Native Instruments' Maschine

I have a (quite reasonably sized) cupboard in my studio that is jam-packed with midi controllers, audio interfaces, FX processers and the such like. All of which have been purchased, used for varying (usually very short) amounts of time and subsequently banished to the shelves of the aforementioned cupboard.

There is however one piece of kit sitting on my desk that has overcome my short and fickle attention span and avoided deportation to the cupboard - Native Instruments' Maschine.

I use Maschine in the studio as a drum machine and found the sound library that accompanies it to be perfectly adequate to produce beats for any number of genres. It is very easy though to create kits using your own samples, which is something I spend hours doing. You can easily mould each sample using the on board sound shaping functions (filters, envelopes, effects, etc.). It also features third party VST support so the scope for sound design is huge!

My other use for Maschine is as a midi controller for Traktor when DJing. I finally gave up on cds last year and  flirted with various other controllers, but none really seemed to grab me by the balls. They were all either; too big and cumbersome, too small and fiddly or (most commonly) they lacked the tactility that I needed. Using Maschine I can control every Traktor function that I could ever need. I can load, cue and play tracks, assign effects and alter parameters, skip forward and back seamlessly through the track and set up multiple cue points and loops all on the fly.

It is worth noting that I am not even scratching the surface of what Maschine is capable of. I am constantly learning new things about it and it has never let me down. in theory it should be possible to produce a full track from conception, to arrangement, to mixing, right through to the mastering process using only Maschine. I haven't attempted this yet, but if I do...you will be the first to know!