Rightio!!! I’ve had my eye on this piece of machinery for a very very very long time. I watched all of the prototype videos and I also loved and respected the fact that the hardware was designed by someone from our culture.
This is tailor made for the culture in every single way, it’s ergonomic in the sense that the pads are laid out in an octave and unique in the sense that every button has a purpose, unlike other hardware manufacturers who overcomplicate the layout and functionality. I haven’t played with the product, just taken a look at the video demos, but the pads seem much more responsive and less likely to cause arthritis later in life from hitting them too hard.
This is fucking excellent!!! It can bus power your USB midi keyboard controller!!! Something you can’t do with NI Maschine, MPC etc and you’re also able to assign controls to parameters such as filtering etc.
Now let’s get down to the crunch…
Pocket Damage: £799 via Soundware.co.uk
It would make sense to trade in my NI Maschine and cop this because I’m travelling to the States in a few weeks. Apart of me questions whether its too good to be true but the other half realises that this is what I wanted way before the Maschine -the NI Maschine being the consolation prize because this was not available. Fair enough the price tag is pretty hefty but for what this piece of machinery is capable of, I can’t complain. I also love that it fits inside my rucksack and it doesn’t require mains power to operate. I better get to saving and finding a buyer for my Maschine.
Conclusion Update 10/03/2012
Stereotypically ‘urban’ if we’re talking about the name, brand font and general aesthetic BUT £799.00 for a standalone groove machine with this much capabilities is aiiight if it were say 2005 because the portability of the NI Maschine Mikro (£275) and Akai’s new MPC Studio (£399) offer portability, performance, versatility, efficiency and the added bonus of a proven manufacturers track record at a much lower price.
I should also add that in january the NI Maschine that I once wanted to sell began to make sense and now it’s my first port of call to get grooves down in seconds.
Ghost.
Related articles
- NI puts out Maschine Mikro controller, iMaschine iPhone app (electronista.com)
- Maschine News: Portable Mikro; Finger Drumming with Jeremy Ellis; Maschine for iOS (createdigitalmusic.com)
- Microkorg, MPC, Maschine (gearslutz.com)
- Product Review – MASCHINE From Native Instruments – Part I (blogcritics.org)
- Could Maschine Mikro replace my midi keyboard? (gearslutz.com)
- Maschine instead of midi? (gearslutz.com)
- Module Maschine Sampler (gearslutz.com)
- iMaschine: a cool new beat-making app (lostateminor.com)
- Maschine Mikro review (engadget.com)
- Software Native Instrument Maschine (gearslutz.com)
- MaschineR: Maschine Reason controller by Retouchcontrol (gearslutz.com)
