Are we gonna pretend like the Maschine+ didn't happen?

I don't understand the hate this is getting.

It is missing a battery, something that if you are going stand alone - you should have.
There is no place to install a hdd - not a big deal as memory sticks and cards are a thing.
It doesn't have touchscreen, but so few people use the touchscreen unless they absolutely have to on the MPCs, that it doesn't seem like it means anything.
So those are the obvious detractors when compared to say the Live.

No speakers, few people care about that.
No CV, not the intended crowd.
so that's comparing it to the newer Live 2.

Then look the other way. It has real and some powerful at that - plug-ins - in the box. I enjoy Hype as much as the next person, but Massive? And if they are putting Massive on there, what's to stop them from getting other synths and plug-ins from Komplete on there? When I think MPCs, I think sampling, when I think NI/Maschine, I think about using their suite of plugins...and sampling (too bad Noir will never come, that is too hard for the processor to handle, my i7 chokes on it sometimes).
It doesn't have a battery or hdd location, but its form factor reminds me of the MPC Studio with an angle, so taking it with you will be a lot easier, both in dimension and weight, than say the Live or Live 2.
4GBs of RAM is nothing to sneeze at, especially compared to what we have with the Live/X/2.
It comes with more storage as well.

And then there is the price. A NEW Live 2 is $1200, this is $1400, so you are paying $200 more - for arguably more features and better hardware. But, there is another difference that "I" am going to fess up to - NI has MASSIVE sales at least once a year. I don't recall Akai doing anything other than tossing us some expansion packs at 50%. NI will give you like $400-$500 of software for FREE with the purchase of the hardware. So if you don't rush into it, you could get a REAL nice come up next June/July.

I'm not saying its perfect, heck I'm not even chasing it down, but its gotten lots of venom thrown its way.
- Unreall

"It doesn't have touchscreen, but so few people use the touchscreen unless they absolutely have to on the MPCs, that it doesn't seem like it means anything."
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I guess I'm one of the few that uses the touchscreen every single time I use the live?!?!?
But I do agree its not a big deal in this case.

Anyone thought about the possibility that the RAM might be expandable? It has standard laptop RAM just like the MPC500/1000/2500/5000 generation.

Think they really went for that sleek footprint by not adding an HD option and battery. Plus powerbanks are a thing now too if you really want to make it that portable.

Menco wrote:Anyone thought about the possibility that the RAM might be expandable? It has standard laptop RAM just like the MPC500/1000/2500/5000 generation.

Think they really went for that sleek footprint by not adding an HD option and battery. Plus powerbanks are a thing now too if you really want to make it that portable.

For those in the Native Instrument world, this is something they've been looking for. I don't need it because the MPC one already does what I need. However, if my thirst for gear took over, I would get the MASCHINE MK3 + MASCHINE Jam and pair it with my Laptop.

Yes, the M+ is using 4 GB dual channel DDR3L RAM, so expanding it could be as easy as, opening the bottom and swapping it out. This form factor seems right up your alley, are you thinking about getting it?

CharlesRandolph wrote:Yes, the M+ is using 4 GB dual channel DDR3L RAM, so expanding it could be as easy as, opening the bottom and swapping it out. This form factor seems right up your alley, are you thinking about getting it?

Unless it’s soldered directly to the board and there is no extra slot designed .
Also even if you place a 32G ram , NI’s devs target on 4G , the official amount of ram , so I don’t think it will make any difference.

Unreallystic wrote:I don't understand the hate this is getting.

Haters gotta hate man.

Tabletop wrote:I guess I'm one of the few that uses the touchscreen every single time I use the live?!?!?
But I do agree its not a big deal in this case.

I use the touchscreen a lot too on the Live... but strictly speaking don't need it. To me the reason it is valuable is because it can dramatically change the user interface while still keeping the knobs/buttons the same. The M+ does have some unlabelled buttons and knobs though... so seriously... shouldn't be a long term problem.

I'll still say though... would love to see this in a keyboard form factor... even if it could only run 50% of the plugin line... would probably get me to re-up my license from Komplete 5 and seriously consider selling off some more gear to pick it up. I really enjoyed the NI ecosystem back in the day... and mostly left the product line behind me because I got tired of the software upgrade cycle breaking everything all the time.

CharlesRandolph wrote: This form factor seems right up your alley, are you thinking about getting it?

Not now. I reinvented my workflow on the 2500 in January, which is really stimulating my creativity and fun to work with. Maybe if I hit a wall and/ or want to rely more on virtual instruments in the future.

SakisX wrote:Unless it’s soldered directly to the board and there is no extra slot designed .
Also even if you place a 32G ram , NI’s devs target on 4G , the official amount of ram , so I don’t think it will make any difference.

I agree, just like Macbooks with solder in RAM. But that's why I said, "could be" because we won't know until they're out in the wild. But considering the form factor, chances are very high it's soldered to the board.

Menco wrote:Not now. I reinvented my workflow on the 2500 in January, which is really stimulating my creativity and fun to work with. Maybe if I hit a wall and/ or want to rely more on virtual instruments in the future.

Make perfects sense to keep streamlining the workflow, until the hardware/software is not in the way. Things could get really interesting if the Maschine Jam is fully integrated and the Komplete Audio 6 MK2 Audio Interface, could be used to expand the I/O to the Maschine+.

Shaptonmalletpig wrote:How do you use MASSIVE without a mouse??

