Update: New Match Made in heaven: MPC 4k and Reason

I have had Reason for awhile, but to be honest I have never used it much besides a couple times when I first got it because I hate mouse clicky producing. Anyways I hooked it up with the 4k as a sound module, which was easy as pie, and I am extremely satisfied with the result! Reason it a beast! It is like a digital sampler, several synths, rompler similar to a motif etc, and much more. This goes so dope with the mpc 4k. Between this, the samples I have in my 4k, maschine as a sound module, ableton ,recycle, my m2k and my rm1x which I all required in the last year since i got into making beats- If I am not satisifed with this setup and can't make beats with it I should get the hell out of the game. I am sooo glad I went back and gave Reason a second chance....editing the synth parameters with my ms2k is so great it feels so intuitive. Long live the 4k baby: Bringing shiz back to life!

tomc3084 wrote:I have had Reason for awhile, but to be honest I have never used it much besides a couple times when I first got it because I hate mouse clicky producing. Anyways I hooked it up with the 4k as a sound module, which was easy as pie, and I am extremely satisfied with the result! Reason it a beast! It is like a digital sampler, several synths, rompler similar to a motif etc, and much more. This goes so dope with the mpc 4k. Between this, the samples I have in my 4k, maschine as a sound module, ableton ,recycle, my m2k and my rm1x which I all required in the last year since i got into making beats- If I am not satisifed with this setup and can't make beats with it I should get the hell out of the game. I am sooo glad I went back and gave Reason a second chance....editing the synth parameters with my ms2k is so great it feels so intuitive. Long live the 4k baby: Bringing shiz back to life!

Cool. I have Reason coupled with 4k also. It's a good combo. I first used it with 2000xl which i sold to upgrade. Sequencing Reason on MPC works great for me. I still using 3.0.

You may also want to take a look at the XT Rewire VST plugin which lets you use Maschine's sequencer as a rewire host with Reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWBP49y9AUA

Dude......I DID NOT ask anything WHATSOEVER about maschine. Seriously though, do you have like some sort of alert eveytime the work "maschine" is mentioned in a thead, or do you just have no life and NI pays you that well?

And I do not use maschine's sequencer, if you read my entire post you would have seen that, 4ks sequencer is 100x better

^^^^^^^

tomc3084 wrote:Dude......I DID NOT ask anything WHATSOEVER about maschine. Seriously though, do you have like some sort of alert eveytime the work "maschine" is mentioned in a thead, or do you just have no life and NI pays you that well?

No need to get your panties in a bunch. Just sharing information that could be useful since I noticed you have Maschine as I find sequencing Reason with rewire this way with Maschine's sequencer to be much better than just using the MPC as a MIDI controller for Reason.

I never said I use the mpc ONLY as a midi controller for reason. I said I use it as a midi controller and a sequencer, get your facts strait. Why do you bother in these forums anyways man?

tomc3084 wrote:I never said I use the mpc ONLY as a midi controller for reason. I said I use it as a midi controller and a sequencer, get your facts strait.

I meant to say sequencer too. I still find sequencing Reason with rewire this way with Maschine's sequencer to be much better than just using the MPC as a sequencer or MIDI controller for Reason.

That's cool, I am glad it works good for you. At the end of the day it is all about what's comfortable and what helps you be most productive when making your music. MPC Vs Maschine Vs MV Vs LinndDrum Vs Ableton with a MPd etc bla bla bla who cares, I am so sick of those type threads. Don't let people make desicisions for you, do what feels right to you, and use what feels right to you, period. Enough of these forums now though, I am off to make a beat with some newly acquired Akai CDs and some new vinyl I just obtained. Cheers, and let the creativity flow, not matter what you use!


-Tom

P.S. So you find the Maschine's sequencer to be superior to the MPC 4000.......That is what you're saying all along, correct? So I take it then that you own a MPC 4000, right? Else wise why would you be in the 4k forums, unless you have one or are looking to buy one.....?

tomc3084 wrote:So you find the Maschine's sequencer to be superior to the MPC 4000.......That is what you're saying all along, correct? So I take it then that you own a MPC 4000, right?

Yes, I've owned and used several MPCs including the 4k. There are some fundamental differences between how the MPC works and how Maschine works that makes things so much faster on Maschine. MPC's sequencer forces you to constantly stop the sequencer to make parameter changes whereas Maschine lets you keep the sequencer running the whole time. Integration within a software environment and the elimination of tracking makes a huge difference. It's especially crucial in a professional setting where you need to meet deadlines. Furthermore:

Maschine allows you to use 4 insert effects on each pad for every group, the MPC 4k is just not structured like that effects wise.

If you are in to slicing samples, maschine does non destructive slicing, the MPC 4k slicing is destructive.

Maschine allows you to do sync sampling which pretty much treats sampling as musical loops. Say you wanted to record a guitar riff to your beat into Maschine. Sync sampling allows you to set a loop length and will record your riff as the beat plays for your specified loop length. Its really convenient for adding live instruments direct to your sequence.

Maschine does XO style step recording if you are into programming your drums in the same way you would on say a TR-808

You already know about using Maschine as a VST/AU plugin within a host and now it can host VST/AU plugins directly within Maschine.

You already know about dragging and dropping audio STEMS and MIDI from Maschine to your DAW

You should know that Maschine is bus powered and can run off you laptop battery if you use one.

Maschine's browser allows you to tag your files and folders for quick access. You can specify the sound type in Maschine; for example if you have a folder full of claps, you can tag this folder in Maschine so that Maschine knows this folder contains claps. This makes your workflow much easier when building tracks because now you no longer have to search for sounds by dropping down into an absolute file directory, you can search directly for the type of sound you were looking for. Major workflow advantage if you make use of it. I love how I can access and organize my entire library in it's browser system. That means I can quickly get to all of my sounds, that's always been a huge thing for me. I used to have an autoload folder on the 4k and would just have it max out my ram with all my sounds I wanted, or at lest have it 75% full lol.

Speaking of FX you should know that Maschine has a greater variety of FX than the MPC 4k. You will find FX such as Resochord, Metaverb, Grain Delay, Grain Stretch, quite useful. The distortion is like nothing I ever heard in any groove box because you can make it self oscillate which is dope for creating some unique kick sounds. I love how quickly I can add fx or change the parameters of a sound.

Automation of parameters on Maschine is much more comprehensive than that found on the MPC 4k.

These are some of the things I found to be different in using the two besides all of the obvious things.

yeah maschine is really good...thats why you spend all your time on this forum

Maschine is still host dependent in order to function to its full potential. It's also based on 32 note polyphony which isn't enough in my book, so I'll stick with my 4k.

dabmeister wrote:It's also based on 32 note polyphony

Never realised that.