This is a free maschine tutorial on understanding scenes as they relate to building songs in Maschine.
Scenes in Maschine are used to bring your patterns together when building songs, this free tutorial shows you how it is done.
For instant access to all advanced tutorials, the private members forum, free downloads, and more, join the maschine tutorials membership today. Join Now!!
Thank you!!!!!! I was duplicating all the patterns to lengthen them one only one needed to be done per scene!!!!!!!!!
ha, yeah man…we've all been there!
can you do all this from the hardware? do you have a video where you show that? im having trouble trying to switch up the scenes like if i duplicate it then try to take out the samples out of one and leave em on the other it takes it out of both. i’ll just watch the videos a couple more times and see what sup.
Is there a way for us to like book mark all our favorite tutorials for quick access when we need them for instruction??? This was a very good one.
Only way is to make a special folder in your browser, haven’t figured out any way to build boomkarking like that into the site yet 🙂
Cool Just wondering fam would be a great feature but no worries here.
No doubt fam
SaintJoe, Noticed when I and building songs in maschine..I getting this popping sound like a record playing while building songs…When I go to play it back its not there…..Just when making a song….I checking over my computer now…thought maybe you see this before..Any suggestions to fix…Thanks so very much for your time Bro….
check the buffer settings for your audio card, what audio interface you using?
Hey SJ,
Only just found this tutorial under “older entries” but it has saved me sooo many hours, thank you! Is there any chance of updating this vid and having it as a sticky for new members?
Thanks,
DJR
No need to use a sticky, it is filed under free tutorials, and sequencing, you can also search specifically for it 🙂
I will also add it to the “maschine 101” list as well.
glad it helped!
I have a quick question about the Pattern Banks A-D. So you have Groups A-H for sounds.The Pattern Banks A-D, that is a way to add more patterns if you need more than 16 patterns per sound?
yes, patterns is a way to get more patterns in a group, so you have 1-4 banks which each hold 16 patterns, so you actually have 64 patterns per group if you need, I’ve never used the first bank totally myself lol. That’s a lot of patterns 😉
sweet nice and easy they way you explained it 🙂
Cool, glad to make it plain!
SJ, just a quick one, is it possible to for example get scene 1 to play twice or three times or whatever, before it automatically switches to the next scene, or would i just have to duplicate the first scene to scene 2 and 3 etc? thanks man
man we’ve been asking for that for a while lol, it was one of my first complaints. No, you can’t set how many times a scene loops (this would be Perfect for song construction), hopefully they add that in a future update man lol.
i feel you man i guess you could just duplicate the scene you want to replay x amount of times..
Yeah or if you want it to be a specific length you can make one of the patterns in that scene as long as you need.
Say you have a 4 bar scene, but you want it to play for 16 bars, what I do is just create a new pattern in one of the groups, say the drums or the bass, and I double that twice. So it goes to 8, then double to 16. Now all the patterns in that scene will play for 16 bars.
lemme say one thing your a fucking legend thank you so much spent for ever and couldnt figure any of this out!!! thank you back to the music now 🙂
Ha! No doubt fam, glad to help, that’s what we here for! Seriously, I know how it is with this arranger man, but once you get it, you got it, and it’s ON!
Great way to simplify things SJ. This is my first day as a member on the site and i’m LOVIN it. Major props to You and Knock for this community. I’ve lost 3 hrs sleep already just navingating around and taking notes!
Good stuff fam, glad to help.
Best tutorial I’ve seen yet I couldn’t figure that out for nothing U made it simple and plain thanx
Thanks fam, glad to help.
Saintjoe this is gonna sound really basic but how do you get your beat to play from the beginning each time you pause it? Every time I press play, it plays from whenever I last paused it which could be halfway through a scene. Thanks, AK
No problem fam, press the restart button and it will start from the beginning.
I just got maschine a month ago and used it as an mpc. I love it. I had a hard time understanding scenes. I used a group like a used a sound module and couldnt figure it out. I recorded different sounds in the group and try to enact song mode.This really helps.
Glad to help fam, you can also use 1 group for all your tracks if you wish, just think of it as a 16 track sequencer. And then use the patterns to make the change ups for your song. That way, each scene has 1 pattern in it from the group.
similar to this
https://maschinetutorials.com/advanced-sequencing-part-1-using-a-group-as-a-multi-track-sequencer-and-easy-track-mute-automation
SaintJoe, Thanks a mil for this video!!!! I really needed this one. I get stuck trying to make a track and have to stop because i’m stuck and have no where else to go. I really appreciate what you and Knock do on this site!!!
KJ
No doubt fam! We have plenty more going into this topic so dig in, if you have any questions be sure to ask bro!
