Maschine MIDI note mapping

I have MIDI tracks set up in Sonar so that I can record alongside a Maschine plugin which has 16 MIDI inputs (and output 16 sounds to audio tracks).
It is set this way:
 
Maschine Group MIDI In = Not Active.
 
 Maschine MIDI Ins:
 Sound 1 = Input -> MIDI -> Active -> channel 1
 Sound 2 = Input -> MIDI -> Active -> channel 2
 Sound 3 = Input -> MIDI -> Active -> channel 3
 to 16 etc
 
 Maschine MIDI Outs:
 Sound 1 = Output -> MIDI -> Host -> channel 1 (transpose = 0)
 Sound 2 = Output -> MIDI -> Host -> channel 2 (transpose = 0)
 Sound 3 = Output -> MIDI -> Host -> channel 3 (transpose = 0)
 to 16 etc
 
 DAW MIDI Ins:
 DAW track 1 MIDI Input = Maschine channel 1
 DAW track 2 MIDI Input = Maschine channel 2
 DAW track 3 MIDI Input = Maschine channel 3
 to 16 etc
 
 DAW MIDI Outs:
 DAW track 1 MIDI Output = Maschine channel 1
 DAW track 2 MIDI Output = Maschine channel 2
 DAW track 3 MIDI Output = Maschine channel 3
 to 16 etc
 
I am not using keyboard mode in Maschine and I can record and play back fine with this configuration.

However my problem is that if I look at Sonar Piano roll every sound is on one note (see screenshot). If I move a note up the scale all I do is change the Pitch of a Maschine sound, not the sound itself. Also all Maschine will allow me to do it seems is transpose a note. I could work with this but it would be much better to have different sounds on different notes in the DAW!
 
Any ideas, is this where I'm supposed to go into Sonar Drum Map Manager maybe?
Any Maschine 2 users here have a better way? (Another reason why I had it set up like this was to be able to drag notes from the Maschine plugin, which will create 16 midi tracks rather than just one, although it wouldn't be necessary to use this workflow all the time, it just allows flexibility).
 
Thanks
 
Alex
 

Thanks Mike...

Well basically I'm using 16 Sonar MIDI tracks to trigger Maschine sounds (one per MIDI channel), Maschine can then record what is in Sonar into it's sequencer. I'm also getting Sonar to record Maschine from each of it's 16 MIDI output tracks. I'm trying to get the process as seamless as possible between sequencers so I can flip between one and the other.
 
I've just implemented a cunning plan and my piano roll view in Sonar now looks like this (just how I wanted it to be, please check post 1 for a picture of how it was), and it is triggering sounds correctly (well almost):



 
How figured this one out was to have the Maschine plugin transpose the 16 MIDI outputs assigned to each of the 16 sounds. So Sound 1 has been transposed by a value of 1, sound 2 has been transposed by a value of 2, etc all the way to Sound 16.
 
At the Sonar end I've added a drum map for the 16 MIDI channels like this to compensate for the transposition:
 

 
It's working but sadly I'm getting into feedback MIDI loops and inability to SOLO buttons! So still scratching my head on this, so near and yet so far! Taken me ages!


UPDATE:

Fixed the MIDI loops issue (schoolboy error) however SOLO buttons have stopped working now, tracks mute just don't SOLO in this project, i.e. No sound will come out when SOLO'ing  :( Weird!!! SOLO'ing will return if I stop using the Maschine transpose drum map (as above screenshot).

That's an interesting concept Alex. I'm curious what the application would be on say Sonar MIDI driving NIM, couldn't you just bring the MIDI file into NIM? It's almost as if in concept NIM is an external synth.
 
Not disagreeing here I'm curious...and I am reminded of a little utility I once wrote that I was quite proud of and I called a co-worker over to show them and when they saw it they said: "Yes that cool...or you could just use the copy command." lol
 
Regards,

CakeAlexS
...
 
If you can find a dead easy way to do exactly this without any fiddling then please do let me know :) I'd be interested in any feedback, I will be releasing a template soon so I definitely will want to improve it.

Sadly I don't think there is an easy way to do what you are trying to do. I think there will always be issues keeping NIM to DAW (and vice versa) communication in sync. The Battery template I've been working on has issues of this nature, I have knob pages that I am trying to keep in sync with the tabs (Edit, Effects, Main etc) in Battery...it's a real beach.
 
It's admirable what you have accomplished so far.
 
