I’ve got a question about dragging midi patterns into your DAW and triggering maschine actually. I was using only one group before but is there a way of having each group routed to a different midi channel? I would expect that’s how it would work by default but it seems like the MIDI is triggering the associated slot number for each group simultaneously. I’ve messed around with midi routing a bit in ableton but no luck- what am I missing?
edit: nevermind I got it, for some reason it wasn’t working right in the last project I tried
What is strange is when you change the midi pattern drag channel for one group inside maschine it changes the drag mode to that channel for all groups. But if you just route the midi output to the corresponding group number inside your DAW it works correctly.
I wish there was a way to set the output routing for each slot in maschine to always be set from 1-16 depending on the slot by default. It’s annoying to load up a kit then have to go in and mess with the routing for each slot and then if you change the kit it returns back to default. I just want each slot for all groups to always go to it’s corresponding audio channel so I can swap kits around and not have to rerout everything. Basically I want slot 1 to always go to output 1, slot 2 to output 2, etc. for all groups by default.
I can see how that’d be annoying, but I’m not sure I’d ever want it to be that way. Then again, I stay in Maschine standalone a lot longer than anyone else does. I don’t touch Logic (except as described below) until the song’s basically done…unless I’m attempting to add a guitar part or something…which means I usually just bounce a stereo file out of Maschine as a guide track.
I do wish I could tie sounds to MIDI (input) channels and set them to record without being in focus. I have a host of Maschine Groups that are MIDI output devices for a bunch of scales that I use as keyboards (because I can’t play keyboard…makes for easier jamming) but the only way to really use them is to host the synth in something else. And Maschine has to be running Standalone using the IAC Driver to get MIDI into another DAW (or another instance of Maschine…haven’t tried that yet) or you have to use the VST version of the plugin (which means, no Logic…it only does AU). If I could tie, say, group B sound 1 to MIDI channel 1 and assign Group E to the keyboard for the scale I want to use and have it output on MIDI channel 1, that’d be a lot more concise. As it stands, I’m recording audio from the synth in Logic (using the IAC driver and Logic’s quantization), cutting it into sections, and loading the pieces as samples in Maschine.
It works the way I have it, but it’s not ideal. I’ll have to try it with multiple instances of Maschine just to see what happens.
Or I could learn how to play keyboard.
………or I could just devote myself to Acid Techno/House and only ever bother with 303s.
Speaking of 303s I’ve been tempted to get a x0xb0x- I saw someone selling one assembled for $250 the other day but missed it. I don’t really need it but if I was more into acid I would grab it for sure. I like acid techno in moderation I just don’t know if I would use it enough.
I would totally drop $250 on one if I were sure it was assembled correctly. But, that’s one of those things I might just rather get from them (they sell them assembled for $650).
Considering how much I like ABL2, having one in hardware that can actually program note lengths correctly (is there a way to do this with ABL2 that I’m missing??) would be awesome. But, then, I love me some Acid. I’ve “wasted” a lot of bored afternoons with technobox2 on my iPhone. And despite the fact that just about every acid song uses a 303 in a similar way……somehow the good tracks never get old for me.
Then again, the vast majority of blues uses guitars the same way……often with the same scales and chord progressions. And that doesn’t get old either.
Hey Maschine guys 
now that I’ve read the whole thread I really agree with what you said about midi-over-audio and so on. As the OP I am also trying to figure out the best way to integrate Maschine in Ableton.
I love almost everything about the Maschine and its workflow except two things:
1.) Without having a timeline (like you have in Ableton) it’s hard to build in some freaky riser FX and downshifters into your song with the perfect timing. That’s a big problem as I like to produce progressive-house and house-electro where these transition Fx are really important
2.) I’ve tried to find a solution for the following problem for more than half a year but still don’t have one: For melodies that are a bit more complex I like to use my midi-keyboard rather then Maschine controller with only 16 pads. As usual this midi keyboard has 16 midi channels. What I would love to do is being able to trigger Maschine Group A with midi channel 1, Maschine Group B on midi channel 2 and so on using 8 midi channels to trigger all the Maschine groups seperately with my midi-keyboard.
I am really thankful for any kind of idea to get this working properly!
I don’t see the problem with 1. You can do it with synths or samples……you just have to figure out where the sound needs to start and make sure it’s set to the right envelope to play out.
For 2…I’m thinking there might be a way to do it with MIDI batch setup……but I haven’t tried it.
Just have to say…oh man, PT is so much easier than Logic as far as Maschine integration. Part of it is just that RTAS plugins can output MIDI (so can VSTs…AUs can’t). But everything is just so much simpler.
There is one thing that kinda bugs me, though…I wish it were easier to set quieter output levels in Maschine…like…set every output to default to something more like -16 or -20 instead of 0. Everything in it is hot as hell already and it’s screwing up plugin inputs when I forget to change it.