maschine sampling

Performance & Techniques Music Production
1

maschine sampling

i have a maschine and im trying to sample off of my S4 but have no idea how to do this. can someone please explain this to me in the easiest way. thank you

2

i would also like some help on this :]

3

I think you need soundflower, route the audio inputs/outputs in traktor to soundflower to maschine or something like that.

4

You need to route the audio into Maschine somehow. Getting Maschine’s output into Traktor (so you can mix it like Maschine were a deck) is easy. Going the other way with an S4 is weird. It’s a lot easier with a real mixer.

The issue is that Traktor can only use 1 sound card and the S4 is a controller, not a mixer. That means that in order for the S4 to work, you have to have Traktor set on Internal mixing mode. When you’re in internal mixing mode, you only have 3 outputs: Master, Cue, and Record (which doubles the master output, I believe). You don’t have discrete outputs for the decks, which makes finding a signal to sample weird.

The S4 only has 2 discrete outputs: main and cue.

So, I see 2 possibilities. One requires you to buy a sound card, and the other might be really fragile.

Option 1 (latency might be an issue, and it’s very limited):

  • Buy something like a Traktor Audio 6 or Komplete Audio 6
  • Split the headphone signal using a Stereo 1/4" TRS to dual TRS splitter.
  • Plug your headphones into one of them and a TRS to dual RCA (or dual TS, depending on the sound card) into the other
  • Run those dual RCA (or dual TS) leads to an input of the TA6
  • Use that sound card for Maschine, and select your input channels appropriately.
  • When you want to sample something, hit the cue button for that channel and follow the normal sampling guidelines in Chapter 11 of the Maschine manual.
  • Route Maschine’s output (on the TA6) to one of the inputs on the back of the S4.
  • In Traktor, route that input to one of the decks and select “Live Input” as the deck type.

Option 2 (processin power might be an issue):

  • Buy any DAW (Ableton Live would be my first choice for this because it’s easy to map controllers)
  • Install Soundflower.
  • Put the S4 in MIDI mode as opposed to HID.
  • Run Traktor, Maschine, and the DAW at the same time.
  • Choose the 16-channel version of Soundflower as your sound card for Traktor, Maschine, and the DAW.
  • Put Traktor on external mode.
  • Send Deck A to outputs 1 and 2, B to 3&4, C to 5&6, D to None & None.
  • Select Maschine Input 1 L&R to be Soundflower channels 9 & 10.
  • Select Maschine output 1 L&R to be Soundflower channels 11 & 12.
  • In Ableton, create 4 audio tracks, label them TA,TB,TC, and M.
  • Select TA’s input to be soundlfower channels 1&2.
  • Select TB’s input to be soundlfower channels 3&4.
  • Select TC’s input to be soundlfower channels 5&6.
  • Select M’s input to none.
  • Create a Return track and label it MS. Select it’s output to be Track M.
  • Right-click on M’s send 1 control and click “disable.”
  • In MS, insert an “External Audio Effect” device, with its send output set to soundflower 9&10 and its return input to be 11&12.
  • Map the volume faders on your S4 to the volume faders in Live for the corresponding channels (A to TA, B to TB, C to TC, D to M) and set their high value to 0dB, not 6dB.
  • Delete the mappings for the volume controls in Traktor.
  • Delete the mappings for all of Deck D’s controls in Traktor.
  • Map the S4 Channel D’s high control to Live’s channel TA Send 1.
  • Map the S4 Channel D’s mid control to Live’s channel TB Send 1.
  • Map the S4 Channel D’s low control to Live’s channel TC Send 1.
  • Delete the mappings for the cue buttons in Traktor.
  • Map the Cue buttons to Live’s cue buttons.
  • Select Live’s master output to be Soundflower channels 13&14.
  • Select Live’s cue output to be Soundflower channels 15&16.
  • Select Cue mode as opposed to Solo mode in Live.
  • In Soundflowerbed, send pair 13&14 to the S4’s master output.
  • In Soundflowerbed, send pair 15&16 to the S4’s headphone output.
  • When you want to sample something, the EQ controls for the S4’s deck D will control the send level to Maschine. Pick a sound, hit sampling, turn up the correct send to an appropriate level, and record. Again, this procedure (the Maschine side of it) is detailed in Chapter 11 of the Maschine manual.

I don’t actually know if that works, but that’s where I’d start. Sorry for ignoring your request for simple instructions…I don’t know a simpler way to do it off the top of my head.

Also, I don’t know if Windows can do this. And seriously…good luck diagnosing problems if anything goes wrong during a set.

And either way, you need to sync Traktor and Maschine’s midi clocks, which means choosing some other button to start/stop Traktor’s midi clock…probably one of the Deck D controls, because you’re not using it anymore.

Also, there’s probably a way to simplify Option 2 by hosting Maschine in Live, but I don’t know how it’s IO works like that because I’ve never sampled off a DAW that Maschine was running inside. I might look into that, but I doubt it.

Realistically…if you want to sample into Maschine during a DJ set, you’re a bilion times better off to either use a real mixer or just drop Traktor and do the full DJing with Live. You lose jog wheels, and the looping becomes more tedious as well as the prep work. That’s it.

I really think that moving to a real mixer with aux sends or an effects loop is your best bet. Complicated things like this are a big reason why I kind of don’t like all-in-one controllers…Everything becomes a lot harder. If I wanted to do it with my current rig, it’s just a matter of adding one stereo pair worth of cables.