When I reviewed Maschine's initial incarnation over a year ago, there was no single thing on the market that did what it did. Fast forward to today… and there still isn't. Not content, however, with carving a niche and sitting smugly inside it, Native Instruments have listened to user criticisms and suggestions and delivered a substantial update – free of charge. The result is a more impressive, mature, useful, and admittedly power hungry animal, and I've enjoyed putting Maschine 1.5 through its paces immensely.
When planning this review I realised that once again, there were to be a lot of words - testament to the quality and sheer number of features and fixes that this update, which is somewhat stunningly a free point release, brings to the table. Native Instruments boast over 50 additions to Maschine, from the subtle, such as the improvement of the controller's ability to facilitate (computer) screen navigation, to the colossal, like the sample editing overhaul. In light of this, and for the sake of ensuring that this piece doesn't descend into a dull checklist of each of 50 changes and new features, I implore you to go to NI's own site and acquaint yourself with them – it's all there.
The Main Ingredient
Despite my relatively glowing review of Maschine 1.0, as time went by little niggles began to turn into big qualms. Compared to its only real competitors, hardware behemoths in the Akai and Roland stables, it was the basic ingredients rather than the icing on the proverbial cake that was lacking. A machine designed to sample, but lacking basic sample editing features, created a workflow encumbered at its very core by workarounds and jury rig solutions. Thankfully, the sampling system has received a major overhaul in 1.5, and I'm pleased to report that the bods at NI have finally seen it fit to furnish their little groove box with a pair of scissors. Yes, Maschine 1.5 can destructively edit samples, and it's wonderful. Truncate, Normalise, Fix DC Offset, Cut, Copy, Paste, Silence… it's all there (and made smooth by the introduction of waveform zooming and more sensitive value editing on the controller). At least, almost all there – a few features are still conspicuous by their absence, most notably a 'mono' feature for combining the channels of a stereo signal, a 'Snap to Zero Crossing', and a destructive slicing mode.
Destructive slicing isn't necessarily important, indeed, Maschine's non-destructive editing is a huge step forward in speedy sample chopping, especially since the ability to actually select how many slices are required rather than having to rely on a musical measure based slice. However the way non destructive slicing works, namely to allow different MIDI notes to reference different start and end points of a sample loaded onto a pad, creates an inability to pitch or otherwise effect slices independently. Were it to be able to do this, akin to the MPC's emancipating JJOS, or perhaps have the ability to make slices permanent after a non-destructive fiddle, Maschine's slicing engine would be reaching perfection. Be that as it may, the new features that we have been furnished with aren't so much a step as a hop, skip, and jump in the right direction, and they both shave precious minutes off sampling and chopping sections out of a record, and also turn Maschine into a useful tool for creating personal stock libraries with the destructive editing in effect.
"Anything You Can Do…"
Native Instruments have quite shrewdly added a few features designed to facilitate switching from some of Maschine's main hardware competitors, namely import of MPC (all models except the 60 and 3000) programs, and two total sample engine emulations – the MPC60 and the SP-1200. The sample engines go much further than aping the phonics of the limited bit and sample rate of these classic machines, providing accurate reconstructions of the nuances of everything from pitch adjustments to filters, envelopes and so on. Simply switching to SP-1200 mode gives some grit, but perform the old trick of pitching samples down too and suddenly you're in a world of dirt. It's all very clever, and allows users of these classic machines to move to Maschine whilst still maintaining much of the sound that's been making them cling on to the originals, whilst at the same time gifting those without the means to obtain them with a very passable imitation. Of course, there's a system cost associated with the emulation, and using the classic sampling engines on every sample you load up starts to take a noticeable toll in a large project.
Various other features that users of other pieces of equipment have been used to and integrated into their workflow have been added to Maschine, keeping with NI's tactic of providing solutions to as many problems as get fired at them regarding 'switch hesitancy'. REX file import, for those that have already painstakingly chopped their audio files with ReCycle, is now in the deal – although this and a couple of other features were actually added in v1.1 of the software. '16 level' style editing can now control velocity as well as pitch, swing is now adjustable by group, polyphony and pad behaviours have been expanded to allow choke and legato to be used in the same way as on MPCs and the like, and perhaps most usefully from the perspective of your groove box being the epicentre of your kit, MIDI CC and pitch bend support.
The main impetus behind this 1.5 update seems to have been a combination of removing barriers to switching to Maschine and at the same time providing yet more reasons to make the switch. NI have juggled these two motives rather well, and there's as much for an existing user to get excited about as there is for a potential convert. Improvements to the workflow have in some cases shaved minutes off every day actions – aforementioned slicing mode changes are perhaps the most conspicuous, and auto load can be very handy – and in some cases solved problems, such as the way you can now select a pad without making it sound (important for live use). A massive improvement, though, is the host integration when Maschine is in plug-in mode.
