The latest additions to NI's music production controller ranges should be highly appealing to those looking for more affordable or portable options.
Soft Maschine
Both the A-Series and Mikro MkIII come with the full-featured Maschine software and plug-in and enjoy the latest enhancements to the platform. The most significant of these is the ability to work with Scenes independently of the timeline arrangement. This is done in the Ideas View, where Scenes are organised as columns comprising combinations of the Patterns you've created. Superficially it might seem similar to Ableton Live's Session view, but it's a fundamentally different and arguably more efficient approach. If you want to create song arrangements in Maschine, Scenes can be dropped into the timeline as 'Sections'.
Maschine software now comes with all NI's keyboards and pad controllers.The Mikro can recall Scenes and Patterns directly from the Pads. Using the Mikro MkIII hardware to set which Patterns are active in each Scene is painful as you have to skip between Scene, Group and Pattern modes. The encoder on the A-Series makes slightly shorter work of this, but this is a task that's much slicker on the Maschine Jam or the S-Series keyboards.
I'm really happy to see that the Lock button has found its way onto the Mikro. This captures a temporary snapshot of all mixer and device parameters in your project, for recall later. However, you can't save multiple snapshots or morph as you can on the other Maschines.
The other significant addition to Maschine since our last visit is the handling of audio clips. You can now record or drop in loops and they'll be stretched or pitched into time with your song. Audio clips show as waveforms in Sound slot lanes. This is handled automatically by the new Audio device, which provides either continuous audio playback or gating/pitching from MIDI.
Maschine is supremely set up for generating improvised performances and jamming out drum arrangements on the fly. This makes it ever more frustrating that Maschine still can't capture a performance into its Song timeline in the way that Live or some drum machines can. NI made a public announcement about adding this feature a long time ago, but sadly their roadmap re-routed in other directions.
Final Thoughts
The latest additions to NI's music production controller ranges should be highly appealing to those looking for more affordable or portable options. The Mikro focuses squarely on playing sounds, with the excellent pads, performance strip, and even the Lock button from the full-size MkIII. With no encoders, and a screen that's smaller than the Mikro MkII, you'll rely on the computer screen for browsing, sampling, arrangement and even parameter tweaking. If you've also got an NI keyboard, though, it can cover some of these roles.
The A-Series keyboards are great quality for the money, and offer instant gratification alongside Komplete Kontrol. They are also good Maschine controllers in their own right. Like the Mikro, they currently lack any customisation potential as general MIDI controllers, although that will hopefully change in the future.
With Komplete Kontrol opened up and Maschine software now included with all NI hardware, Native Instruments clearly want you on their sound content platform ready to be tempted by Komplete, Expansions, their premium library upgrades and Sounds.com subscriptions. The result is that you can now get your hands on these powerful workstations at incredibly low cost.
Komplete Autonomy
NI have been doing a great job with Komplete Kontrol and NKS, both in getting support from third-party plug-ins and in honing usability. The inclusion of audio previews as part of every patch has transformed the browsing experience. NI have also integrated their subscription sound service, Sounds.com, and this goes a long way to explaining why they've made Komplete Kontrol available for free, along with the Komplete Start collection.
KK previously only worked with NI hardware, but you can now map it to any MIDI controller. You can take control of the main eight encoders, map a pair of buttons to move between control pages, and add a further pair for switching focus between plug-ins in a chain. There's no detailed hardware control over the browser, but you can set buttons to load the Previous and Next patch in the current list.
It's now simple to chain plug-ins in Komplete Kontrol, so you can add an effect to an instrument and have the same level of control over both devices. A real bonus is the inclusion of Maschine's Sampler module, enabling you to play back loop or one-shot samples directly from Komplete Kontrol. You can create some surprisingly playable instruments from random samples using this, especially if you add some effects. Unfortunately there's no way to save these creations as you can't save Sampler patches, and there's still no way to save a multi-plug-in patch. In a way though this helps to keep the KK system clean compared with similar host environments.
Kontent
Content is becoming an ever more significant part of any NI offering. If you want fast, usable access to sounds it's really hard to do better than a Maschine or Komplete product. While the Mikro and A-Series lack the rich, integrated browsing experience offered by their siblings, they do come loaded with some of the sound arsenal, all tagged, pre‑mapped and ready to go.
The A-Series comes with Prism and Minimoog clone Monark on the synth front. Sampled pianos come courtesy of The Gentleman and Scarbee Mark I. The Maschine Mikro gets Monark, Prism, and Massive (not X). The Mikro gets kits and samples of course, in the shape of the 1.6GB Maschine Factory Selection.
All the keyboards and the Maschine Mikro also come with Komplete Start, which is available free. This is a pretty packed bundle of goodies including synths, sampled instruments and sound expansions. Start includes a good basic palette of Kontakt Player-based sounds, and six genuinely great Reaktor-powered synths, including the full bass synth module from TRK‑01. The Carbon 2 synth and industrial beatbox Newscool are two of my all-time favourite virtual instruments.
Beyond this, NI are betting the farm on the fact that you'll be hooked in and want even more. Tempting upgrades are available to Mikro and A/M keyboard owners. Komplete Select can be yours for £79$99, adding a lot more sampled instruments and effects. The Maschine Full 8GB library upgrade is £89$99, or you can get both for £133$149.
The latest iteration of the full Komplete package (v12) will set you back £479$499, £159$199 to update from an earlier version, or £319$399 to upgrade from Select. As always there are new and improved sample-based instruments: Discovery Middle East, Session Strings 2 and Scarbee Rickenbacker bass, now powered by Kontakt 6. You also get 10 Expansion Packs. A couple of new synths dominate this generation of Komplete though. TRK-01 is a groovebox specialising in bass and kick sequencing that's incredibly fun and effective. Then there's the much talked about Massive X, which is not available until June. This is a complete re-work of the hugely influential synth, with a new UI that looks like Reaktor Blocks.
There are also some cool new effects, in the shape of the Mod Pack suite of Phasis, Choral and Flair. Unfortunately my favourite NI thing of the moment, the wonderful Crush Pack effects, will cost you £44$69 on top of Komplete unless you get Komplete Ultimate. They're also available separately at £59$69.
Pros
- Compact and lightweight.
- Very affordable.
- Maschine software included.
- Touch-sensitive endless encoders.
- USB powered.
Cons
- Requires more computer interaction.
- Reduced sound library packages.
- No encoder displays on keyboards.
Summary
The MkIII and A-Series keyboards lose the hardware-focused workflow but bring an unprecedented level of portability and affordability to Maschine and Komplete.