 'cuz they’re probably right. Also, turn on input monitoring and record enable, then click Ok. Doing it there saves a lot of time.
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You’re set up to record 16 tracks at a time…so record those tracks however you see fit. If you’re using Maschine to sequence the whole song (i.e., using its patterns and scenes), I find it easiest to just perform the whole track using the scene selection thing…though I think there’s a way to record that too. I just haven’t bothered yet.
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After you’ve finished that stage of the recording, turn off input monitoring and record enable for all of those Audio tracks. You can set their inputs to “No Input” for cleanliness. It works whether you do that or not…the important part is that input monitoring and record enable are off.
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If you need more than 16 tracks out of maschine, turn all of those outputs to -infinity, and assign them to different sounds…levels at 0dB…new audio tracks fed from the same buses, etc..
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Rinse and repeat until you’ve finished recording it.
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If you want, you can disable the instrument track that Maschine is on or delete it. You should at least mute it at this point do you don’t wind up playing 2 copies of the last block of tracks you recorded.
Now, the whole song should be there in Logic as audio, and you’re free to use whatever plugins you want hosted in Logic on the audio. You kind of don’t have to worry about syncing issues, since Logic already does that for you as long as everything was in-time within maschine. It should be sample-accurate using this method, since Logic does automatic plugin delay compensation on playback/record.
I’ve done that more than once, and it works perfecty…though it’s sometimes a bit weird.
Some pitfalls I’ve discovered:
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You have to have an input device selected for the Record Enable buttons to show up for some reason.
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If you don’t turn the Group and Master outputs down to -infinity, the first channel of the Instrument track will get the master output summed with whatever you have set to Output 1.
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If you’re not clipping in Maschine, you probably can get away with setting all of the output levels to 0dB…though if it clips logic’s input, it’s clipped and should be re-recorded.
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If you’re not comfortable keeping all the routing stuff in your head, making a template to work with saves a lot of time.
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If you’re not comfortable remembering what you’re recording, simple notes save a lot of time.
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If you’re using 16 or fewer sounds that you want to record/play independently, you can skip everything after step 6 and just put the plugins on those channels in the mixer that you opened up with the + button. The only downside to doing it that way is that you won’t be able to see any regions whatsoever in Logic’s Arrange window, since the audio’s all coming out of Maschine and Logic is just doing plugins and summing.
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The downside of not recording to audio is that it’s harder on your computer to run Maschine and Logic together than it is to just let Logic play a crap ton of audio tracks. Frankly, that’s true of any plugin AFAIK. I’ve usually bounced/recorded each instrument track to audio before final arrangement and mixdown just to make things tidier in the past, and I see no reason to change that now.
If that seems complicated…just remember that Maschine makes it a lot simpler. If you were using a hardware groove box, you’d have to go through basically the same process…except then you’d have to deal with different output levels of the hardware as well as almost universally having fewer IO channels to use (meaning more recording passes) and probably wonkier timing…and you’d need a good audio interface to record with…which can get expensive quick.
And instead of keeping bus numbers straight in your head, you’d be buried with patch cables.
This technique isn’t exactly new…people have been doing it for ages. It’s just all in-the-box using Maschine and Logic and might take a bit of time for you to wrap your head around.
Bump this thread if you have any questions…I know how to do that very well if you’re using audio, but I’m not sure that I explained it thoroughly enough…mostly because I still can’t figure out how you’d get the sounds back out of Maschine if you got the MIDI into Logic. To my knowledge, Maschine doesn’t quite work that way.