Keyboard codes. Hitting CTRL + P will print out the manual.

Tabletop wrote:"It doesn't have touchscreen, but so few people use the touchscreen unless they absolutely have to on the MPCs, that it doesn't seem like it means anything."
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I guess I'm one of the few that uses the touchscreen every single time I use the live?!?!?
But I do agree its not a big deal in this case.

As someone else mentioned on page 1 - everyone is always clamoring for more buttons - essentially avoiding using the touch screen (there are things we are some what forced to use the touch screen for, but other MPCs had the same feature set without a touchscreen, and what hte touchscreen should be used for, it isn't "great" at). I personally only use the touch screen for the menus and stretching my view as I struggle to select notes to delete or change, or for selecting a block of notes to move around/delete/adjust. I have Maschine through the Komplete collection, but have never used it, so I don't know how beneficial it will be to have/not have a touch screen. At $1400 - it should have one, I just am not mad at it for not having one.

I just am not sickened by the product like a LARGE group of the internet seems to be. I wanted pretty much this for years, I'm not interested anymore because I'm very happy with my various setups (on the go I use either my Live & Launchpad MK3, or Laptop & Akai (2) Fires when I want to use Komplete, and at home I use the X), but there were alot of people clamoring for this, so its weird watching the hate when it finally arrives. If its priced too high, that's a valid argument - the same can be said of the Live 2 - feature wise it has very little more than the One, yet cost what $400-$500 more, or the X which cost anywhere from $600-900 more than the Live, to just have a slightly bigger screen and more connectivity than the One.

But you could say that about MOST NI equipment - most of it is way over-priced or priced to match competing gear even if it itself isn't worth that, but a large part of that price is the software that comes with it, everyone wants ot skip over their ecosystem like it isn't part of the equation, or that they do REAL sales, unlike most music companies. They should over a no software version though for people already part of their ecosystem - I got Komplete Collectors, they aren't giving me anything new with the $300-$300 version of Komplete they'll have packaged in.
- Unreall

Shaptonmalletpig wrote:Sorry mate my MPC doesn’t have the buttons you’ve mentioned?!?!

So once again how do you use MASSIVE??

The VST not your KNOB

Its most likely just like the plug-ins on the MPCs now. NI's hardware is designed to specifically be integrated with their plug-ins, I'm SURE they have that handled neatly.
- Unreall

Unreallystic wrote:I don't understand the hate this is getting.

It is missing a battery, something that if you are going stand alone - you should have.
There is no place to install a hdd - not a big deal as memory sticks and cards are a thing.
It doesn't have touchscreen, but so few people use the touchscreen unless they absolutely have to on the MPCs, that it doesn't seem like it means anything.
So those are the obvious detractors when compared to say the Live.

No speakers, few people care about that.
No CV, not the intended crowd.
so that's comparing it to the newer Live 2.

Then look the other way. It has real and some powerful at that - plug-ins - in the box. I enjoy Hype as much as the next person, but Massive? And if they are putting Massive on there, what's to stop them from getting other synths and plug-ins from Komplete on there? When I think MPCs, I think sampling, when I think NI/Maschine, I think about using their suite of plugins...and sampling (too bad Noir will never come, that is too hard for the processor to handle, my i7 chokes on it sometimes).
It doesn't have a battery or hdd location, but its form factor reminds me of the MPC Studio with an angle, so taking it with you will be a lot easier, both in dimension and weight, than say the Live or Live 2.
4GBs of RAM is nothing to sneeze at, especially compared to what we have with the Live/X/2.
It comes with more storage as well.

And then there is the price. A NEW Live 2 is $1200, this is $1400, so you are paying $200 more - for arguably more features and better hardware. But, there is another difference that "I" am going to fess up to - NI has MASSIVE sales at least once a year. I don't recall Akai doing anything other than tossing us some expansion packs at 50%. NI will give you like $400-$500 of software for FREE with the purchase of the hardware. So if you don't rush into it, you could get a REAL nice come up next June/July.

I'm not saying its perfect, heck I'm not even chasing it down, but its gotten lots of venom thrown its way.
- Unreall

Yeah, I'm confused by no battery. The size is good for transportation, and no battery takes a bit away from that.

Only SD cards up to 1TB were tested. My VI content is over 2TB. Also, I'm not familiar with SD cards, but I'm guessing their read times are not on par with SSDs. For VIs, read times are key.

I use the touch screen on my Live often. MIDI editing, automation editing, etc. Accurate already pointed out automation is an issue with no touch screen.

Aside from CV, there are 1 less set of MIDI I/O and 4 less audio outputs compared to the Live.

The content is great for those that use virtual synths. Personally I have Komplete 12U, so I have almost all of the content. And they don't offer the + without it, so a lot of the value is lost.

4GB RAM is double what's in the Live, but is nothing when dealing with VIs. Cool if you have a synth or 2 in a session. But a unit that runs VIs in standalone should have at least 16GB, and be upgradable.

The hardware is more in line with the One, but twice the price. The content makes up for it to some degree, but a lot of NI users will already have those VIs, like me. The hardware is not even close to the Live, so that $200 difference is not relevant.

I love the idea though. Like I said, have a lot of their instruments. A standalone unit that can play them would do wonders for my workflow. But the hardware specs are sub par. The I/O only covers the basics. There's no battery. And the 4GB won't be enough to use more than a few VIs per session.