I've used software from NI for a long time (Komplete ultimate) but never paid any attention to their hardware solutions.
 
Now that they have released Machine Jam, I have watched some of their tutorial videos on Machine Jam / Machine Studio and wonder how that integrates with music production following "traditional" DAW workflows.  Is it to be viewed more like an instrument for creating beats and patterns, which you later bounce and import in the DAW to overdub ... or is there some more integration between these devices, Machine software and DAW software packages that does not become obvious by watching a few demo videos?
 
Happy to hear comments, thoughts, usuability experiences, new creative ventures :-)

Hi Rob,
I'm just a hobbyist, not a heavy duty user, but my experience as a user of Sonar, Maschine and Komplete Kontrol is that I keep Sonar and Maschine mostly separate.  I find that for inspiration and flow, I can move things along really quickly using Maschine, but once I've finished with getting the song "written", I export main stems and import into Sonar for mixing and mastering.  Sometimes I want to take a more traditional DAW-type approach to writing and then I leave Maschine completely on one side and use Sonar.
It would be great if there was a level of integration between Sonar and Maschine - NI has put some effort into this with Ableton and to a degree with Logic, however I can see that Ableton lends itself more easily to the pattern-based approach of Maschine.  I have trouble envisaging how it would integrate with Sonar, unless it was somehow linking in with the matrix.
Going back to what I said at the beginning I am only a lightweight user; but like you, I have trouble seeing how to use Sonar and Maschine together and blend the best of both worlds.  It would be great if we could though!
I'm really tempted by the Maschine Jam it looks like a lot of fun and a real step forward in getting ideas down really quickly.
As a side note, I only wanted to "dip my toe" into the world of Maschine because I felt I wasn't into the whole finger-drumming thing.  That's why I got a Maschine Mikro and got it cheap and secondhand on ebay; but in fact I've found that I really love it, it's great fun.  To my surprise and much as I love Sonar, I'm using Maschine more.

thanks, that's interesting feedback, which falls in line with my impressions from watching the demo videos that it's more a pattern based electronic instrument than something that ties into a recording environment... which still makes it interesting (i love creative tools and toys); yet having to setup a laptop to be able to use it, plus audio interface, plus machine ... that's quite an investment and a few gadgets to carry when including it in live performances.
 
any other user experiences out there?

I have Maschine Mikro MKII and use it a lot with Sonar. Works pretty good and can be integrated quite well. I use Maschine software inside Sonar for MIDI only though. The Maschine software lets me use scales, arpeggios, step sequencer etc. and the MIDI is routed back to Sonar.
 
The most interesting feature in Jam for me is definitely the step sequencer. If that can be seamlessly integrated to my work flow I think I will buys Jam at some point.