Native Instruments Maschine is revolutionizing the way we make and perform music. With its super intuitive Hardware & Software, lightning fast workflow and 8GB sound library, you can literally make a whole idea for a track in minutes!
While it was originally made with the Studio in mind, Maschine has become a staple piece of gear for a lot of live acts and now for DJs! With a recent Traktor update, Traktor introduced Virtual MIDI (for Mac only), which allows you to synchronize Traktor to anything that receives MIDI clock (such as Maschine, Ableton Live, Roland 303 etc) without using any MIDI Cables. If you’re a PC user you can download MIDI Yoke, which essentially does the same thing as Traktor’s Virtual MIDI. This will allow you to create beats and trigger samples over whatever tracks you’re spinning in perfect sync using a single soundcard for both programs!
In my previous Maschine videos I showed how to use Maschine as a MIDI controller for Traktor Pro and gave out my 4 deck MIDI mapping which you can download by going to DJEndo.com/traktor_setting.
Every DJ who I have set up with this mapping has never turned back.
Carl Cox and Nic Fanciulli have been using my Maschine Mapping for a couple years now. Nic is even known to sometimes use two Maschine controllers on stage.
Both Carl Cox and Nic Fanciulli love Maschine so much that they each got theirs customized!
David Morales just started using my Maschine Mapping a few months ago and claims that he doesn’t ever want to go back to the old way of mixing ever again. This is coming from someone who would literally ban me from his house if I ever mentioned the sync button, so that was a shock to me!
Carl Cox had something happen to his settings (I think it was a drunk girl who hit a knob while the “learn” button was on), so he took a break from Maschine for a while and used the X1’s. After I fixed his Maschine settings at his officina at Space Ibiza, Carl looked at me and said “I’M BACK!!” and then destroyed the room!
Here is a video of Carl Cox using Maschine at Monster Massive LA.
Dubfire is another DJ that I set up with Traktor and Maschine, except he is using Maschine as a plug in inside of Ableton (for separate volume control and FX over each drum bank). Also Richie Hawtin and Chris Liebing are all currently using Maschine and Traktor on two computers, both using Ableton as a host for Maschine on their slave computers. Both use the Allen & Heath Xone 92 Mixer for the extra channels, and for Send and Return FX.
Here is a video I took of Richie Hawtin tag teaming with Dubfire at Womb adventure in Japan. Dubfire was using 2 computers. One computer was running Traktor (4 decks) with 2 Kontrol X1’s and a Roland Foot Pedal, and the other computer was running Ableton Live with Maschine as a plug in. Richie was using 2 computers as well. One was running Traktor (4 decks) controlled by 2 Xone 2D’s, and the other computer was running Ableton Live and Maschine. Both setups were plugged into an Ethernet Hub which was where all the MIDI was sent from Richie Hawtin's computer to Dubfire’s computer.
Here is a video of Chris Liebing using Traktor and Maschine at Nature One Festival in Germany. You can see he is using the step sequencer to sequence drum rolls, and the swing knob to stir things up.
While this is amazing what these artists are doing, not everyone has the money for two computers, or two Maschine Controllers, and doesn’t have the space in their suitcases for all of that gear. I have figured out a way to use both Traktor and Maschine on the same computer, and same soundcard without having to even use a MIDI cable.
Syncing Traktor and Maschine might take you a few minutes of setting it up and adjusting the metronome offset (click to click!), but once you have the two programs sync’d to one another, those settings will be saved for each time you load Maschine and Traktor.
Here is how it is done:
- Open Traktor first
- In Traktor open your preferences (the Gear Icon in the upper right hand side of the screen)
- Go to the MIDI Clock section of the Preferences and turn on the option for “Send MIDI Clock.” I always keep the MIDI Clock sending offset at zero ms.
- Make sure your soundcard is set to “Audio 8 DJ” or whatever soundcard you’re using.
- Make sure your “Output Routing” is set correctly in the Traktor Preferences. If you're using a DJ Mixer (not the internal Traktor Mixer), choose External. I typically have Traktor routed through the Audio 8 DJ to channels 1–2 (Deck A), 3–4 (Deck B), 5–6 (Deck C), and 7–8 (Deck D). I will also use outputs 7–8 as the outputs in Maschine and share Maschine with Deck D’s channel.
- Next thing you're going to want to do is go to the Layout Manager tab and make sure your Global section is showing, so you can see the Master Clock and Effects at the top.
- Now we’re going to make a new MIDI device in the controller editor so that Traktor can send MIDI clock to Maschine.
- Go to Preferences / Controller Manager
- Under the “Device” dropdown menu click on “Add” and then select “Generic MIDI”. This will add a new MIDI device, which in this case is simply a port to send MIDI clock.
