How many discrete midi outputs can Maschine manage when used as a plugin?
I know you can have it’s sequencer route midi out of it to–for example–use Maschine to control a soft synth hosted in a DAW. Does it actually give full midi signaling for each “sound” in each “bank”? Is there some software limit, or is it just limited to the number of midi channels?
Also, how hard is it to configure those midi outputs?
I can give more details if you need them, but that should be enough information.
And don’t tell me about Maschine’s plug-in hosting. I’m fully aware of that…I’m just wondering if you can get more outputs by hosting the plugins in a DAW instead of Maschine, because 16 stereo outs is a bit limiting compared to the sheer number of sounds Maschine is capable of producing at once. I’d rather not have to bounce audio every five minutes if I can help it.
Also, if anyone knows…how well does it work to have Maschine control Logic’s transport? It’s not exactly a requirement because I have buttons on my keyboard that could do that, but it would be nice.
You have 8 groups of 16 sounds. Drum machines more or less take up an entire group. Each sound can also be set as “MIDI Out” instead of having a sample or plugin. You can use that to drive other midi equipment. It’s billed as controlling hardware synthesizers, but I’d probably use it to control Logic’s instruments or Reason, for example.
Is there a limit on how any “sounds” you can set to “MIDI Out,” or are you only limited by the number of unused midi channels you have available?
You know what…I don’t think anyone actually knows that…since most people seem to just use it as a pad controller. I’ve got the money, I’m going to check GC’s return policy (since it comes with sofware) and just pick one up if I can return it in the event it doesn’t work out.
For the life of me I can’t figure out why everybody wants to use a Maschine to control Traktor. Pretty sure you can return it to GC and this question would probably be better asked at the Maschine forums.
The weird thing is that I posted this question several places…and the only replies I got were either somewhat irrelevant or people joking about how Maschine users don’t actually use it as a groove box.
I don’t want another useless controller for Traktor. I want a groove box with enough I/O to actually record stems off of it…and that one is really effing cheap (compared to it’s competition). And while it does require a computer to actually do anything, it doesn’t require a converter to record it into a DAW.
I ended up just buying one. If it works to control Logic’s instruments, it works to control Logic’s instruments (haven’t tried yet). Even if it does, it probably doesn’t pull parameter names, because I haven’t seen NI talking about that feature, and they don’t mention HUI. If not, that’s too bad…it’s still a groove box with 16 stereo outs that doesn’t require me to buy 32-channels worth of inputs.
Also…maybe I just didn’t notice, but has no one mentioned that in addition to VST and AU that you can install an RTAS instrument? It doesn’t matter to me right now, but I think that alone implies that they were going for a groove box that’s friendly on the recording end…why else would they make it work with Pro Tools? Now they just need to abandon the BS copy protection they’re using and either use the hardware as a dongle or let you register it with an iLok. But, I kinda feel that way about everything NI makes.
You know…I guess I should be thankful for all the people who followed DJ Endo’s BS advice and decided to use it with Traktor. Them buying a crap-ton of them makes the thing cheaper for me.
Very true, but the general impression I get from the general I did before I bought mine the vast majority of them are just using it as a big Midi Fighter.
I’m probably looking at it with blinders on though as I don’t really delve into production forums. Mine is not and never has been mapped to Traktor. I bought it because it was a powerful and inexpensive way to get into production.
people who buy a maschine just use it as a midi controller for traktor are stupid
Maschine is an amazing tool and worth £500 if you using it for production
but if you just gonna use it to control traktor there are much cheaper options out there
On the second…I think it’s missing some critical features to really be used standalone. But there aren’t many of them, and they could easily be taken care of by a software update. The thing is kind of brilliant at what it is…it’s just not a Traktor controller. It’s also not the cheapest. Reason + Record is cheaper. So is Logic Studio, the student version of Pro Tools 9, and a crap ton of alternatives. It’s a powerful and inexpensive way to get into production with a control surface.
Yeah…the routing’s not an issue. The way it integrates to Logic is brilliant if you’re using it with a recording mindset. The only downside is that I don’t think it has quite enough outputs to really record everything individually, but it’s easy enough to work around that either with multiple instances (genius) or recording in passes…the latter is probably more useful in the real world.
