Grooveboxes

octatonic

Strangefan said:

@octatonic how are you finding the deluge? It is worth a buy? 

First impressions are positive.
Having a battery and speaker onboard is brilliant for portability.

I can now write on the loo.

billzabozo

I've been wondering about these recently. Will be very interested to know how you find it after a bit of use, particularly how you find it works with samples and workflow. 

UnclePsychosis

Mikro arrived this afternoon, just about got it all installed and working, now to do some learning. 

Note to Native Instruments: your getting started guides are terrible, write some new ones. 

Karlos

I've been thinking of going back to Maschine. I had MK1, loved it but sold it when I had no time for production stuff (I say production, it as just happy accident knob twisting and such). Mikro would be the way forward now but I've also been looking at stand alone units.

I really wanted a Roland MC505 when I was younger but could never afford one. I know they are very old tech but I like a lot of music that I know was made on them in the 90's/2000's and I like the idea of not having a laptop and just hammering beats out in a drum machine style so the MC101 appeals but I'm not convinced for £350.

I really can't go down the road of buying production gear again. 

UnclePsychosis said:

Note to Native Instruments: your getting started guides are terrible, write some new ones. 

The thought process is (across all NI depts) that most people don't read the guides and head straight to YouTube for tutorials. NI manuals have always been fairly lacking which I why I helped write/edit a series of BIG reference manuals for their DJ software that goes into much more detail than the official manual every could.

danishbacon

UnclePsychosis said:

Mikro arrived this afternoon, just about got it all installed and working, now to do some learning. 

Note to Native Instruments: your getting started guides are terrible, write some new ones. 

What quick started guide are you reading @UnclePsychosis ? I found the full fat maschine QS very helpful

UnclePsychosis

The "here's how to make music" guides are fine, but I had real problems getting the software installed and configured. 

First of all, you install Native Access. The instructions tell you "add your serial number to unlock..." but they don't tell you "after you add your serial number, you need to wait for an indeterminate period before the Maschine software appears on your list of owned software so you can install it". So I spent an hour fannying around working out why I couldn't find a Maschine installer anywhere or if something was broken or if I was being stupid. Then suddenly Maschine appeared in Access, hooray. 

Then, Native Access asks you to provide directories where you want your instruments and plugins installed. Only it doesn't then point Maschine at these directories during the install, leading to the weird behaviour where you can preview sounds in the browser but not load any. Very frustrating when you just want to play with your new gear. 

The final annoyance is that NI don't make it clear that lots of the bundled plugins/instruments have a dependency on Reaktor and Kontakt to work. This one didn't bite me on the arse but only because I'd watched a random youtube video that explained it during the last week---the install instructions don't make it clear at all. 

Now, don't get me wrong: once I got it all working I am really deeply impressed. The sounds are great and the whole setup is really powerful. I'm very chuffed. But getting everything setup was way harder than it needed to be in 2020. NI are really letting themselves down on the install/config front. 

danishbacon

UnclePsychosis said:

The "here's how to make music" guides are fine, but I had real problems getting the software installed and configured. 

First of all, you install Native Access. The instructions tell you "add your serial number to unlock..." but they don't tell you "after you add your serial number, you need to wait for an indeterminate period before the Maschine software appears on your list of owned software so you can install it". So I spent an hour fannying around working out why I couldn't find a Maschine installer anywhere or if something was broken or if I was being stupid. Then suddenly Maschine appeared in Access, hooray. 

Then, Native Access asks you to provide directories where you want your instruments and plugins installed. Only it doesn't then point Maschine at these directories during the install, leading to the weird behaviour where you can preview sounds in the browser but not load any. Very frustrating when you just want to play with your new gear. 

The final annoyance is that NI don't make it clear that lots of the bundled plugins/instruments have a dependency on Reaktor and Kontakt to work. This one didn't bite me on the arse but only because I'd watched a random youtube video that explained it during the last week---the install instructions don't make it clear at all. 

Now, don't get me wrong: once I got it all working I am really deeply impressed. The sounds are great and the whole setup is really powerful. I'm very chuffed. But getting everything setup was way harder than it needed to be in 2020. NI are really letting themselves down on the install/config front. 

Agreed on the install, especially folders. I've just done it so many times that I accept leaving the defaults and letting it do its thing, but not always possible depending on your hard-drive space. Have fun with it

Karlos

Native Access has never really been an improvement over the previous Service Centre for installations of software you have just purchased. Native Access is better for existing purchases though and you'll probably see how good it 'can' be should you need to reinstall or move to another machine. 

Completely agree that the install process isn't made clear before hand - that's been a bugbear of many users that I've had to help on the NI forum.

UnclePsychosis

Latest bugbear is not having the whole "NKS" thing explained and spending half an hour wondering why a third party synth plugin doesn't appear in the library...

But I'm going to reiterate, great bit of kit which has had the edge taken off the joy by some strange software decisions...  

WiresDreamDisasters

I'll forward this bit of user experience to my mate who used to work for FXpansion but now works for Native Instruments. He might be able to put it in front of someone who can do something about it eventually.

UnclePsychosis

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I'll forward this bit of user experience to my mate who used to work for FXpansion but now works for Native Instruments. He might be able to put it in front of someone who can do something about it eventually.

Nice one :-)

Judging by my googling last night I doubt it will be a surprise to them, mind you!! 

Artsutanov

A new contender?

https://nektartech.com/nektar-aura-beat-composer/

Strangefan

Artsutanov said:

A new contender?

https://nektartech.com/nektar-aura-beat-composer/

I think that's just a controller not standalone, which is a shame 

Artsutanov

Oh yes. Hmmmm