I use Ableton and would like to use my computer screen as little as possible. I already own a Push 1 which is great for controlling Ableton but is useless for 3rd party plugins. Since I use NI Komplete quite a lot, I’m considering to get a Maschine which seems perfect for bridging the gaps. Does anybody use that setup ? Do they work well together ? Are there any issues having them side by side ?
And what Maschine would be best for that, Studio or Mk3 ?
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I use Maschine, mk3.
Look for a resampling guide on Maschine, it’s somewhere here. Cool stuff.
What I like :
- Quality of in-built instruments & FXs. I use these quite often… When I don’t totally forget I have this thing
- You make music fast, you don’t click too much
- Two screens
- Perform mode, with a great live beatrepeat/mangling thing
- 16x8 groups
- Great feeling of use, good hardware
- INPUTS ! I have a mixer in it with a CD machine, a mic, and other stuff I want to sample. It’s fast as hell, and I found a tutorial to record everything I do on Maschine quite fast on Ableton.
What I don’t like :
- I’m a producer, not a beatmaker, so 99% of the time I forget Maschine lies next to me. I’m way more faster with Live and my mouse, which has a few macros on it.
- Scenes. Very bad. You have to buy Maschine Jam if you want fast access to scenes, and you still have to use the shift button. It’s built for beatmakers, for home.
- Sync with Ableton. Impossible to have something usable with Maschine on master sync. I use the restart button a lot. And if you use the Ableton Template, you can’t use it. You have to click on play on Ableton Live.
- Poor sequencer from another era.
- The VST mode. It complicates the shit out of your tracks, because if you want to use a plugin inside Maschine, you have to open the Maschine GUI, then locate the VST. I’m not even talking about automation of Maschine VSTs in Ableton Live.
- The fact that I don’t want to sell it because it’s cool. I’d say that if I had to do it again, I’d buy an APC20 to play with scenes faster and make shitloads of macros on my faders, with one of the new Faderfox next to it. But I don’t. Because I keep it. Because I love it whatsoever.
Fortunately, you have a midi-controller mode that I never use, where you can assign everything in Ableton Live.
But I dream about great synchro between Maschine and Ableton. I dream about changing my scenes without pushing shift. I dream about perfect integration in Ableton Live. And I dream about Native Instruments not being dicks because they don’t allow another keyboard than the one they produce to actually play with the Maschine sounds.
And generally (HS) I dream about NI from early 2000’s, when they were not a big money monster. Like “oh yeah Maschine is great but it can’t be used fully without our great other 200$ controller and our lovely 200$ keyboard, the hardware you already own is not usable with it”. Like “oh, we were a cutting-edge sonic explorers crew but now we’re rich so fuck you”. I just don’t like this.(/HS)
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I’m using Maschine MK3 exclusively since when I bought it. Tried to mix it up with FL Studio but it ended up just more (boilerplate) work.
Some FL Studio features (like e.g. you cannot undo removing a VST instruement or FX) I hate 
and I decided to use only Maschine.
Ableton Live is another story.
Maschine hw can be used both as standalone platform/VST plugin and a midi controller it could be useful but think there are cheaper midi controllers that could suit your setup better.
Thanks for the feedback guys.
@Negazul I don’t know if I got this right, can you use Maschine as a regular controller or is it working with its software only ?
yes, you can use it as midi controller inside maschine also, theres a “switch” button, but its only midi and you lose all cool features like scales, chords. note repeat etc…
you can use it with standalone apps as midi controller without using maschine software.
I personally really like maschine since it’s my first piece of gear of this type.
this though - MPC X Studio Drum Sampler | Akai Pro its about twice the maschine mk3 price
I was thinking about mentioning the Akai Force since it has straight up ALS export and Live Control Mode, but I’ve had mine about a week and I use the screen a lot. Good step sequencer and grid controller, above the row of knobs I’m not in love with it yet.
I use FL studio and do not have ableton yet, but I’m seriously considering it just to get the most out of the force. Going to see how I get on with the force for a few more weeks before I commit to the full eco-system, but I do like the clip/pad matrix part of it a lot. That part though, you can do with something as basic as a launchpad, so this thing might just be overkill.
Get the komplete kontrol keyboard instead, that way you stay within the Ableton sequencer, instead of running 2 sequencers at the same time.
And do yourself a favour and get a push 2, it is quite a bit better imo than the first one.
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