bigboi


If u want to spend the loot, Maschine does it all.  Leads, loops, beats, bass, fx,....eveeything. works as a plug inside sonar. Maschine micro is pretty awesome

Oh yeah, I've been looking at it. Looks awesome. But the loot's a problem... And besides, what they do NOT show in all those pretty demo video's is how much time it took to load all the right sounds, to prepare the Maschine and (last but not least) how much practice it costs to play that thing live as some of those demo guys do...!!!
 
When I created my first dance tunes I had the idea I spend more time finding the right sounds than making music.
 
Anyway, the Maschine is on my list of things to have... it's just that I don't have a clue yet if I will be making a lot of dance music... It would be a shame to buy it for 6 or so demo tunes on the internet... (If you knew how much money I spend on THE plugins that would be PERFECT for me but that ended up getting uninstalled after a project or two... Ouch...)

hellogoodbye


Thanks for the tip about Absynth, forkol! And sorry for putting you on the wrong track about the style...  When I posted what I did I didn't yet know what all those styles were. Now I more or less do. 

   Hey, no need to apologize!  When I started listening to the different types of EM, it was even kinda before there was even much of it on the internet.  Back then, I was really into Jazz, but then I got into the branch called New Age, but was still wanting to get the more dancey beats, but wanted the 'higher consciousness'.  Took me awhile before I found out I wanted to be headed in the Trance/Progressive direction.   And so here I am, many years later.   And even now, people still fight over what is what genre, or even what the sub-genres are.  It all doesn't matter.  If you like it, you like it.


I did mention to you about the transitions and FX, echos, natural sounds and vocals.  One of my favorite mixes is this mix, and it's got a bit of all of that put in there.  After hearing this, I'm starting to put my filmscape side with my EDM side, and want to make more stuff like this, especially if there are some vocals present.

Hey nice track, very well done. I think you would like the music of Four Tet and Boards of Canada, they're masters of that laid back, melodic style of EDM. 

I'm toying with the idea of buying Maschine. Whether the full version or the Mikro version I don't know. I don't think it's just for finger drummers, although I know a lot of those demo videos showcase that side of it (and some of those guys are insanely talented). The reason I'm interested in it is that it just seems like a better way of arranging electronic pieces, in particular the drums. I haven't been happy with Sonar's beat making capabilities when it comes to EDM. I mean it's OK, but it just seems like that other DAW's and plugs have way more useful features in this respect, for example the ability to apply grooves and swing to patterns in real time, non destructively. I can get things done in Sonar but the workflow is quite slow and tedious at times. Other packages (including Maschine) seem at more geared toward encouraging creativity when it comes to electro music. 

I'm actually thinking Maschine could be very useful for other forms of music too...the drum pads are way better than on most synth controllers, and I've heard a lot of people say that they love that they can get an entire tune framework pegged out on Maschine alone, without even having to turn on their DAW. I'd love to be able to do all of my arranging on Maschine's sequencer and then mix it in Sonar. 

Plus, there is a Maschine iPhone app that allows you to create beat ideas on the go and load them into Maschine later. I love that idea. 

@forkol: interesting link and info, thanks. That mix is a bit too much pop for my purpose though. I think I am more into steadybeat. Still, it's true that EDM contains a LOT of genres...!!!
 
@sharke: thanks for the compliments. I will check out the bands you mentioned! And yes, Maschine... Looks awesome indeed but as I said before the thing that is holding me back is the (I suspect) huge amount of work that has to be done BEFORE you can finally hit those pads... When I look at those demo's of those indeed insanely talented people, I see they use a huge amount of sounds and they all thave to be selected... something too many people tend to forget, I think. And let's nog forget: it's the same as with any other instrument (imho Mashine is an instrument) it needs talent or at least a lot of practice to get something good out if it. You could say that looking at a Maschine demo video and saying 'I want that thing too so I can make that music also' is the same as watching a video of Jimi Hendrix and saying 'I want that guitar too so I can make that music also'.

I found out the hard way, after getting the Kore 2 hardware controller and using it maybe 5 times total, that you can not force hardware use into your workflow if you simply are not into audio hardware. Sure, those knobs feel really great, but to me, they are no more than a hassle. I work quicker and with more precision with my mouse and keyboard, and found no real added benefits to being able to twist multiple knobs at once. I'd probably feel the same about Maschine. There is already a great step sequencer in sonar and hitting the drum pads on my midi keyboard for getting ideas down is more than sufficient. You have to really know you can get into these kind of things or it can become a superficial layer that just gets in the way. Just something to consider.

Spencer


I found out the hard way, after getting the Kore 2 hardware controller and using it maybe 5 times total, that you can not force hardware use into your workflow if you simply are not into audio hardware. Sure, those knobs feel really great, but to me, they are no more than a hassle. I work quicker and with more precision with my mouse and keyboard, and found no real added benefits to being able to twist multiple knobs at once. I'd probably feel the same about Maschine. There is already a great step sequencer in sonar and hitting the drum pads on my midi keyboard for getting ideas down is more than sufficient. You have to really know you can get into these kind of things or it can become a superficial layer that just gets in the way. Just something to consider.

Wise words... I look at new plugins or hardware quite often and quite often I thought 'If only I had this, then things would be so much better...!' I've bought a lot of plugins that I thought would change my music and lift it up into the next stage only to find out I stopped using them after 1 or 2 projects... Take orchestral plugins. When you hear the demo's you think 'Wow, that's so real, I want that too' but when you have it you discover the amount of work it takes to get things so real (or you discover you simply don't have the talent to make it so real). I must have spend 1000 euro's at least on plugins I never use... What a waste is that!
 
