Use MIDI Designer with Maschine by Native Instruments

Question

How can I control Maschine by Native Instruments with MIDI Designer?

Answer 1

NOTE for Maschine 2.0: Instructions for mapping MIDI Designer notes in Ableton found here. NOTE: they say C1, we call it C2. 

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Here is a video showing MIDI Designer with Maschine.

[This post first appeared on the Native Instrument's Forums here.]

I'm using Maschine inside Ableton Live and have two Maschine instances running. One of them is controlled by the Maschine controller, which I use to play instruments and control parameters on the kits (especially muting, tuning pads up and down etc.). So the first instance of Maschine is not being controlled by MIDI Designer at all. 

The second instance is just Maschine FX. In each group (A-H) I've got two effects at the group level, so this second instance is a big FX chain. I'm mostly using the effects that Maschine provides, but occasionally I'll put in a Guitar Rig plugin within the group, to do PsycheDelay or Studio Reverb (for instance). 

 

So this Maschine FX instance exposes 8 knobs for each group (the macro controls). I'm mapping two effects to each 8 macro controls (usually), so the first and fifth knob is always wet/dry. If the effect doesn't have a wet dry, I don't use it. The rest of the knobs are... whatever comes up. For instance, in Distortion I'll use Amount, Color, and Feedback Amount, for instance. (I might get greedy and go to 8 knobs per effect, because for distortion it's really necessary. Feedback amount and tone are really cool so I'll probably break the scheme occasionally and have "double-width" effects that take up to 8 knobs).

 

Notes on MIDI Designer: as a MIDI Designer user, my original thought was to make pages with 8x3 knobs on them, so the pages look like this:

 

 

This is a bad idea. The whole point of being able to design on the iPad is that you can create controls as you need them, and move the layout around to accomodate your needs. 

 

So don't make a layout like the one I show here :). Add knobs as you need them, map them as you need them. In Ableton it's very fast, especially if you've already exposed the Macros using Host Automation. In Maschine native, it's also very fast to map macro controls to CCs. Since MIDI Designer will take care of channel-cc conflicts by default (only chooses unused CCs), you can just add a knob, name it and map it and you're ready to go.

Answer 2

NOTE for Maschine 2.0: Instructions for mapping MIDI Designer notes in Ableton found here. NOTE: they say C1, we call it C2. 

---

Here is a video showing MIDI Designer with Maschine.

[This post first appeared on the Native Instrument's Forums here.]

I'm using Maschine inside Ableton Live and have two Maschine instances running. One of them is controlled by the Maschine controller, which I use to play instruments and control parameters on the kits (especially muting, tuning pads up and down etc.). So the first instance of Maschine is not being controlled by MIDI Designer at all. 

The second instance is just Maschine FX. In each group (A-H) I've got two effects at the group level, so this second instance is a big FX chain. I'm mostly using the effects that Maschine provides, but occasionally I'll put in a Guitar Rig plugin within the group, to do PsycheDelay or Studio Reverb (for instance). 

 

So this Maschine FX instance exposes 8 knobs for each group (the macro controls). I'm mapping two effects to each 8 macro controls (usually), so the first and fifth knob is always wet/dry. If the effect doesn't have a wet dry, I don't use it. The rest of the knobs are... whatever comes up. For instance, in Distortion I'll use Amount, Color, and Feedback Amount, for instance. (I might get greedy and go to 8 knobs per effect, because for distortion it's really necessary. Feedback amount and tone are really cool so I'll probably break the scheme occasionally and have "double-width" effects that take up to 8 knobs).

 

Notes on MIDI Designer: as a MIDI Designer user, my original thought was to make pages with 8x3 knobs on them, so the pages look like this:

 

 

This is a bad idea. The whole point of being able to design on the iPad is that you can create controls as you need them, and move the layout around to accomodate your needs. 

 

So don't make a layout like the one I show here :). Add knobs as you need them, map them as you need them. In Ableton it's very fast, especially if you've already exposed the Macros using Host Automation. In Maschine native, it's also very fast to map macro controls to CCs. Since MIDI Designer will take care of channel-cc conflicts by default (only chooses unused CCs), you can just add a knob, name it and map it and you're ready to go.