Feature | 30 Years
WHAT IS IT?: MPC-INSPIRED MIDI CONTROLLER FOR PAIRED WITH NI’S BEATMAKING SOFTWARE | LAUNCH YEAR: 2009 | LAUNCH PRICE: £515
Maschine was essentially (if obviously, indirectly) pitched as an MPC for the laptop generation. With its square frame and 16 pads ready for sample slicing and finger drumming, the similarities between Native Instruments’ beatmaker and Roger Linn’s original MPC concept are great.
What sets the two devices apart, however, is Maschine’s reliance on software. Whereas – at least back in 2009 – all MPC models made use of internal sampling, Maschine handed off all the actual music making processes to its accompanying software application, which would run on the user’s computer. What made Maschine’s design quietly revolutionary, however, was just how tight the bond between that software and the hardware controller was. We’d already seen plenty of MIDI devices designed to fit a specific application, but Maschine presented a software environment made solely for use with a controller, and a plug-and-play MIDI device with full end-to-end access.
That bond meant that Maschine could offer a tight, fluid workflow, allowing beatmakers to quickly jam loops, tweak and resample, apply effects and then quickly integrate those creations into a DAW.
What we said at the time
“Maschine [sits] squarely in Akai MPC territory. That said, it can’t be used as the centrepiece of a studio since there’s no way to sequence external MIDI gear from its software. As for that other MPC plus, the lack of any software-induced latency, this is down to your audio interface and drivers, but we’re confident that Maschine can hold its own.”
Legacy
The Maschine proved an instant success for NI, and the range expanded and developed rapidly in the decade following the release of version one, incorporating the more compact Maschine Mikro, the expanded Maschine Studio, grid-based Maschine Jam, and a companion iOS version.
In the earlier half of
