Amsterdam – Haven’t posted in a long time, since I had some difficulties when I was starting up with Native Instruments Maschine. I came from the MPC2KXL and later the MPC 2500 and wanted to have my Maschine to emulate the feel as much as possible as far as programming goes. So here’s some tips that I find give you the swing you’re looking for.
Beware of Latency
There might be more latency with Maschine running in standalone then maschine running as a VST as a lot of DAW’s have latency compensation and Maschine doesn’t. So either you should drop the latency in Maschine to somewehere around 64 beats or run it as a VST and have the latency compensation set up in your host, since running Maschine in Ableton gave me better results then standalone.
Swing settings on Maschine
Usually 50% adds no swing. It’s precisely in the middle of the grid. The event is not pulled to the previous (<50%) or next (>50%) grid. This is 0% in Maschine. When you turn up Swing with Invert off, then the event is pulled to the next grid. When you turn up Swing with Invert on, then the event is pulled to the previous grid. I have found that if I quantize a beat to 1/32T, and apply around 16% to 20% swing on 3/16th it sounds pretty much like the MPC Swing.
How does it translate from MPC to Maschine?
To clarify. There is a difference between grid and cycle. The grid button translates to the first thing on the TC screen on the MPC. 1/16 means 16th notes. 1/16t or 1/16(3) is 16th note triplets etc. The cycle button on Maschines group swing page is not the grid. It only deals with how swing is applied and changes the feel slightly. The MPC does not have this setting but to my ears I do believe the 3/16 cycle mode is how the MPC behaves.
Personal Experiences on Swing
The cycle parameter on the group swing page changes how the swing is applied and changes the feel slightly. The 3/16 sounds the most like my MPC to me. The 6/16 and 1/8 works sometimes too. The 1/8 gives more of a corny jazzy feel and can work on certain parts to create a contrast feel.
For MPC heads. Unlike the MPC, the grid, quantize and swing are all in different places. You have to remember to change the grid settings for the right results. I hardly ever used the 1/8t setting on my MPC but a track I made last night needed that to quantize right so adjust this first. I have been leaving my group swing cycle on 3/16 and swing between 14-20% for my taste. It seems to be a good starting point. Then use quantize 50% once or twice if needed but your grid has to be set proper prior to using quantize. If it sounds to off, hit undo and change the grid.
Nudging – Shifting Notes
For this you have to hit grid and turn the grid to OFF. With the grid off, use select events mode and tap the pad you want to shift. Then use the nudge buttons to slide that part forward or back.. Then hit the nudge button to shift the played notes. When I use nudge with grid off the resolution is 96 ppq which is similar to the most common of MPC’s. Remember when using select events that edits only effect selected events and you can change it back by selecting none in the select/events mode.
Place hihats on different groups when working with different swing settings
I may have a mix of triplets, dotted, strait or standard swing in one pattern. Maschine does not always handle this right. It will want to make my triplets straight etc. It may be due to the way Maschine applies quantize independent of swing instead of quantize with swing. I tried undo and switching the grid but it can’t seem to mix these and get it all right. The MPC seems to be able to always handle this correct without all the fuss. A lot quicker. So Maschine will swing nicely in most cases but if you have different rhythms in the same pattern it may not work as expected. If you run into this you may need to quantize certain pads separately or even place it on a different group. I find it faster to just erase the pad that is off and play it right with no quantize.
So all in all, I found this was very useful info to make the swing function on the Maschine more understandable and a former MPC head up to speed and i hope you did too.
1 – Laezea!
