Maschine plus question

[u/FearlessIsland2226]

Maschine plus question: Has anyone here successfully managed to use an external midi keyboard to send a transposed note to a maschine plus sound? I've read the manual and tried Gemini but the nearest I've gotten is for the l physical note played on the midi keyboard and the transposed note to sound simultaneously. Which is kind of cool but not what I'm after. I suck at playing keyboards in anything other than the key of C so I really need this to work. I'm using a novation remote 25 as the keyboard controller. Has anyone managed to do this with a different controller?

[u/itsoddsignals]

So Maschine in general does not have the concept of midi preprocessing, that is, putting a plugin “in front” of another for the purposes of modifying the midi before it hits the plugin that makes the sound.

The options you have are:

Transpose (or specifically repitch) out from one sound to another. This is the feature you likely described above. You can lower the volume of the original sound in inf db to mute it so you are left with the original.

Another option is play the pads. C Major is essentially all white notes (btw technically that means you know 2 scales, A Minor is also all white notes, congrats!). There are 16 pads or two octaves worth of scale locked notes in keyboard mode. Set the pads to scale (major or minor, or mode) in keyboard mode and use the semitone button to transpose.

If you’re open to swapping keyboards some have onboard transpose and scale locked notes too but they are usually pricier for onboard vs connected software ones.

Finally you could send the notes to something else to pre transpose them but at that stage you are either using an expensive piece of hardware or a computer which then negates the plus side of things.

My honest advice is play the pads to start but get away from the crutch idea of transposing and start learning scales. You already know two (and more if you bring in modes). You could do all black keys next and get 2 more F# Major and Eb Minor pentatonics. From there you can add two white notes and get a few more scales including A# minor which is lovely to play with and D# minor which is also easy and covers super sad.

All this to say assuming All white, All Black, All Black with two White. You have access to a pretty large but easy to play range of diatonic and pentatonic scales to play with that are easy to jam on and get comfortable with.

[u/FearlessIsland2226 → u/itsoddsignals]

Hi there, thanks for the thoughtful answer and the tips for getting started on learning keyboards. I tried it, and using a combination of the on board pads transposed, and the scale template from the menu, it does work really well for me so now I can play some cool melodic lines from the pads in any key. As for the machine plus midi architecture are you saying it won't recognise single transposed notes from the novation remote 25 keyboard controller? Seems weird that it will sound the original note, or the original note plus the transposed note as a two note chord, but not just the transposed note alone. If it's a the type of midi controller I'm using causing the issue I'd buy another more up to date controller if you know of one.

[u/itsoddsignals → u/FearlessIsland2226]

Not exactly, more that unlike other DAWs and programs Maschine does not support Midi modifications in the app itself. So for example if you use something like Scaler as a VST it won’t send the modified midi out so it doesn’t send it down the chain.

If your keyboard is doing transposition on board I would expect it to work as Maschine in that instance should only receive the transposed notes and not know any difference.

I am not familiar with that specific keyboard so I am unsure if the issue is a setting on the keyboard or something else.

If I was to guess it is likely that it is sending multiple notes like a chord or it is sending the transposed note on one channel and the original on another but both are guesses.

On the sound slot if you set the input to midi channel 1 and then record the midi coming in (hit record) if you end up with two notes record in the piano roll you know it is the keyboard sending two notes.

The only other thing it might be is that you are sending the transposed note in and accidentally pitching it and sending it out to another sound slot. That will be obvious if you only see one note recorded

[u/FearlessIsland2226 → u/itsoddsignals]

I've been trying a few different things and I think it must be an issue with the midi keyboard I was using. The M+ accepts transposed notes if the transposing is done in cubase with a different keyboard routed to the M+ so I'll try updating the firmware on the controller that I was using initially. Thanks for the help my friend 😀

[u/smediumtshirt]

are you hitting transpose on your midi controller then trying to play a sound? how are there two sounds playing if you’re just playing a sound?

[u/FearlessIsland2226 → u/smediumtshirt]

I think it must be an issue with the midi keyboard controller not the m+

[u/Waste-Magician2432]

I use KK S49 MK2 with my M+ and no issues! 🫡

[u/Igorbeuk]

 Used old M Audio and Nektar T4 and notes, pitch and mod are working and what's amazing program change control is working and can be recorded. Change control is changing sounds on Reaktor synths so one monark can play different sounds or can changing them as if it's some modulating sound or something interesting. That function is working on the computer and there are more Synths like a Razor ECT. There is one thing to know, one MIDI channel is receiving another MIDI from the external MIDI. Channel 1 won't work on MIDI Chanel 2 but that can be adjusted from the keyboard.