a free maschine tutorial showing how to record the midi into live instead of maschine’s sequencer when using maschine as a plugin in ableton live
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I would like to see recording midi from maschine into Logic Audios sequencer
Cool, there is an issue with the AU format in that it can't send midi out into the host, this is not a limitation of logic or maschine but the AU standard. We will see if we can find some workarounds for you though.
Question. Might external instrument in Ableton be used to play instruments in Maschine? Meaning is that the only way you can get those instruments to play. Okay, I have followed this to a T. Everything works, but! I can get the notes to trigger, but I can’t get them to record. I can see the note recording, but in a loop it doesn’t give me any sound back the same way it does in midi when recording samples like kicks and snares. Any suggestions?
Yeah it makes it easier because you can have your audio/midi in one track. If you just want to record midi you can use a simple midi track. Make sure your track is pointing back to the maschine track properly on the right channel and also check your audio output from Maschine into Ableton.
I’ve tried to do this same thing using my MPC-3000 as the sequenecer. No success. Any thoughts.
Are you trying to sequence ableton live with your mpc? You need to have whatever midi interface you’re using setup as an input in ableton, then it should receive midi from the mpc as long as it’s hooked up to your interface
Actually I’m trying to sequence Maschine with my MPC. I use Maschine to chop samples only and I would like to be able to hit the Maschine Pads and play them into MPC sequencer.
Use midi cables in/out of maschine and mpc. Setup the group midi settings to “sounds to midi notes” and make sure the mpc is set to receive midi from Maschine.
I’ll give that a shot. I’ll let you know the results later.
What’s happening fellas? First off , Kudos for the website… I am a recent subscriber , and definitely gonna be a permanent one! You and Knock got this ish on lockdown! I too would like to know more about working with maschine and Logic ( like sanjay said; recording midi from maschine into logic’s sequencer… or any workarounds to do it ) Once again, big up for what you guys got going on, keep up the good work fellas!
welcome man, thanks for the support!
I set it up just like you said.. I have the autopsy kit loaded up in the Maschine.. My channels are setup right, but when I hit the record button in Ableton, it plays the whole kit/patterns.. I just want to record my beats, hitting the individual pads from Maschine, recording in Ableton.. Thanks.
you need to clear the patterns that are in Maschine, or else they will play anytime you start ableton.
just wanted to add if you want like a single sound in a group that is played over various pitches in pad mode to play out over those pitches instead of just playing the root note defined in the groups batch midi settings. Right click on the sound inside the group and it has a “sound midi settings.” Click that and adjust your low and high notes for the pad to match the patterns lowest and highest note. Just wanted to share in case anyone runs into a “pad mode” pattern not playing anything but the root note like I… Read more »
yes indeed, i’ve seen many get confused by that one lol, good point.
i dont see the midi from menu, where can i view that
make sure you have ableton set to show the io section. Over to the far right next to the master track, click the button that says io, then you will see it.
why it is when i playback in ableton the beat is off? (Dancehall)
check to see if you have any quantize or grid turned on in ableton
hey great help on gettin this setup. ive almost got it all figured out but when i go to set the outputs for the groups in the maschine plugin i only have the option of going to “Out 1-16” it does not say “External Output 1-16” and im not sure why the option wont come up for me. Any additional help would be awesome. thanks.
Yeah, Out 1-16 are the same thing as ext out 1, they added more outputs since I did this one a while ago.
I have maschine and ableton working great with each other, but when i try to freeze and flatten the midi its telling me there is no audio output to freeze. plz help.
depending on how you have it setup, freeze will not work the same. Did you set it up to use an external instrument device for each track? If you just have midi tracks then it doesn’t have any audio, external device lets you have audio/midi together in the same track.
hey, thanks for the help. i cant find the external instuments settings in Live so just added midi tracks for each group. Where are they? Also when trying to set my midi channels they dont remain unique for that group. So if I set the Group A to channel 1, and the Group B to 2, when i go back into Group A it has also moved to 2 as well.
external instruments shows up under the ableton instruments, you have to have the full version I think and not intro/lite.
yeah, that’s a cosmetic thing that I’ve requested be fixed. The midi settings only show the most recent one, it doesn’t show separate ones. So even though it looks like it’s changed for everything, it hasn’t 😉
I know, it’s wack, hopefully they fix it, many of us have complained about it.
I’ve got the lite version…better start saving for the proper un. cheers
Yeah, lite doesn’t include the external instrument device.
I’m trying to figure this out. Getting a bit fustrated. I set it up like you did in the video. If I load a “preset” pattern on one of the kits it plays through ableton (Don’t see midi data anywhere though). I uncheck the box and load one of the kits fresh. My whole controller is like its frozen. The pads are grey and none of the buttons are responsive. I can’t do anything. How do I get it so when I hit the pads it plays something from maschine? Nothing happens. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Are there… Read more »
I think you are confused s bit. First you need to decide what you want to record. If you want to record MIDI load it as a plug-in. If you just want to make beats and get it into Live drag the audio. Loading a kit without the check will not load a pattern. Depending on your audio interface you may not be able to hear both Live and Maschine at the same time. So what are you wanting to record audio or MIDI?
Yeah I am haha. Maybe I have the idea of what this is suppose to do. I thought that maybe instead of using Maschine’s software as a sequencer doing this would enable me to use Live as a sequencer. Therefor using maschine but having live holding the midi instead of midi data in Maschine?
Yeah lol, you need to use as a plug-in, lookup the video maschine recording MIDI into Lives sequencer, its on here, that should help ya!
Cool dude, got the Midi working in Live’s sequencer. Thanks for your fast responses dude you helped me out a lot tonight! Don’t know how I would have figured all this stuff out tonight.