Regards,

Way too much work considering it's already set up with seperate ins and outs within maschine that can be edited within maschine as midi or easily exported as individual or group wavs. Learn to edit within Maschine. You'll thank yourself! I love Maschine! I do all of Maschine's programming IN maschine while it's running as VST inside Sonar then export Maschines wavs for mixing and mastering. Half of the fun is automating fx parameters into your loop patterns for breaks or buildups. By the way, Maschine can export all 16 pads of all 8 groups individually for 128 individual sounds separated as wav file. Need more, load in another Maschine plug.

Lol, just opened Maschine in x2 and thought to myself, wonder if I can add another instance, as was mentioned above!
Um, nope lol, Sonar doth protest!
Sonar threw up an error and decided to close on me. Thank fully I was only testing out what was mentioned above and was not actually working on a project.

I didn't spend enough mental energy to read all of what you tried, but did you use the Maschine "midi batch setup" function and use notes to pads?

I'm assuming if features are "extended" you can still map pads to notes easily from within Maschine. I don't understand why you're using transposing is what I'm getting at. It seems very roundabout/convoluted.

I'm using one group per midi channel. Each pad represents a note. So I have "only" 8 midi channels but each consists of a full kit. The only thing that is not easy to do with this is sequence instruments (like you say, keyboard mode) but I don't do that within Maschine anyway.

To do this, for each group I select "midi batch setup", choose "notes to pads" (NOT midi channels to pads). I choose the same base note for each group (C0 I think, not sure). Midi channel 1 is group A, channel 2 group B etc.
Save the whole thing as a track template if you want.

It's very simple and quick to setup and I don't do any mapping or transposing on the Sonar end. Not sure if this is something that would work for you?

OK thanks for this, it's slightly simpler I think, so I revised my template as below.
 
However notes will still appear as one pitch if I play from the Maschine (see the very first picture of this thread), so I still have to transpose each Maschine sound and create a drum map in Sonar. I think if I was playing notes on a MIDI keyboard it probably won't be a problem....
 
In detail it's set up like this now:
 
Maschine
 
Group MIDI Input = Channel 10 (root note = C1).
Sound MIDI Input  = Off for all sounds.
Sound MIDI Output (all 16 sounds) = Host, Assigned to channels 1 to 16 incrementally, transposed by 1 to 16 incrementally.
 
16 Daw MIDI tracks
 
MIDI Input assigned channels 1 to 16 from Maschine incrementally for each track.
MIDI Out assigned to drum map as below:



Also note I'm using just one group of 16 sounds right now, and there is no MIDI batch setup mode with Maschine 2 either as far as I'm aware.
 
Thanks...

I do appreciate your feedback here.
I'm using PAD mode (not keyboard mode) right now with full Maschine functionality turned on.
 
> I recommend switching the Maschine controller to regular control mode 
 
You mean turn on MIDI mode where it just becomes a regular controller device (Maschine sequencing turned off) and do this just for recording?
 
Cheers...

Sanderxpander
...
 
if you want to sequence in Sonar, I recommend switching the Maschine controller to regular control mode and making a simple template (I think it's already available) with pads to note numbers. You'll also have to use a certain velocity curve to get the same response, I forget which.
 

This is what I do also. For a given Sonar project I may set up several Pad Pages in my Maschine template to drive different soft synths...as mentioned above I've been working on one for Battery. There isn't that much difference with the new version...well we have a mixer now but mostly just enhancements. Shift-Control is your pal.
 
Regards,

Looks like 2.1 is going to improve workflow (I hope), MIDI batch returns....
....and it looks like 1.x users holding on for the old features may finally get the incentive to upgrade (release is clearly targeted at them):
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/official-update-status-maschine-upcoming-2-1.80682/
 
If only X3E would fix the SOLO button issue. 

Exactly that, it is missing...

Well clearly they rewrote the software with some features missing, there is different workflow with Maschine 2 just like there is different workflow with Sonar X. Of course some people always look at what is missing (missing is not broken BTW ) rather than what they have gained. Maschine 2 pretty much blows 1.x out of the water in most ways methinks just like X3 and 8.x, but this was the one standout issue which 1.x users were pointing to (and they were justified to do so), and that will be resolved in a month or so. I think they were previously concentrating on bugs and stability rather than features which is refreshing.
 
So next month 1.x users won't have much to complain about other than having to spend $100 on the upgrade (money worth spending IMHO). Right now you could argue 1.x users may have a point (well it's a value judgement) but not for much longer.