Hey Saintjoe – just new to the site – and got my first question for yer. Firstly though maan, let me say, not only are your tutorials an immense help in breaking this thing down (I been using only software for 12 years), but your website…. presentation is awesome. I can learn a lot from you guys on improving mine, http://www.escmodemusic.com ( hope you’re ok with me posting the link – can delete if you like). Anyway… question: From the software when I change an existing pattern length (say from 4 bars to 8), the notes don’t duplicate into the… Read more »
Hey fam, glad you dig the site bro, we try hard to make it a comfortable place to be.
I used the double feature instead of just extending the pattern. So pressing double will allow you to duplicate the bars properly. There currently isn’t a way to double a pattern in the software, you have to do it from the controller by pressing the pattern button then press double.
I’ ve just been using the software this pas week…long story short… Maschine was a “”surprise”” xmas gift from my 9 yr old girl to me – i bought it myself, wrapped it, and gave it to my bro to give to her, to give to me today. ha! her face lit up like the 16 pads on Maschine. coz she new I’ve wanted this thing for f’ing ages … so I got my hands on the controller now…and haven’t touched the software (much) all day. like you say, extending patterns is no stress on the controller, eh. Hit ‘Pattern’… Read more »
Awesome bro! Yeah man, with the controller it’s just a whole nother level. I do think some of these things should be available in the software though and I have been pushing for them for sure.
Enjoy man!!
Hey StJoe. Lets say I wanted to add a fill or variation to the last bar of an 8 bar pattern. Is there a way to loop around just that last bar (without cycling through the other bars)?
In a DAW it’s just a case of setting up left and right locaters to loop. But it seems you can only adjust the right-hand locator in Maschine, but not the start point of a pattern. Is that right?
Thanks maan.
Nope, you would have to make the actual 1 bar fill and put it in where you want it. This is one of those limitations with the arranger many of us have been asking about, more flexibility.
ok, glad to know you got our back on these requests. I should spend longer on your forums maan – no doubt I could learn a lot there too – just my daily time with Maschine is limited. And these tutorials seem like a logical place for the questions I’m firing at you – or would they be better on the forum?
Yeah man, I definitely make requests known, we’ve seen a lot of stuff added to Maschine based on user feedback, which is good, so keep the questions and suggestions coming!
No worries man, you’re good, everything you ask is always related directly to the tutorial you’re on, this would be the place to ask. If you have more general or unrelated questions that aren’t specific to a tutorial, you can ask in the forum…but it’s all good, I’ll answer it either way 🙂
That’s why we have both areas, so whichever works best for ya works for us 🙂
Cool. This site is THE best learning resource I’ve come across. I’ll do you a review from my site when I get the time. Or send me over what you want putting in the review and I’ll publish it – the more inbound links the better, eh!
Put whatever ya want man, it’s your review 🙂
No worries, we take all the love we can get man, glad you dig it though!
I finally sat my clown self down and paid “CLOSE” attention to this tutorial, and it all just clicked. Good explaining Joe!
cool fam, glad to help
I downloaded the new 1.7.2 from the service center, but I have yet to see any changes to my Machine. Note: I have restarted the Machine and PC to let the changes take affect, but still no luck; no source option with separate pad swing, etc. Is there a second step I need to take to upload the changes onto the Machine?
BTW, TY for all of your help so far. I am a bit of a pain, but I can’t just sit around going crazy while I know an expert named St. Joe, just a click away, has the answers.
You have to run the update once you download it, make sure maschine is unplugged when you do it.
Ok. I had to redooo ERRRRRthang just to get to where you run the scan. NOW I have all of my prestes and Libray back, BUT NOW ALL MY SAVED BEATS ARE LOST. All I have is my patterns. Example: I made a loop and saved it as ridiculous hip-hop, and also saved the pattern under the same name, as instructed in your tutorials, but only the pattern exist when I go to my OPEN folder.
Your patterns and projects are saved in different folders. You only need the patterns if you want to use them in another project, your should still have all your projects in the original project folder under your documents, in the native instruments, maschine folder. Unless you deleted those?
Didnt delete them. They are not there.
Where did you save them? Your pattern and projects should be under different foldet in the same directory and the wouldn’t get removed by an update. Do a search on your system for any maschine project files or even the specific one, see if you saved it somewhere else other than the default location
Thanks so much for making this site guys! Its been the biggest help learning Maschine, when I bought the thing I was totally confused but now with your help ahhhhhhhh so good! The comments section is great, nice to see other people struggle town haha.
Big ups from Australia 🙂
Awesome man! That’s exactly what we like to hear!
Hey SaintJoe, not sure if this question has already been asked, but what if I want a certain effect on all the sounds in A1 in Group A but I don’t want the effect to to be on the sounds in A2 that are in the same Group? How do I go about doing that?