Awesome bro, glad to help, that’s what we here for!
Alright it’s me again, I know your tired of hearing from me. The dragging feature rocks and if I end up having to I will. But I think it might be easier if I go this method. The thing is though I go through what you did and I am unable to do anything on my Maschine hardware interface.
forget that last comment, figured it out. It was my maschine hardware freezing up
Glad to know it’s working for you! The transport buttons will not work as they are tied to Live, so you can’t start/stop play with maschine when used as a plugin, but everything else should work the same.
Maybe a stupid question but why do you wanna have audio and midi being recorded for the same group? Can you not just record the midi then when you have completed the track just hit record and fire the scenes in which ever order you want and it will record audio into the arrangement view for you to render after?
Not sure what you’re asking. This is for using maschine as a plugin and recording it’s midi data into live, you want audio because you want to record separate outputs like you would with other multi channel plugins.
sorry for the confusion, thanks for the fast reply, anyways what i am wondering is why in the tutorial is he recording one midi track and then the next one is audio? wouldnt you just do one or the other? Like all your groups from a-h just midi, or just audio. Or am i totally missing something? Just wanna know the purpose behind the external instrument plug in. I am thinking that you know something i dont and i just wanna be let in on the secret…. ha ha ha……
As I said, to have your audio split up into different channels. People do not want all of their groups on the same channel, so the external instrument let’s you send midi to a group and have that groups audio come through on the same channel. So when you go to mix it down you have all your sounds split into different tracks instead of just one stereo track. You don’t have to do it this way, but many like to split their audio into different channels when working with multi channel devices, this allows more flexible mixing.
ahhhhhh…….. just been messing with it and now i think i understand, thank you so much. I am so happy i stumbled upon your site and bought my subscription. I am good with Traktor and produce inside ableton but, i have never used anything like maschiine to make music, i am finding that it is breathing life into my tracks and i have barely scratched the surface. One problem im having though is i am not a drummer so when and where to use toms, highhats, ( and in what combos, like i know a closed high hat follows an… Read more »
Cool man glad you got it. In regards to drums it really depends on what you’re going for, there really are no rules it’s more of a matter of how you want your drum track to sound, sometimes you want it to sound like real live drums and sometimes you just want a basic or good drum track that doesn’t really sound like a live drummer. I say just let it flow, you don’t always have to use every sound, I rarely use toms unless I’m specifically going for a live feel for example. An electro drum track may sound… Read more »
What up St.Joe!! I’ve watched this tutorial like 7 times setting it up just like you explained but for some reason I can’t record each group separately. Without any tracks armed I can hear each group separately and watch their meters move, as soon as I arm the midi track I hear each groups pad 1 sound. What did I miss? I have each groups out in Maschine set up right: ie Ext instr. 1 to out 2, Ext Instr. Out 3, etc. Thanks for your help!
Did you set the group batch midi settings to “sounds to midi notes” ?
Yes I did, and made sure all the other groups were too. What I did for the time being was move group B to Pad 2 and group C to Pad 3. Though if these groups had all 16 pads full then I would still have this problem.
You also have to change the midi channel when setting up the midi batch settings, group A to 1, B to 2, C to midi channel 3, etc.
Ahhhh! That must be what it is. Right now all groups are Midi channel 1. Was that mentioned? Must of missed it. I will try that tonight, thanks St.Joe!
Yeah, here’s a stupid thing about Maschine. It will ONLY show the last midi channel you set. So if you set a group to 1, go to the next one and set it to 2, go back to group A it looks like it’s on midi channel 2, but it’s NOT, it’s still on midi channel 1 it’s just that the menu only shows the LAST change you made. Yeah…stupid, we’ve been asking for this to be fixed because it just doesn’t make sense and causes so many headaches with people trying to set it up in their daw. Just… Read more »
well……..I’ve tried everything and still can’t get it working right. Am I not suppose to hear back what I recorded on Ext.1? I created a beat, then I opened an external instrument to group B, was able to hear the Nineteen 80s bass sound with midi notes but I hit play back no sound just midi notes. UGH!
you only need an external instrument setup if you want to create the beat in ableton, if you just want to record the beat into ableton you don’t need an external instrument, just route maschine outputs to an audio track in ableton.
When i connect maschine i want to set up a on midi track midi from..I select maschine and i have only post and pre FX…Do you know whats wrong? Thanks:-)
You need to use the vst version and not the au version
Thanks a lot…:-)
No problem, glad to help
trying to do this but when i go to the second drop down box that has the pre fx and post fx selections i notice you have a second section that says maschine i don’t have that for some reason. only the pre and post fx selection would you happen to know why?
crap i just read the post you literally just answered
Yeah, use the vst version 🙂
nice vid. to complex for my braincells. i would think it would be easier to use maschine as a vst/au inside of the DAW & export the midi data. what’s the advantages of this method compared to what i described?
to get use out of the midi, you’ll still have to understand the routing like this. The advantage of this is for people that prefer to use their DAWs sequencer and just use Maschine as a module.
is it possible for you to make a live template? cheers
You can make project templates in live, yes. I suggest getting it setup how you want then daring that as a template project
Is there any way to get Live to record MIDI of patterns playing in Maschine as they are playing, and also pattern changes on the fly?
I can get Live to register playing in Maschine, just as you have shown – but if I simply play back a MIDI pattern from Maschine, I can see the MIDI level meter in the MIDI channel in Live registering the MIDI signal – BUT – it dosn’t actually record the MIDI itself.
Is there a way around this?
You could do it, you would have to use group midi batch setup on a group, then set midi output for each of the pads to host. Then you’d arm a midi track to receive MIDI from the maschine output. It will record, but you would have to set it up for each group if you wanted to record multiple groups.