I was one of the first people outside Native Instruments to lay eyes on Maschine, and immediately I saw something with real potential. Here was a software drum machine that was different: it was a real attempt to fuse some of the advantages of a software interface with some of the working methods of hardware. Software and hardware had really grown up together, instead of the latter simply being fitted to the former. And, of course, it had NI-style effects and UI look-and-feel, for fans of the software house’s style.
But 1.0 releases are a funny thing. As someone who spends a bit of my life developing tools, you always wind up with a choice of delaying the release, implementing something partway, or choosing not to implement it so it can be done properly later. And Maschine 1.0 lacked for me the one thing that was really essential to workflow – proper MIDI input and output support. Without that, I felt it was difficult to even give it a fair test. You’d wind up getting hung up on what was missing.
Well, good news: Maschine 1.1 gets all the little features I feel are essential to making it a viable and valuable part of the production workflow. It’s in public beta now, and I’m giving it a proper test. But here are the current changes in the present build, which includes all of the major items on my must-have list:
Hate soundware and generic downloaded samples? You’ll love this. The “Slice of Winter” sound pack created by Covert Operators for CDM doesn’t have a single sound in it – not one; you bring your own. Instead, install this pack and you get a whole mess of slicing presents for use with Ableton Live’s Slice to New MIDI Track feature. Grab an audio clip (or record your own), hit Slice to New MIDI Track, apply a preset, and you get a new Drum Rack instance with slices mapped to pads, effects, and live controls. (You can see what I mean as Bjorn plays around with the feature in the video.)
Naturally, this works nicely for drum loops, but if you apply to vocals or weird found sounds or other material, you can get all kinds of results. You’ll need Live 7 as it’s a new feature, but you can use the free trial to try it out; the trial is still unlimited time-wise and now even saves for the first 14 days.
It’s not so much that this is something other tools can’t do – even some hardware drum machines have a similar feature. But in the context of Live, slicing takes on a different quality. It integrates with all the clips you have sitting around your session, can map to those warp markers, and gives you virtual drum machines with live controller mappings and the ability to insert effects (including third-party plug-ins) on each pad.
We feature this technique in the CDM Winter Guide for two reasons. One, it’s a perfect antidote to sets that get boring because you have clips looping endlessly. Two, you can get a lot of mileage from this feature musically, so it’s something to live with for a while (which was the idea of the guide). In the guide, we have a detailed tutorial for using the feature, how to make your own presets (which isn’t clear in the manual), and some creative ideas. Francis Preve joins in with some tips; he used this feature heavily on his single “Caboose.” Previously:
Covert Operators also makes other lovely stuff for Live and live performance, including software (like a utility for making better use of the BCR2000 controller), Live packs (free and fee), and an in-depth video subscription series with power tools for Live use.
If you want still more Live knowledge, Grooveboxmusic has a limited-time deal on three hours of free tutorials, on special through the end of the month:
Oliver Chesler of the currently on-fire wire to the ear shares this tutorial using Live’s Device Groups and built-in Simpler. Basically, the idea is to rack Simplers together so you have easy access to different slices. Because these racks can easily map MIDI to different rack slots, there’s quite a lot you could do with this technique.
Oliver ultimately works his magic by manipulating the patterns in Arrange View. You have a couple of options here if you want to work live. You could simply bounce some of those manipulations that would be hard to play back into a slot in Session View. Or, if you want to stay in Session View (the one with the clips), you could try doing more extensive MIDI mappings with the Rack, and use patterns in clips in place of Arrange View.
Need to brush up on the basics of slicing and drum racks first? The good folks of Infrasonik are back with another 101 tutorial:
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