During the last weeks, when I was looking at other software to make dance music with, I had a close look at FL Studio 11. It seemed the perfect tool for dance music. I almost thought about buying it when it suddenly occured to me that that great Playlist in FL Studio is very similar to the regular track list in Sonar... In fact, it may even be easier to make clips in Sonar and duplicate them or to make groove clips from them. The thing is that I never really used those options in Sonar but they are there! So I created my first dance tune using some of the techniques I saw in the FL-movies and it worked out perfectly... and it saved me a lot of money too!
 
Tools aren't sacred and tools won't make you good or famous or whatever. In the end it's all about the music and talent. I KNOW that buying a Maschine will get me some fun hours, fooling around with it, learning everything about it, but what then...? Will it improve my tunes...? I know myself a little and I wouldn't be surprised if in a month or so I am again working on classical pieces... or alternative rock songs... or whatever... and that Maschine would be gathering dust, just like those plugins I never use. (Pity you can't sell those btw...)

Hello mate.

I listened to your piece, very nice with great sound and good atmosphere. 

I make a range of EDM & Electronica, and Sonar 8.5 is perfect for that!  I'm not sure what PE is but I use Producer and to upgrade isn't that much if you watchout for the special offers that come. 

People often think that they need Apple's Logic or Cubase to make great dance music as when you see EDM prodcuers giving a demo like Armin van Buuren or Mike Koglin, etc, they're always using Logic but you only need to look at the blog of Ilan Bluestone who's at the top of his game ATM to see that he uses Sonar 8.5 Pro!!! 

Also, people like Jaytech (Prog House) use Ableton, Daniel Kandi uses Reason, Adam Szabo uses FL Studio and some use Cubase (can't remember who but I did read a number of producers who did).  The poor relation has always been Sonar but as I've already said, Bluestone has proved it's just as capable.  Personally, from people I know who use Logic, they seem to experience more bugs and crashes than anyone else - must be Apple's insistence on using AUs instead of a tried and tested VST format but on that basis, I think it's overpriced and over rated as someone has yet to explain to me what's so good about it!!! 

I'm mainly a hardware guy as you'll see from my list but I do use some VSTs and have tried quite a few.  Apart from NI's Massive, you'll find one of the most used synths in EDM is Sylenth and there's good reason for that.  It sounds like an analogue synth, it looks like an analogue synth and is really straight forward to use.  I don't like a lot of synth VSTs as I think their interface is confusing, not intuitive and too complex and on that basis, I'm fussy what I use.  Hell, some of them look like they have an interface like a spaceship and if I have to spend an age learning a unique interface, I'm off elsewhere frankly. 

Other VSTs worth noting are Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Rob Papen's VSTs (both used by Armin v B) and one which was used quite a lot during the early to mid 00s, Novation's V-Station which some may say is a bit old now but fact is this little beauty produced all those lovely Supersaw like Trance sounds during that period and still contains most of the elements that a modern VST has.  I have both, the A-Station which is hardware and the V-Station.  It's available for a small sum of money now but often gets overlooked (snobbery maybe?) but a very capable fat sounding synth as it has a double-saw feature which you can enable on all three oscillators and then stick unison on.  I think it achieves a very close sounding JP supersaw, closer than most other VSTs can do which is a staple Trance sound.

To hear exactly what I'm taking about, check this soundset out, as the demo was done entirely on a V-Station only:
http://www.adamszabo.com/v-station-soundset/ 

One cool thing Sonar can do without resorting to using a CPU hogging plugin is that ducking effect that most producers use and abuse now by using a sidechain compressor whereas Sonar has the Sonitus Gate which even has a preset setting ready to produce that effect with minimal CPU overhead and no artefacts or colouration of sound that you often get with a compressor! 

I can't speak about loops or samples as I personally don't use them as I always create my own drums, even if I hear a loop I like, as I was brought up in the days of the Roland TRs so I've got efficient at tapping rhythms in and quantising on the fly as well as using the step sequencer if I need.  However, don't forget the Session Drummer as I use that a lot especially for sampling my old drum machines and bringing into Sonar so that I can get the flexibility of the DAW so I often sample drum sounds I've created in my real studio into a wav file and then into Session drummer. 

That's a few of the useful features that I can think of for now to help you with EDM so I hope that helps. 

Don't forget to look at the free VSTs thread as there are some cracking freebies around. 

Cheers.

Sharke...the gotcha with getting maschine versus the mikro version is many of the upgrade discounts offered to Maschine users are not offered to Mikro users. I'm not a big fan of beatmaking using strictly Sonar tools either. Yes, it can be done, but it's just not intuitive. The sequencer for maschine is not all that either. It's the controller and the sample library that comes with it that people crave. i even know a couple of people who use the Machine controller with geist software since the filters are superior.

dubdisciple


Sharke...the gotcha with getting maschine versus the mikro version is many of the upgrade discounts offered to Maschine users are not offered to Mikro users. I'm not a big fan of beatmaking using strictly Sonar tools either. Yes, it can be done, but it's just not intuitive. The sequencer for maschine is not all that either. It's the controller and the sample library that comes with it that people crave. i even know a couple of people who use the Machine controller with geist software since the filters are superior.

I looked into Geist but it looks like it's a real pain to work with anything but 4/4 time. I've read people discussing workarounds that sound awkward but at the end of the day you just think come on, this is a VST drum machine that costs over $200, you should be able to work in whatever signatures you want. 

Sharke...agreed. That is the probably the biggest single knock. I had not really thought about that since I like the fact that it is a sampler and it will map a sample to pads mpc60 style. I figure for non-4/4 stuff i can use Sonar's sequencer to trigger.