No doubt fam, you would use different automation patterns to do that. you could automate it “ON” in a1 then automate it off at the end of that pattern or at the beginning of a2
https://maschinetutorials.com/how-to-sequence-your-fx-and-automate-them-with-patterns
you can do this directly in your same group you don’t have to send them to different groups
question,,, is there a way to go back to just the “pattern” mode after you set up the scenes? If not can you make a copy of the song with the scenes and leave another one with just the patterns? Hope my question made any sense.
the scenes are just made up of patterns, there is no difference between the two as scenes are really just “containers” for the patterns. If you don’t want it to play all the way through you can just double click in the gray bar area for one of the scenes and it will just loop right there. You will always have at least one scene in order to hear your patterns play back.
Gotcha
2nd question,,,, is there a way to only play one sound in a group in one scene but then play the rest in another scene. For example i’m trying to just get the baseline of a group play in scene 1 and then have the rest of the instruments play in scene two. So far I can’t get this to work.
create different patterns for different scenes. In that group have 1 pattern that only has the bassline in it, then another pattern with everything in it
Wow, that’s kind of tedious I will need a pattern for almost every instrument in a group. That is if I undertsnad your explanation correctly. Say I have 16 instruments in Group A The way I started writing was to record stuff into one pattern on all 16 instruments while in pattern mode you just mute or solo instruments. . But to have them play at different times in the scenes I need to have each instrument on a different pattern. is that correct?
No, the way you are working you would just make different patterns for different scenes. Each pattern will have the parts you want playing in it. You don’t need a pattern for each instrument.
Saintjoe, Another question about a controller vs software issue. In the software, I understand the concept of the banks: four banks each capable of holding 16 patterns for a total of 64. Do I not have the same programming option on the controller with groups? Can I program 16 different patterns in Group A if I’m using the same kit? When I tried to program a 2nd pattern in the same group on the controller, I wasn’t able to do it using the method you laid out in “how to sequence your first loop”. I started with a fresh set… Read more »
Are you trying to copy the original or do a whole new one, once you hit pattern 2, you get a blank pattern and you’ll be able to create a whole new pattern. If you want to work on the previous pattern from pattern 1 and add to it, you can press pattern, then duplicate, to get a copy of it. You can also use the shift+split function to do the same. To access the patterns from the controller you just hit the pattern button then the pad for the pattern you want to play.
Hi Saint Joe, I just purchased my Mikro today and I am really surprised how much I am liking it. I wasn’t really convinced that drumming on the keyboard was different to drumming on these pads, but it really is much much easier. Thanks for the tutorials. Here is my question. So you have these scenes, and groups, and patterns. How do I work this into a track in Pro tools? Does it go on just one track, or do you route the output of the plugin to different channels? I understand there are only 16 midi outs. So if… Read more »
Welcome man!
Well you can export your audio as separate wave files to use in maschine, or you can route to the stereo outputs directly into pro tools.
exporting
https://maschinetutorials.com/how-to-export-your-audio-from-scenes-groups-and-individual-sounds/
protools audio routing
https://maschinetutorials.com/how-to-route-individual-pads-and-outputs-into-pro-tools/
Two questions,
1) is there a timeline or anything that lets you know how long your song is going on for? Its cool that each scene can hold whatever amount of bars but you need a good memory to know how many is in there unless u put it in the name or something.
2) Where you get those Honk-5 Honk-6.wav samples they are like 1970’s epic horn yo.
😀
1. that’s one of the oldest feature requests many of us have…currently, no smh still don’t understand why this is missing lol
2. I bought out an old library music collection from a composer that he did back in the 70’s for radio/tv background music 🙂
is it possible to duplicate a selection of scenes at one time – or do they need to be done individually?
Tks.
Only one at a time for now
Hey man…hope your good. As always big thanks for all the effort. Great video although I seem to be missing some info to help me fully understand all of it. It feels like I must have missed a video inbetween! BAsically when you use the same pattern in a different scene, but want that one to be say double the length but dont want to effect the length of the same pattern used in the previous scene you did a couple of things on the controller, but im not sure how. You duplicated a pattern (im guessing to a new… Read more »
No problem fam, check these out 🙂
https://maschinetutorials.com/pattern-duplication-and-pattern-doubling-options/
https://maschinetutorials.com/creating-independent-patterns-when-duplicating-scenes/
Hey man…
Couldnt have amnswered my question better.
Nice one!
glad to help man!
do you have a video where you are showing what you are doing to make those scenes longer cause i was lost when you started doing that
yeah fam, check this out https://maschinetutorials.com/pattern-duplication-and-pattern-doubling-options/
thanks for putting the other vid back up. although, this one seems to have gone missing as well.
i’m starting to think this video integration coding of this site doesn’t like me too well. lol.