Holding Hands
Maschine 1.0 ought to have come with a disclaimer: Warning: Does not play well with others. Whilst it was a stupendously satisfying all-in-one, trying to get ideas out of Maschine for expansion in an all-bells-and-whistles sequencer like Live, Logic or Cubase was not an easy task. A shame when you considered the potential in a partnership between Maschine's speedy workflow and Logic and a raft of plug-ins' limitless sound design capabilities… and a shame no more.
Impressively, a pattern can now be dragged out Maschine's interface and dropped directly onto its host sequencer's timeline as either audio or MIDI. This makes it a piece of cake to sequence a final arrangement in your favourite sequencer, either simply by arranging audio loops or swapping out some of your Maschine sounds with your favourite plug-in. If you'd sooner leave Maschine to pump out your sounds but want to record parameter automation over an entire song, not just the length of a pattern, Maschine's newfound ability to react to CC input is sure to please. Unfortunately not absolutely every parameter in Maschine can be automated, although most of the useful sound shaping ones can – all effects parameters, as well as the per-pad effects, filters and envelopes – but unfortunately there's a limit of eight automatable parameters per group. The reason for this is down to the implementation of a brand new macros page, allowing eight parameters chosen from any sounds in the group to be directly assignable to a single, convenient screen, and it's these controls that can react to external CCs.
Whilst a decent enough new feature, certainly handy in live situations, a major problem with the macro controls is their decidedly un-macro like behaviour – that is to say, each control can only be assigned to one parameter… which makes the moniker 'shortcut page' more fitting. The lack of an ability to use, for example, one knob to change the pitch of all percussion in a drum patch, or more adventurously the cut-off, resonance, and LFO rate of a filter, seems a missed opportunity. Also, considering there can be up to 16 sounds in a group, which adds up to… a whole lot of potentially automatable parameters, restricting that number to eight feels a little like a set of handcuffs has been clapped over what is potentially Maschine's most exciting new feature for live use.
A feature further bolstering Maschine's new found usefulness in being part of a 'bigger picture' is the improved MIDI sync. Linking a Traktor Scratch setup and Maschine is a lot of fun, and simple to achieve. Once connected, everything you trigger in the two pieces of software will be in time, allowing things like personal remixes and re-edits created with Maschine to be utilised live in a much more organic way than simply exporting an MP3/WAV file. Should you wish, you can get creative (and complicated) by passing sound from Traktor through Maschine, allowing you to sample, effect, and other wise mangle your sounds. One thing that I would really love to see is the option to switch between Maschine mode and software control mode by simply pressing one button, as the shortcut still requires the shift button to be held down and the Control button to be pressed – a two handed move. Now that it's so easy to integrate Maschine with a live Traktor set, it'd be handy to be able to switch a little more quickly (note to NI – if simply pressing Control presents the conundrum of how one exits step mode, how about making a shortcut of pressing both Control and Step to switch between controller modes?).
Of course, Traktor's not the only thing that Maschine works with – anything that can send or receive a MIDI Clock signal should play nice, and although MIDI out was a feature added in 1.1, it's especially worth mentioning on account of the fact that I mourned its absence in my original 1.0 review. If you want to use Maschine as a sequencer for your hardware studio, now you can.
Content, Content, Content
As if all these new features and improvements weren't enough, Maschine 1.5 also comes with over a gigabyte of new sound content and an entirely new effect. The Grain Stretch is the perfect effect to complement Maschine's new abilities in the host automation department and its improved live function, as it grabs audio from the sound/group/master it's attached to as it passes through in play mode, then works fantastically well at creating glitched out, dirty transitions and effects over the entire track.
The new sounds, too, are great. Featuring 'light' versions of many NI sound packs, including Abbey Road 60s and 70s Drums, Scarbee, Session Strings, and Urban Arsenal, as well as yet more drums sampled from MPC60, almost all areas that Maschine's library was previously a little lacking in have been given new vigour. The Abbey Road drums feature velocity sensitive multisampling with 10 layers per sound, Scarbee's basses and keys have three levels of velocity sampling, and any difficulty one may have had in creating classic synth sounds with Maschine's original library will find the sampled vintage synths a joy to behold.
In Conclusion
So, to sum up… The extension to the sound library is a superb bit of value adding on an already admirably well featured update, which addresses just about all the issues with 1.0 of the software, increases usability, speeds up workflow, and makes welcome improvements to integration with other software and equipment. Struggling to find anything to really gripe about is a sign of a strong product, so it's praise indeed that the only things I can really think to lament are the way that when samples are sliced, slices can't be manipulated individually, and the lack of a stereo-mono converter and snap to zero crossing features. Whereas before, there were clear reasons to get an MPC, MV, or even just use Ableton Live over Maschine if certain deal breaking features crossed paths with the way you worked, now that there's much, much more integration, more features, and more options, Maschine is really fighting its corner.
Native Instruments have made it clear that they're willing to put the time into Maschine, and that can only be a good sign for the future, too.
