Maschine + Drum Kits. Why not?

Hey, I finally got a Maschine +, and I am reviewing the whole course!

Screenshot 2023-10-20 at 20.12.35

Why not? There are like 30 Acoustic drum kits within the Maschine + in stand alone mode. Are they really that bad? They sound great to me :sweat_smile:

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My main drum pads are the + with the abbey road kits (plus a little saturation and adjusted muting etc!)

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Hey I’m gonna rephrase that. Ofcourse you can use whatever kit you want. I’m not going to be using the onboard Maschine + kits in the lessons and if you want to play along with my drum sounds and presets you will need to know how to set the Maschine + up as a midi controller for your computer.

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I played the Maschine + kits and even the Abbey Road kits seem to be one shot samples. I love the Abbey Road kits, used them in my productions in the past and when I played them on Maschine they would not respond the same way. Maybe that made me extra pissed off since I know what they sounded like and I wasn’t expecting anything less after buying an over $1000 device.

The drum synths onboard I tried to like but alas, they did not “spark joy” :slight_smile:

I think with regards to the lack of multi-velocity layer, round robin sampled acoustic kits an argument can be made that they’re not “as good” as Addictive Drums but of course in music, when you think it sounds good, it is good.

So don’t let me tell you what to do in that regard. I can recommend you trying out something like addictive drums and see if you notice the difference when playing. For me there’s this connection to the sound that happens when there are these multi velocity samples and it makes me play better.

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I haven’t tested yet side by side (stand alone mode VS Kontakt on the computer) the Abbey Road kits, and I trust your judgement about them not being that good (lack of round robins probably, due to the computing limitations of the Maschine + ).

Personally the reason I got the Maschine + was precisely to stay away from the computer. I have a bad relationship with my mouse when it comes to workflow and creativity :sweat_smile:

But yes, if I was to record an album, I would probably use the computer/DAW together with Kontakt.

Man, feels good to be back practicing :fire:

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Hey fellow Maschine + user! Thanks for answering.

What do you mean by muting? Do you mean creating choking groups? (for example, the open hi-hat mutes itself immediately when you tap the closed hi-hat).

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I am currently adapting the kits I like to the QFG layout. The way I am doing this is by loading a kit and using “shift + move” when in PAD MODE to re-arrange their order. I then do “SAVE AS” a “GROUP” (not project). Did you used the same method?

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One thing I noticed when playing with some kits is that a few have the Default Volume set to 100%. This is horrible, because it makes it harder to play with dynamics (pianissimo for example), so I changed the Volume value back to zero %

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P.S. Just realised that “CHOKE” settings do not get saved (for that group) when I save the kits as a group

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I did mean choke groups! Sorry the language changes from drum machine to drum machine so I get into the habit of using language from a specific device lol, I save it as a project and it retains all of my settings!

I didn’t know you could do that lol! No, I have a very slightly different setup to the QFG one but I was using duplicate to move things around lmao! It took an eternity!

Ah yeah I usually drop the velocity to volume modulation to around 40-60% for the best results but you may be different!

If you want to know anything else or have any more gems just let me know!

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Thanks… If I have any question will tag you :slight_smile:

I think I prefer to keep saving them as GROUPS for now, and eventually will load a bunch of my favourite GROUPS into a project and adjust CHOKE settings. But keeping them as GROUPS feels more organised to me. Everything will be separately available and easily accessible when pressing “BROWSER” + “GROUPS” + “USER” and won’t be mixed with my projects.

That’s how to move pads around:

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I’m kind of having fun with those :sweat_smile:

Hey nice playing! I see now how you can have fun with those actually. With the Yamaha FGDP I also had fun with some electronic kits.

I must admit that with those standalone units like Maschine + and Push3 my expectations were also maybe coloured by the thousands of dollars they cost. And then when you get one and going through the tedious process of setting it up you realise “oh they’re essentially made for other things than just drumming and that’s what I’m paying for while I will not be using it.”

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Thanks Robert.

The Yamaha FGDP seems like a little nice device to jam with friends at dinner parties when everyone had a few extra drinks and reckless things can happen :sweat_smile: - so the maschine+ can stay safely in the studio ahahah

Main reason why I got a Maschine + was to get away from the computer. So yes, I might give away the Round Robins, but the trade offs are more fun = more practicing and more productivity, in my case.

It’s not only about finger drumming for me. It is also about making hiphop/lo-fi and some 90’s Detroit/Berlin Techno.

I am now considering the next companion for my maschine+ “computer free” setup and if anyone here has a Maschine+ as the brain operations of their dawless setup I would like to ear your experiences.

I am looking into the Elektron Syntakt as a companion.

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