Nah, I think youtube went crazy or something because it seems to be the older free youtube videos you’re finding with issues, I got it fixed though. Maybe old code or something as these are older videos we did on youtube. Thanks for finding and letting us know man, we have so many videos up here lol.
thanks man. this is literally the best site of all time as far as tutorials for the maschine. maybe even the best tutorial site towards anything as far as production. it always seems like the people who really know what they’re talking about tend to keep their mouth shut.
yalls help is invaluable.
I just got my maschine mkII on thursday and after combing through forums, i was lead here, and man i’m so happy.
i feel like i’ve had this thing for a month, i already know so much.
Thanks man, really glad you find it useful, don’t be afraid to ask questions either!
I actually have two questions right now, i have a tascam 144mkII. When I try to sample from a record player, it records mono. My question is, to get it to record stereo, would i have to find some type of rca to 1/4th split cable and literally route that into both ins?
And my second question, sometimes when i sample, it doesn’t show the audio waves. I can play it back alright, but instead of the waves, it’s just a line in both the hardware and software. what would be the reasoning for this?
you’re gonna want to use both rca outputs from your turntable and run each into a pair of inputs on your interface, the flat line could be the signal isn’t loud enough, I’ve never ran into that personally though.
i figured out what it was. When i was in sampling mode, my input was on “IN 1 L+R”
Now since i have my turntables plugged into line in R and my mic preamp into line in L, i think it was showing the audio wave feedback of my microphone which is turned off.
So basically i just had to keep it on “IN 1 R”
And thanks. I just need to go get an extra 3.5mm to 1/4th adapter then.
Yeah that’ll do it 🙂
Is this video down??? Im tryin to export a couple of beats I made whats the quickest way…I believe u have to make all your patterns and scenes b4 you can export and throwem on your ipod or what have you right? Just want to say this site is a blessing and ive learned so much especially with sampling and kick drum arangement…I made a beat…hated it then just auditioned new kits found one that was awesome and now I like it.
Nah this video is working, it’s a free one I put on youtube, maybe check your browser if you can’t see it. Either update or try clearing your browser cache. Yes you must put everything together into scenes before you can export it as a song, otherwise it will just export as a small loop
I have a question: I have all of my sounds loaded on group A. Do I need to separate them to the different groups to be able to load them into the scenes? if so is their a way to copy the sound and pattern to a different group w/out manually recreating the pattern?
No you can’t just use one scene if you only have one group, just make different patterns in the group to remove sounds from different parts of the song.
St Joe, here is a question, I know how to duplica patterns and double them but is there a quick way or duplicating whole scenes? so i dont have to go through each individual pattern?
Cheers man.
G
Yeah you can press scene then duplicate
Coming from Geist to maschine, i find the way to build a song a bit awkward on maschine. In Geist you have a song grid which represents the total bars in a song. So if i have, say, a 4 bar pattern and i get to a point in the song i only want 2 bars of that pattern – i simply chose the pattern and draw it over 2 bars, so it only plays half of it. Here, on Maschine, if i want the same groove\pattern – only some times 4 bars long and sometime 2 bars long (just… Read more »
NNoway around it currently this is how maschine works.many of us have asked for a now flexible way to work with a scenes but currently a scene will be as long as its longest pattern and you can’t edit the length by drawing it in.
I see. With the 2.0 you can now synthesize drums and do some new crazy and flexible stuff – but not this…
I thought this feature is more basic and more “urgent”. Guess i was wrong… Oh well, i’ll just get along with it as is. Still loads of fun, but i find myself making all sorts of bar length calculations to make it thru a song.
you’re not alone, many of us hoped for an improved way of laying out a song, or at least more options to do so
hey saintjoe, i’m going through all these videos even tho i have 2.0 software, i don’t understand the ABCD pattern banks, i couldn’t find those anywhere in 2.0 software or even 1.8, is that because they took that off? looking for some clarification on the whole ABCD thing behind it, oh wait, as i’m typing that, does that actually respond to the group, like group a, patter 1, 2, etc? if that’s right, where is that up in 2.0 or is it just the rectangular box that shows up now?
Yeah they took them off, it was basically how they broke up groups of 16 patterns. So each group used to have multiple pattern banks, now in 2.0 you just create a new bank after you use up 16 patterns in a group. I honestly never use that many and never used more than one bank of patterns for a group lol. But I know people that do, so it’s just a way of organizing patterns within a group. The probably took the A, B, C thing away because it was a bit confusing with the groups having those same… Read more »
cool thanks saint joe!
glad to help
hey SJ, I’m trying to figure out how to just delete the group on scene one and move it to scene 2. It looks lilt you clicked on it but that doesn’t work for me and i can’t drag it
you can right click on it to delete it
thanks bud
No problem
How exactly do you double a scene to make it 8 bars instead of 4 for example ?
You double one of the patterns in the scene.