There is a big debate and multiple dead forums from Abelton and Native Instruments alike. Which one is better, which one should I get, and lastly how well do they work together. I’m here to tell you my experience, what you do with this information is up to you.
My First Native-Instruments Device
I purchased my first Maschine MK1 back in the day after seeing my friend do some amazing things very quickly. He was able to chop samples and make grooves on with ease.
I was using Reason 5 at the time and I wanted something that could integrate with Reasons Redrum like an Akai MPD would but also more advanced.
At the time Reason didn’t support VSTs so I bounced out files to Reason from Maschine software. It worked for me and I ended up making a lot of my songs in the Maschine software and finishing them in Maschine. At the time both Maschine and Reason were not considered DAWs by the music community.
I Needed a DAW
After some time I started to have workflow issues. Exporting loops to another DAW that wouldn’t loop correctly after exporting it, “Link” not being as good as I expected and the inability to have a midi controller that integrated with my DAW like Abletons’ Push 2 or the Nectar for Reason.
I needed a complete DAW that could make a whole song, with a good midi controller/ drum-pad/ sequencer that would operate with it. So I purchased Ableton Live 9 and a Push 2.
I watched tons of YouTube reviews before making my decisions and saw people saying that you could use both together and I watched countless workflow videos that showed using Maschine as a VST in DAWs and decided to make my purchase.
Adjusting to My New Setup
When I first got my Push 2 I opened it and it was beautiful, It felt like quality, it looked like quality, and it was packed and delivered like it was a quality piece of equipment.
A pet peeve of mine is expensive items packed cheaply, how cheap can some people be?
I loved everything about the Push 2 except I couldn’t make music as fast as I did when using the Maschine.
This may be personal to me but I could ‘t find the right sounds for my genre fast enough and I didn’t have certain UI features like a playable note repeat buttons and adjustable repeat buttons.
The Maschine just seemed to be integrated more tightly with the software and the sounds seemed more suited to make the kind of music that I wanted to.
At this time I didn’t know Ableton as well as I do now and this may be why I felt this way at the time about the Ableton software ease of use vs Maschine. I know Ableton better now and I still feel the same way lol.
VSTs did work in Ableton but you have to use it as an external instrument, so basically you don’t see any MIDI notes in Ableton while using Maschine as a VST or you have to trigger Maschine from Abelton via MIDI routing and then export the audio back to your DAW.
You can also choose to route your DAWs via your audio interface, loopback, and so on. The point I’m trying to tell you is that It’s not as straightforward as the forums and videos may make it seem.
Hardware vs Hardware
Push 2 is a wonderful big piece of equipment that works great with Ableton but still requires you to touch the mouse sometimes.
What the Push excels at is the advanced features like pattern sequencing, integrating with live, triggering, and recording loops for live playing or song recording.
What the Push 2 isn’t that great at is having fat drum pads and feeling like an actual drum-pad midi device. It’s a little big to have on your desk along with your Maschine if you want to run a duo set up in my opinion.
The Maschine excels at Feeling like an actual drum-pad device that most people are used to. It integrates even better with the software than Ableton, It’s very portable and the new ones even have there own built-in audio interfaces. I had a lot of fun with Maschine over the years and think they are a great option for anyone wanting to make music.
What Maschine lacks at is software updating and the way you have to update or install the software through Native Access.
With That Said
After years of using both software together, I noticed that the Maschine is having issues with the Push 2. This may be only a Windows 10 issue, but when I have Komplete installed my Push 2 loads a logo and then the screen turns back.
There are countless articles out there about this Push 2 problem and NI software. There are also problems of this issue without the mention of NI products being mentioned as well so take this with a grain of salt but If you run into trouble uninstalling NI to see if your expensive Ableton equipment works is worth a shot.
Keep Going!
So this will be bye-bye for now until NI or Ableton figures this out or I stumble across help.
We will always have problems as music makers but, be resilient and use what works for you until it doesn’t and then make it work. If it’s not worth the time or effort move on and keep creating.