Maschine and Cubase

hi. i run cubase 9.2 on 12 core mac Pro 3.33gig with o/s Hi Siera.

can anyone with similar set up, advise how well Native Instruments Maschine and Cubase work together.

workflow, ease of use, problems or issues? the usual stuff

thanks in advance

Spaceman 56

Hi,
Maschine and Cubase have always worked well with each other.
I’ve never had a problem using them together.
That being said, my Mashine controller is rotting on a cart in my studio. Nice unit, but it doesn’t fit my workflow.

I’m on a Windows pc, but I use Maschine and Cubase together. I keep it really simple. I open Maschine in stand alone mode and simply drag and drop audio from Maschine in to Cubase as needed. I usually start everything I do in Maschine, and once I get an idea going, I move it all in to Cubase as audio for mixing and arranging.

thanks. how well does the drag and drop process work?

did it take long to get maschine up and running?

at the moment i use an AKAI pad controler and NI Battery as my sound source for mdi drums.

wondering if maschine and learning another software system is worth the money and effort.

thanks spaceman

It actually took me a while to figure out Maschine. I won’t lie. There is definitely a learning curve there. I was an Ableton Live user before I tried Maschine, and it was somewhat difficult to get my head around Maschine’s workflow. The reason that I stayed with it is because I love how you can browse all of Maschine’s Expansions as well as all of Komplete directly from the hardware. Since then, they’ve also added the ability to browse and control all NKS ready plugins too, and they all have audio previews of each preset. Once you get the hang of Maschine, it’s really easy to use. I don’t like the sequencer for arranging an entire song. I look at it like it’s the ultimate scratch pad, and nothing more.

The drag and drop process works great AFAIC. I just solo each pad of a group and drag the audio in to it’s own audio track in Cubase. Once I’m done, I can simply close out Maschine and work in Cubase alone. If I find that I want to add something else from Maschine, I just reopen it. If it’s just something as simple as adding in another vst instrument, I’ll just add that in Cubase. It’s really hard to beat Maschine’s hands on workflow. That’s why I love to start things there, but for mixing and arrangement, it just can’t compete with Cubase at all.

Set a day aside to setup Templates…Song Templates and Instrument templates, you’ll be glad you did.
90% of my tracks start with Maschine open and ready to go inside Cubase. No routing to worry about, Midi…etc.

They work well together.

:nerd:

thanks guys. I have been using cubase since the 80s on Atari, recently tried logic but went back to cubase again.

might be worth me getting a machine just for Fun. thanks Spaceman

If you simply “Google Maschine Cubase integration” you will find (at least I found) a lot of great information. Even integrate Maschine with Superior and EZ drummer triggering plus Battery. It took me some time to set up, but worth it.

From Maschines beginning I have always felt NI marketing it as “the centerpiece of your studio” is a joke. Contrary to fans wishing NI would morph Maschine into a real DAW, Maschine isn’t…and for me never will be. It’s just another tool of many in the studio.

+1

Maschine is a decent sketch pad/sequencer on its own, takes some getting used to but it should get the job done. Don’t expect the Maschine software to be competitive with any full-fledged DAWs like Cubase or Logic. Further, Maschine loads inside Cubase as a VST instrument instead of Rewire, this cripples some functionality of the hardware when using default settings.

All that said, Maschine is a lot of fun :grinning:

I had mine working with cubase 11, but when I upgraded to cubase 12 for some reason, the play/record and other transport buttons are not communicating with Cubase anymore. I can’t get my maschine to start/stop cubase so I can record on maschine and sync it with other audio from cubase.

Ups, Maschine transport buttons are working within a DAW? Maybe in MIDI mode (never tried this) but never when using the Maschine plugin. Interesting.

Yes, in MIDI Mode. Maschine has Mackie Control Emulation, so it’s pretty easy to set up almost the entire controller for Cubase (or any DAW that supports MCU).

Since Cubase 12 there seems to be a bug where you have issues if you use more than one Mackie Controller with the DAW. Makes Tracks 1-8 (Bank 1) inaccessible to the other controller and it’s just a PITA. I ended up removing my Maschine MK3 from Cubase because of it.

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ah ok. I’ve setup my Maschine with the new MIDI Remote to control the stock EQ and this works fine, maybe the transport buttons can assigned, I’ll will try this.
But that’s not the same like MCU though.