- Rename this device by clicking on “Edit” under the Device dropdown menu, and name this device “CLOCK”
- Next to the device called “CLOCK” you are going to set the “Out-Port” to “Traktor Virtual MIDI” by clicking on the drop down menu under “Out-Port” and selecting “Traktor Virtual MIDI.” Also set the In-Port to “None” to prevent any MIDI loops.
- Make sure no other device is sending MIDI clock through this port. You will do this by selecting each device in the “Device” menu and setting the Out Port to whatever the controller’s port is (example – Allen & Heath Xone 2D). You want to make sure that no Out Port is set to “All Ports”
- For the clock device, make sure the Device Target is set to Focus.
- The next thing we’re going to do is set Maschine to receive MIDI clock from Traktor. We can do this by doing the following:
- Open Maschine and go to the Preferences window, and click on “File” – Audio MIDI Settings.
- Click on the “MIDI” Tab
- Where it says “Traktor Virtual Output” change the status to “On”
- Now choose your soundcard in Maschine by going to the Audio Tab (above) and choosing “Audio 8 DJ” or whatever Audio Interface you’re using.
- Select your Audio Routing for Maschine by going to the Routing Tab and choosing what Outputs you want to send Maschine out of. I like to pick output 7–8 (Deck D) on my Audio 8 DJ, so I can use the 4th channel on my DJ Mixer either for Deck D in Traktor or Maschine, or BOTH!
- Now that we’ve created a virtual device to send MIDI clock in Traktor, and set up Maschine as a Slave to Traktor, now we’re going to start sending MIDI Clock from Traktor into Maschine. Here’s how to do it:
- At the top of the Traktor screen click on the Metronome Icon next to the effects panel. This will show the Master Clock panel of Traktor.
- Click on the Play | Pause button in the Master Clock Panel. This will send MIDI clock out of Traktor. I like to have the Master Clock Mode be in “Auto” Mode (which means whatever deck has been playing the longest is the Master Deck), but if you are just using controllers you might want to use “Internal” Master Clock Mode.
- Press the Sync button in Traktor’s MIDI Clock panel. This will tell Maschine where the ‘one’ is in the track (the first beat in a measure) and will start playback in Maschine. If you switch Maschine to Step Sequencer mode, you should see the pads start flash to the beat across the 16 pads and the play button should be lit up.
- Now that we have MIDI clock sending from Traktor to Maschine, now we have to make sure the two programs are in SYNC with each other by adjusting Maschine’s Sync Offset Delay, and using the metronome from both programs to Match each other. Here is how we do this:
- In Traktor’s Master Clock panel, turn on the Tick button. Also turn on the Cue button for Deck A. This will make it so you can hear a metronome (click) sound representing Traktor’s master clock.
- With the Play button enabled in Traktor’s Master Clock panel, Click on the SYNC button in Traktor’s Master Clock to make sure its sending MIDI clock.
- On the Maschine Hardware, turn on the Metronome by holding the Shift Button and pushing play. Now you should have an Audible Metronome (Tick) playing in both programs.
- The next thing you are going to do is adjust the “Sync Offset Slave” in Maschine, so that the metronomes in both programs are playing perfectly in Sync. To do this, go to the Maschine Preferences – General Tab. Where says “Sync Offset Slave” in the General Tab, click on the up and down for Sync Offset Slave and now here comes the tricky part (or simple if you know how to beatmatch).
- To match the Metronomes, drag the Sync Offset Slave meter up and down until the Metronomes are playing in time. Take your time and make sure they are perfectly together. You might even want to experiment with using a kick from Maschine with a track in Traktor to make sure you have the clocks tuned up nice and tight. I had to adjust my Sync Offset Slave to about -32 ms, but that value is probably different on different computers.
Once Traktor and Maschine are in Sync, we’re ready to rock!
On the Maschine Hardware switch to Step Mode by clicking on Step.
Now play a track in Traktor. As soon as the song gets to the “1” (the first beat in a measure)(ex 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4) hit the sync button on Traktor’s Master clock. You should see the step sequencer playing, starting at the bottom pads and working its way up.
Now the 2 programs are in sync and it’s time to start loading up those drums and drumming to the rhythm of your DJ set!
Now we can create and edit Grooves and Performances Live that we can even save for later use, or even delete and start fresh the next night.
One thing a lot of people might not know about the Maschine hardware is that you can actually toggle between using Maschine in MIDI mode (using it as a controller for Traktor), and using it to control the Maschine software (for making beats) at the same time, and go back and forth all night long.
You can toggle back and forth between controlling Traktor and Maschine by pressing “Shift – Control” on the Maschine controller.
Time to take it to the next level!