Of Magix and the Maschine
merry music-making for all
Beyond the distressing and tiresome joys of Christmas, I have been making slow and sedate progress with my studies into producing music using a personal computer.
Let's hear it for Magix Music Maker
First off I released a track… the first for something like a year and something very different to the cover versions that came before. This latest composition, Made with Audacity, came out of an attempt to learn the free Magix Music Maker package. I didn't get far with my studies in Magix, partly due to being hauntingly struck by the sounds of the initial tutorial lesson. And partly it's because Magix is so easy and accessible you almost don't need to learn it. I knocked up a new track.
There are some harsh limits to what you can do with the free package, however. Being unable to import your own samples, you are restricted to the use of just 125 loop samples in the free library. One lovely feature of Music Maker is its very accessible repitching facility. These samples can be very easily repitched to different keys. And that makes music easy to make. Great! Music Maker is a go-er in my book. A thumbs up.
Understanding the Maschine
Onto matters which oddly feel more important... setting up, learning and attempting to understand the Maschine and its multiplicity of software interfaces I can try to unfathom. How does this beast of a beat-maker work? After a few days I progressed beyond the stage where it was all utter nonsense; just a plethora of mostly unresponsive buttons.
Stage two I worked solely with the Maschine software interface. Basically this thing is a sequencer in itself, no DAW necessary. It will do everything for you if you want… be your keyboard, your mixer and your compositional arranger. This, however, isn't so ideal when you have a perfectly good DAW (Reaper, say) for mixing and arranging and a more intuitive 61-keys dedicated keyboard instrument.
Stage three in fathoming Maschine, then, was trying to use it as a plug-in in Reaper both as a MIDI controller (knobs and pads) and for its software drum-kits. Getting this all to work as I want was/is tricky and actually (to be honest) some of the most boring and frustrating music-making work I have engaged in. I search online for things like 'Reaper Maschine Mk1 templates'. Machine Mk1 is very old news and most of the online articles are set up for Mk2. My Mk2 interface just has a lot of broken links (it's all in German actually!). This is pretty much where I'm at: getting Maschine to work with Reaper in a sensible way I can understand... i.e. I create a track, load up a drumkit, hit the pads and play, record. This is a struggle. Using Maschine as a plug-in in Reaper records a clip in Maschine's internal sequencer but not as a Reaper track. Which is weird. I may get there eventually.
On my table
Not too much on my table today. The same sci-fi DVDs as last time. Little Mix heading back to Amazon. And 'Build Your Own Music PC.' Haven't had a look yet but this magazine from 2003 could make a fun project. It'll just be more distraction from the key task at hand… making music… but it will make a fun read.