mpc renaissance vs maschine
ok, i want to start producing, however i dont know what to get, so i buy the maschine now or i go through a few months of saving like mad were i dont eat at school (not as hard as it sounds) and get a mpc! what do you guys think?
i think get your feet wet with Fruity Loops for 100 bucks. just my .02
hmmm. truee, to be honest with ya, i want to dive in at the deep end and get a maschone, but not rite sure now! one of my big questions is can you even make a whole song on a maschine?
Technically you could but I really wouldnāt want to try to since sequencing is weird and you donāt have a proper mixer. Itās not a full featured DAW.
sure but you can with FL too, and with its intuitive layout and workflow it really gets the beginner producing quickly, and the price is right. you can just get a 100 dollar controller and youre off.
so too make a whole song what would need on top of an mpc R/maschine ?
You want a DAW
ohhh, how much is a alright/cheap one of them?
sorry for the nooby question only recently got into djing, now wanting to get into producing thanks aloot btw!
If your looking at anything to do with producing, i think you better research a bit more, tbh i think youve watched a bit too many maschine and MPC videos.
true, i understand! just a little quick question, what willl i need for producing then?
The answer is of course; it doesnāt matter. Youāll be able to make sweet music with both. You wonāt know which one is right for you until you know a bit more about music production. So start off with something cheap (FL maybe), start making mistakes, start learning.
ok, so were shall i start then?
Try the demos first. If you use a PC you can check Ableton Live and/or Fruity Loops if you have a Mac you can add Logic to the list. Just download the demo check youtube for tuorials and dedicate lots of time
ok, thanks allott guys, i will just download some demos and see what works for me!
get a friend to show you the basics - much easier than trying to teach yourself from scratch imo
hmmm, i litterly dont have one freind who produces or djs had to learn to dj from scratch by myself, say that i bet producing much much harder!
K, soā¦uhhā¦
Maschine is fine for making a full track, start to finish, including everything. Just about the only things it canāt doāconclusivelyāare time-stretching and song-level automation.
Mixing on it is weird because NI hates level meters and makes it hard to get gain staging right. Itās doable, but itās a huge PITA, since proper gain staging and metering each take up an effect slot on every soundā¦plus the thing youāre using to make the sound leaves you with 1 effect per sound. Or you can overdrive the hell out of its effects and sound like crap. And some of its effects really suck. Thereās no metering on anything, so the compressor is weird to use. NI canāt make a decent reverb to save their company. And a lot of the other stuff is useless or worse than you can get from free or cheap plugins.
6 months ago, it was awesome because it was the only thing that did exactly what it did, and it was marginally more convenient than an actual groove box (MPC pre-renaissance; Octatrack; etcā¦there are a lot of them) because it could host plugins and send 16 stereo channels to a DAW.
Nowā¦ā¦ā¦As for MPC R vs. Maschineā¦I own and use a Maschine, and Iām considering switching. But the MPC Renaissance costs twice as much. MPC Studio vs. Maschine is a more legit comparisonā¦and Iām not sure which one wins. Depends on the software.
The MPC software has level metersā¦so thatās a big plus. If it also supports ReWire (as a slaveā¦there are hacks to make it work as a master), thatād be a huge bonusā¦basically just saving a step from how Iāve been using it for the last few days. But itās not that necessary. Legitimate gain staging would be awesome.
I think the limitations in Maschine are all software related. If NI cares, theyāll update the software to compete with the new MPCs. I wouldnāt be surprised if thereās a paid āMaschine Proā software upgrade, but it might piss me off.
As an avid Maschine user who kind of blanketly dislikes NI at this pointā¦itās got a lot of pluses and not really insurmountable downsidesā¦but the ways I get around its downsides involve things that would take a while to learn. For that reason, Iām looking forward to trying out the new MPCs when they hit storesā¦but unless itās a big upgrade, Iāll continue to use Maschine + Logic until I can justify the expense of upgrading to Pro Tools 10.
Soā¦my standing advice to new producers:
If youāre on a Mac, Logic Pro is insanely cheap for what you get. $200 gets you everything you need to win a grammy (plus recording gear if you want to use voice or real instrumentsā¦monitors and headphones and stuff help, etc.ā¦but itās an awesome start). But itās got some quirks. It doesnāt really like mono soundsā¦it makes a lot of assumptions about workflow that kind of fit the way I work but isnāt 100%. Itās Environment is about the most confusing way to do basic things that I can even begin to imagine. And, itās synths look like Cylon control panelsā¦which makes them hard to learn. If you can get around those shortcomings, itās awesome. I own it, but Iāll be upgrading to Pro Tools 10 at some point.
Ableton is insanely popular for a reason. I hate its workflow, but thatās a personal thing. Itās also kind of expensive for what you get. I own it, but Iād only use it for computer-based Live shows at this point, and Iām nowhere near good enough to actually do that.
Cubase is awesome, but it looks like a Cylon control panelā¦so itās hard to learn. People who use it love it. Iād consider giving it a shot if you didnāt have to buy an eLicenser USB dongle for the demo. I already did that for Pro Tools, and I donāt need another piece of crap dongle, especially when Steinbergās dongle stuff also has software emulation of their dongles for other software packages.
Pro Tools is my hands-down favorite for a lot of reasons, mostly relating to workflow and the fact that it imposes very few restrictions on how you work. But it also only uses RTAS, AAX, and TDM pluginsā¦ā¦and there arenāt many free onesā¦so you have to pay for things. And it might hold your hand the least while youāre learning.
Reason is a very closed system and a little weird. But itās really powerful. Againā¦it has everything you need. Itās more expensive than Logic but less than just about everything else, especially considering what comes with it. I really do like itā¦I just feel like Iād get pissed off at not being able to buy plugins for it.
Apart from thatā¦youtube videos and screen shots are your friends. And stay away from āLiteā, āLEā, āElementsā, or āEssentialsā versions of DAWsā¦theyāre a lot cheaper and give you an idea of the workflow, but Iāve found that theyāre missing such fundamental features that theyāre basically not useable.
thanks for that really aprecated, at this moment in time now, i am thinking that i will stick with djing for abit, and then see what the mpc R is like, but then i face the fact that if the mpc R isnt any good then i will probally just want to purchase an kontrol s2 and that will be of the sale by then so i am in a piccle wether to go too producing or stick with djing!
Producing is fun. And you can get into it for pretty cheap compared to what it cost even 15 years agoā¦especially if you donāt have any preconceived/developed ideas about how you want to work and just pick a DAW and learn it.
If I knew nothing, Iād probably just buy Reason and a keyboard with some pads and never worry about what I now consider limitations. Learn gain staging and it sounds as good as anything else. You could do the same with just about any of them. Every single DAW is more powerful than the 2-track DAT machines, hardware sequencers, drum machines, and synths that created EDM.
Itās really sad, but everything is good enough that the little picky details seem so much more important now.