I would like to expand a little on the 1st post regarding Maschine.

Although I have been producing for a few years now being an avid Cubase user I have never actually used a sampler before (very odd as I mostly make house) Cubase does not have a sampler built in unlike Logic, Ableton and even Reason.

After doing a lot of research online investigated various VST samplers and using a free one (UVI Workstation) in the Collaborate and Learn project I realised that pound for pound I would actually get far more use from Maschine as it has a sampler but also does so much more. Other conversations with producers also lead me to believe that Maschine was very powerful so much so that many of my peers had sold there Akai MPC’s in favour of Maschine, Now this really did speak volumes to me.

So after scouring Ebay for a few weeks and in the end being out bid several times I posted on Facebook my frustrations. The timing could not have been better as a local friend had decided to sell his that day! I rustled up the cash and drove over to pick it up.

As this was a second hand unit the existing licence had to be deactivated which is done by emailing Native Instruments. It was very close to Xmas so this process took a little longer than usual, Also I was away for most of the holiday period (Frustrating)

Once the licence was activated I was able to update the software to the latest 1.8 version and get stuck in on using this. So I could learn the basics as quickly as possible I made the decision to run it in stand alone mode rather than a VST plug in within Cubase.

Day one, I watched a series of tutorial videos from Native Instruments to get me started, I highly recommend anyone using this for the first time to do this. This got me started very quickly. I did not really intend on making a full track at this point I just wanted to play about with it to learn how it all works. Where to start? As I have not had a sampler before that was a good starting point, I chose a drum track loaded it in using the software. I really wanted to do this from the hardware but at this stage I could not work out how to switch from the factory library to my own sample library on my hard disk.

Once loaded I hit the sampler button then edit use the arrow keys to select stretch on the right hand lcd. then select settings, select beat mode from the onscreen pop up. Amazingly it has already calculated the existing BPM all I had to do was hit apply and the loop was adjusted to the project tempo!

Now I’m not going to document every click or button press at this stage as this will be way to much to read through, At important points I will be specific.

Next step was to select new groups and add extra elements such as extra drums, in this project it was an 808 kit. Kick, Rimshot, Clav, Snare and shaker. I played these in live using the record feature. I could have used the step sequencer but wanted to have the nice velocities you get when hitting the pads.

Group C was my bass line created with a low tom and some added distortion

Group D some electronic percussion, again a sample trimmed down

Group E More of the same but instead a Sine Strike sample with some chorus and reverb

Group F Now this was a cause of much frustration as I wanted to delve into the instruments that come bundled with Maschine – Komplete Elements, Including Reaktor and Kontakt. I could not for the life of me find out how to add these using the hardware and am still struggling if I am honest. Eventually I caved in and added Reaktor via the on screen software, even this took a while to figure out. Maybe I need to watch some more videos. Once I had added to instances of Reaktor I realised I had no idea at all how to use it. What to do well I took the easy route and ended up choosing some pre sets for now.

Ok so my elements are all in and its a 2 bar loop, How do I make that into a track? lots of options, use the scenes feature in Maschine? Use it as a VST in Cubase? Export the audio into Cubase? All these options where going to be challenging so lets keep it simple and concentrate on Maschine, Scenes it is

For now all I have done is duplicate the 2 bar “scene” several times so it makes a 2 minute loop with no arrangement. To do this Press and hold the Scene button and hold button one at the same time, this will lock it into scene mode. You will see DUPL on the left hand LCD hit the button directly above that and it will duplicate the selected scene.

Thats the project so far. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to leave them below