Man vs. Maschine

I've been looking into the Native Instruments lineup a lot these days since I've been paying close attention to Traktor Scratch Pro 2, but I haven't touched on many of their other products.  Maschine is aimed at the producer/live performer that needs to get ideas out quick and wants a control surface to do it on.  It's pretty much an MPC on steroids that talks to your computer.  It has sampling capabilities, midi I/O ports for hardware sync, huge stock sound library, intuitive control, functions as a midi controller, and the list keeps going.  From getting down skeletons of tracks to producing full out, Maschine can do it all.  There is one thing you do have to keep in mind; You will need an audio interface in order to use Maschine live since there are no audio ports on the unit itself.

The way the Maschine software talks to the hardware is where it really all comes together.  For those producers that are fully set on hardware, you never really have to look at the computer screen to find what you're looking for.  The two large LCD displays dynamically change depending on what mode Maschine is working in.  From chopping samples to auditioning sounds and creating beats, the workflow of Maschine is smooth sailing.  The browser is laid out similar to other NI products where you can search for a sound by a description of the sound.  You can also tag your own samples for use with Maschine so your sounds are always easy to find.  The other aspect of Maschine is for live performance, and no doubt it's powerful enough to provide you with what you're looking for.  Check out Jeremy Ellis and DJ Shiftee rockin' out with Maschine and Maschine + Traktor to get a sample of what it's capable of.