Native Instruments Maschine Mk3

Clearly, the biggest single change made to
Maschine for Mk3 is the addition of those big,
colourful dual displays: a massive upgrade from
Mk2’s narrow, monochrome dot matrix screens.
Previously the sole preserve – and a major
selling point – of Maschine Studio, these are
essentially the same 480x272-pixel LED jobs,
but with lower power requirements and better
viewing angles that go some way to alleviating
the aforementioned perpendicular usage issues.
As with Studio, the new displays bring
numerous elements of the software to life
directly on the hardware in all their full graphical
glory, including the browser, the mixer, the Plug-
in Chains, the arrangement, Scenes, and the
Pattern and Sample editors. Yes, you can edit
and step sequence MIDI in the piano roll using
just the screens, knobs and pads; and although
it’s never going to be as quick as using the
mouse, the system as a whole absolutely works.
While Mk3’s tarted-up screens don’t reveal a
transformative new layer of functionality (by and
large, they visualise the same things operated
by the knobs and buttons above and below as
their equivalents on Mk2), they make that focal
window onto the Maschine software ininitely
prettier and more informative than before. Now
you really can get pretty much everything done
without looking at your monitor or touching the
mouse if you really want to. And as any Maschine
Studio user will attest, once you’ve used them
for ten minutes, you simply can’t go back.
On the buttons
Every new version of Maschine ires up debate
among the, er, inger-drumming community
when it comes to the all-important pads, which
NI naturally claim to have improved with each
iteration. Mk3 will be no exception, but these are
certainly our favourite Maschine pads yet.
“Clearly, the biggest
single change made to
Maschine for Mk3 is
the addition of those
big, colourful displays”
Maschine 2
now includes
the nifty
Ideas View
and handy
Bass Synth
It’s been a notable omission since
version 1 of the hardware, but inally, NI
have taken the obvious step of building
an audio interface into Maschine. Not
only does this give those working in
small home studios – perhaps with
Maschine and an audio interface as
their only pieces of external hardware
– the option to claim back a bit of desk
space. More importantly, though, it
means live performers now have one
less box to lug around.
The interface itself is nothing
remarkable, being a simple 2-in/4-out
setup capable of recording and
playback at up to 24-bit/96kHz quality,
and appearing as a regular audio
interface in your operating system and
applications, including, of course,
Maschine 2. The requisite quarter-inch
jack sockets are all located on the back
panel: Left and Right TRS Line Ins, Left
and Right TRS Line Outs, a dynamic Mic
In (there’s no phantom power, and this
overrides the Left Line In when
connected) and a headphone output.
Small volume and Gain knobs sit
alongside them.
Audio quality is great, and on our
test Mac, we got round trip latency as
low as 4.24ms at 32 samples, 7.87ms at
128 samples, and 25.3ms at 512
samples. The headphone out goes very
loud indeed – good news for on-stage
usage scenarios.
As you’d expect, the established
5-pin MIDI In/Out ports and quarter-
inch Pedal input are still in place, too.
Wired for sound
Live performers rejoice, for Maschine Mk3 includes a 2-in/4-out audio interface
Signiicantly more sensitive than those of Studio
and Mk2, supremely consistent and increased in
size but not centre-to-centre distance, they feel
more spacious and responsive than ever.
While the larger pads mark a minor tweak to
playability, the new button layout realises a
complete recalibration of Maschine’s worklow
that, after a period of adjustment, proves
profoundly efective. For starters, the three main
pad modes – Pad, Keyboard and Step – are now
switched using a row of buttons above the pads
themselves, rather than the random positions of
old, with the Chords button activating the Scale
and Chord engine.
Beyond that, the layout changes comprise a
combination of Maschine Studio-inspired
repositioning (the Control Section buttons –
Channel, Mixer, Plug-in, Arranger, Browser and
Sampling, doing away with the now-redundant
Control button), and the relocation of several
previously Shift-operated functions to their own
dedicated buttons: Fixed Velocity, Events and
Lock/Extended Lock, the last simplifying access
to Maschine 2’s superb new snapshot morphing.
There are a handful of all-new buttons, too:
File/Save, for opening, saving and copying
projects, arrangement/pattern Follow, Tap
Tempo, Settings (metronome timing and
volume, count-in time, etc), and the Smart Strip
modes – see Strip Club.
The Note Repeat button has been increased
in size in response to user feedback, making it
easier to hit in the heat of the moment. A valid
change, but it’s still too far away from the pads,
and we’ve already found ourselves coming very
November 2017 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 87
native instruments maschine mk3 / reviews <
CMU249.rev_maschinemk3.indd 87 18/09/2017 17:45