looks funky! 
is those lights around the interface?
What drum machines are ppl using and why?
Sapling
#22
you can load samples from the explorer fine, I also believe you can drag and drop into the sampler from a file explorer. I personally record things into it via Audio interface, and thats great since you can use the sampler in maschine for chopping, then assign all chops to pads at once with one button, from there edit each sample by tapping its pads and make it fit the needs a little better. I use this to sync hardware to it and sync record 2 bars or etc. you can go into a 16 step sequencer for each chop, play the 16 samples like an mpc, or play one sample chromatically in a 16 note range. you can change root note around, make each pad part of a scale, etc. you can also force it to choke groups of pads so they cant play at the same time, and other neat mpc type things.
Maschine does natively map all native instruments VSTs pretty well, at least my kontact, reaktor, and massive VSTs. I have never had one map weird besides homemade reaktor stuff. you can use the nav arrows and the knob to adjust settings from the vst or record modulations of said settings.
I think Native Instruments has a few highlight videos on youtube for the mkII floating around on the general workflow. hopefully that helps answer your question
TheTeknomage
#23
I’ve just picked it up, like an hour ago. It comes in two parts: the base station and the ring. The base station has your knobs and buttons for editing and the screen, the audio ins and out, USB and power socket. The ring has the pads, 3 sets of 32. They are all velocity sensitive with after-touch. The cool thing is that they are still velocity sensitive in step mode, not sure if the after-touch works in step mode yet though. The lights (5 rows of 32) signal different things in the 4 modes. step mode, instrument mode, loop mode and song mode, but they can be edited to do other stuff, like choosing the colour for certain instruments etc. The ring also houses the Accelerometer.
First thing I’ll need to do is update the firmware to get all the goodies, like using your own samples as instruments or oscillators. up 8 bar patterns from 2. I went for this as it has 32 instruments per pattern, so which would mean 32 tracks but not sure. It can sequence up to 16 other instruments, but I’ll need a USB to Din midi host. as I don’t use a DAW. But I got mainly for live jamming. Setting up a beat and stuff and looping in with my synths. For song writing I use a QY700, but that’s a lot of stopping and starting, so this is for more getting ideas out and having some fun.
relic
#24
For the price, if you like the sound of the Drumbrute I think its worth having. But again I wouldn’t want it as my only drum machine. At this point, personally, I’d probably go for the DrumBrute Impact or better yet a Model:Samples – which if all your wanting is to sequence drums/one shots is a steal for $299 if you can live with six voices (it also has sample swap per step so that increases the flexibility of the six voices).
TheTeknomage
#26
The ARQ was just what I needed for doing drums and percussion. I hate programming drums. like I hate faffing around with sound design. My drum patterns tend to be somewhat repetitive, and lack variation. With the step sequencer on the ARQ being circular, it’s pretty easy to forget where every thing is once you go 4 bars plus, unless you’re using the piano roll to input. There are 32 tracks to work with. So, I end up watching the lights go round and listening. Pop in a sound here and there, and listen for the result, so I get this randomness to the sequence but, it still repeats, so it’s not random really.
Another bonus is a modern step sequencer that does 32nd notes. Which is cool, but it also means if I half my BPM, I can have up to16 BAR sequences at 16th notes. Zoom really dropped the ball marketing this to DJ’s. They should’ve marketed it to musicians who do live performances, or studio jams. Unfortunately loop mode isn’t live looping, but more a clip launch mode, which you need to set up first (like using Ableton I guess) Still useful for someone doing live performance though I guess.
Auto-meh-geddon
#27
If you’re into NI already Maschine is dope. I only sold mine as I preferred to be stand-alone but it’s a really well thought instrument with amazing sounds. The drum synth is just great and just like on a MPC you’ll get a groove in no time.
If there was a Maschine standalone (there’s been a rumour about it for a while) I would get one.
Also, NI built in effects are way ahead of Akai’s.
Said that, the current MPC environment is really good, I reduced my setup to just a Force, Microfreak and a Korg NTS for effects and I’m super happy and more productive
jbvdb493
#28
Cool.
I keep reading that the software is not great though. Which is making me hesitate. That and the fact that I dont really need more gear tbh.
TheTeknomage
#29
So, here’s a little chilled thing from the ARQ. Some captured samples, some imported ones and a couple of things from the ARQ. It’s an 8 bar loop. Only using 14 of the 32 tracks. No mastering, but out of the AQQ and through the SE70.