Tweet
Recently, we had a short discussion about NI Maschine and ambient music:
Many people, including me, were surprised, that Maschine can help even there, because most people associate drum patters and and other rhythmical stuff with it.
I asked in a german synth forum for help and suggestions, but got only one response.
So I went to the next store, bought one (a classical MK 2, not the new Jam) and tried to find out, what it can do on my own. In the worst case, I have to resell it. But after a few days I know: I will keep it.
In advance, I must say, that I have absolutely no experience with groove boxes, this is a completely new world for me.
Now I will share my first impressions here:
The first thing is: the software is not on the Komplete DVDs, it must be downloaded separately, and including the sample libraries, this is more than 7 GB (if I remember correctly) - a thick internet cable is very helpful there.
Then it must be registered with its serial number and after that, you'll find out, that there are 2 manuals: a reference guide (not so entertaining to read) and a 200 (!) pages getting-started-guide... :frown:
The getting started guide consists of several chapters, I studied not all of them so far, it really requires time. But the basic operation is simple.
In the first chapter of the guide you load a drum kit from the library. It's 16 sampled drum sounds correspond to the 16 pads. There kit also includes a drum pattern - which looks like a standard piano roll view for drum patterns. If you hit the play button, the show starts: when a drum sound ist triggered by the pattern, the corresponding pad lights up. But if Maschine is not playing, you can trigger the drum sounds by hitting the pads. This is, what most videos show.
But what is finger drumming? Basically nothing more than triggering one-shot samples. And each sample in Maschine can be replaced - either with a factory sample or one from your own collection. So what I did first, was to replace some of the kicks and snares and hi-hats with gongs (there are countless gongs in the library), then muted the remaing drums (there is a mute and solo funktion), then slowed down Maschine to 10 BPM and hit "play". Great!!!
One can have effect chains on the whole drum kit (like in a DAW's master channel) or on each individual sample (as long as the PC has enough free memory and CPU capacity).
Effects like Valhalla Room integrate into Maschine - you can tweak the VST's parameters using dial buttons in Maschine. It is expectable, that NI software is integrated, but is is very nice, that 3rd party stuff does it too!
So you can trigger up to 16 samples as you like: may it be a classic, ever repeating drum pattern or a single piano phrase as a one shot sample or a metallic rumble or the waves at the shore...
Next, a bass line is added. In the guide, they use NI's Massive for that. I.e: VSTi integrate (NI and 3rd party things) also in Maschine, not only effects. Of course, I did not add a bass line. I loaded Absynth instead - I have a very nice sound there: a sampled metallic rumble, used as a sound source in one of it's oscillators, then filtered and waveshaped, all within Absynth. Once Absynth is loaded and the preset is selected, the 16 pads work like piano keyes, covering 16 notes. Not really helpful to play Bach, but sufficient for a pad or a non-tonal sound like the one, that I have selected. Of course, you can shift the range of the pads up or down to play high or low notes. Like you can do with a 2- or 4-octave keyoard.
If you want to play more complex things live, you require a keyboard, and Maschine is not the tool of choice in this case.
Maschine organizes the things mentioned so far in so called groups - one group is the drum kit, another the plugin synth. And there are 8 of them, we have used only 2 in our example.
On a higher level, all these things are organized in "scenes" - I come from the samplitude world, I am not really familiar with this concept, but ableton users should know, what that means.
And - what I did not try yet - you can route audio from the audio interface into Maschine to process it there using plugin efects.
To sum it up: if you have something that repeats (may it be as slow as possible, may it be tonal sounds or atonal noises) or if you want to trigger samples - Maschine might be right for you.
Many people, including me, were surprised, that Maschine can help even there, because most people associate drum patters and and other rhythmical stuff with it.
I asked in a german synth forum for help and suggestions, but got only one response.
So I went to the next store, bought one (a classical MK 2, not the new Jam) and tried to find out, what it can do on my own. In the worst case, I have to resell it. But after a few days I know: I will keep it.
In advance, I must say, that I have absolutely no experience with groove boxes, this is a completely new world for me.
Now I will share my first impressions here:
The first thing is: the software is not on the Komplete DVDs, it must be downloaded separately, and including the sample libraries, this is more than 7 GB (if I remember correctly) - a thick internet cable is very helpful there.
Then it must be registered with its serial number and after that, you'll find out, that there are 2 manuals: a reference guide (not so entertaining to read) and a 200 (!) pages getting-started-guide... :frown:
The getting started guide consists of several chapters, I studied not all of them so far, it really requires time. But the basic operation is simple.
In the first chapter of the guide you load a drum kit from the library. It's 16 sampled drum sounds correspond to the 16 pads. There kit also includes a drum pattern - which looks like a standard piano roll view for drum patterns. If you hit the play button, the show starts: when a drum sound ist triggered by the pattern, the corresponding pad lights up. But if Maschine is not playing, you can trigger the drum sounds by hitting the pads. This is, what most videos show.
But what is finger drumming? Basically nothing more than triggering one-shot samples. And each sample in Maschine can be replaced - either with a factory sample or one from your own collection. So what I did first, was to replace some of the kicks and snares and hi-hats with gongs (there are countless gongs in the library), then muted the remaing drums (there is a mute and solo funktion), then slowed down Maschine to 10 BPM and hit "play". Great!!!
One can have effect chains on the whole drum kit (like in a DAW's master channel) or on each individual sample (as long as the PC has enough free memory and CPU capacity).
Effects like Valhalla Room integrate into Maschine - you can tweak the VST's parameters using dial buttons in Maschine. It is expectable, that NI software is integrated, but is is very nice, that 3rd party stuff does it too!
So you can trigger up to 16 samples as you like: may it be a classic, ever repeating drum pattern or a single piano phrase as a one shot sample or a metallic rumble or the waves at the shore...
Next, a bass line is added. In the guide, they use NI's Massive for that. I.e: VSTi integrate (NI and 3rd party things) also in Maschine, not only effects. Of course, I did not add a bass line. I loaded Absynth instead - I have a very nice sound there: a sampled metallic rumble, used as a sound source in one of it's oscillators, then filtered and waveshaped, all within Absynth. Once Absynth is loaded and the preset is selected, the 16 pads work like piano keyes, covering 16 notes. Not really helpful to play Bach, but sufficient for a pad or a non-tonal sound like the one, that I have selected. Of course, you can shift the range of the pads up or down to play high or low notes. Like you can do with a 2- or 4-octave keyoard.
If you want to play more complex things live, you require a keyboard, and Maschine is not the tool of choice in this case.
Maschine organizes the things mentioned so far in so called groups - one group is the drum kit, another the plugin synth. And there are 8 of them, we have used only 2 in our example.
On a higher level, all these things are organized in "scenes" - I come from the samplitude world, I am not really familiar with this concept, but ableton users should know, what that means.
And - what I did not try yet - you can route audio from the audio interface into Maschine to process it there using plugin efects.
To sum it up: if you have something that repeats (may it be as slow as possible, may it be tonal sounds or atonal noises) or if you want to trigger samples - Maschine might be right for you.
I used the "Getting Started" guide (but I stopped it somewhen) and a video course: 
Comment