Native Instruments Maschine Mikro MK2 Black

I've always wanted to produce music and with this I can. It's an amazing product and I would highly recommend it to others. Its very difficult for beginners though. I had no producing experience beforehand and I struggled for a while. I had my friend help me with it because he also has one. This is a great starter one though because although it's difficult at first for beginners, it is very intuitive once you get the hang of it.

I absolutely love this product. Works just as well as the bigger brothers and honestly I think this is the best one. Portability on this is great and can still do everything the other models can do. It may not have all the controls but you can still do everything on the software when it comes to some serious tweaking. Other than that you can control everything from the controller with ease. Has awesome keyboard mode for virtual instruments. You can adjust the velocity of each note easily by just dragging a slider in the beat grid. Plenty of effects come with it although I bought komplete 9 to compliment it. Everyday I'm learning more and more things I can do with. Easy to get several group going and switch between. Can adjust things on a group level, specific sound level, or a master level. I really like going into the mixer view for my plugins because of the nice analog looking visuals(if you already have plugins, they are not needed at all). Sampling stuff in is pretty easy. Using this as a midi controller took some work and playing to figure out and so did midi routing. I think this is an excellent product for a beginner who doesn't know much or somebody who has experience producing music.

I researched beat machines for a few months and decided on the Maschine Mikro Mk 2. As soon as it arrived (and after an extensive software install), I was making music unlike I had done before. The Maschines all come with a HUGE package of software--many different instruments and kits, along with the Maschine 2.0 DAW. It takes about a day to get through the "Get Started" booklet to learn the system, then it takes another day to sort out all the audio samples and instruments. Learning the full capability of a Maschine seems to take weeks or months. I was easily importing audio clips and assigning them to pads within the first hour of use, and if you have previous knowledge of beat makers, this device will quickly become familiar. The pads on the Mk2 are nicely sensitive, the various light colors are useful and decorative, and the entire package is perfection--small, light, attractive, versatile, capable, user friendly.

I spent almost a week researching a solid rhythm builder I could use in my "studio" (glorified man cave). Up until recent I had a Korg padKontrol, which was excellent, but I wanted something a little more streamlined and easier to use with software out of the box. I looked at several different products and almost jumped on the SparkLE, but decided to dig into the Maschine. My initial impression was it was a tool for just sampling with a beat maker built in, so a Hip-Hop "instrument". Most of the videos found on the internet painted this image in my head, but I kept digging and found examples outside that genre. I broke down and decided to just jump on the Maschine Mikro since the SparkLE (at this point) hadn't been released yet. I can honestly say, I'm glad I bought this over the SparkLE. Mobility was my main factor concerning hardware, and the Maschine Mikro is at the top end of size that I'm interested in. I think I'll be interested in grabbing a full sized Maschine one day, but the ability to throw this in a laptop bag is important. There is a learning curve, but at the end of day one I was able to play the device without ever looking at my computer screen. The pads feel great, the step sequencer is perfect, and the software is A+. I can use some of my Waves plug-ins within the Maschine software, couldn't ask for more. It is literally drag and drop for midi and audio. I've been using it to create midi patterns and then drop it into Pro Tools to use with Superior Drummer. The additional software is pretty decent. Massive is quickly becoming one of my favorite synths. The software made me go from thinking the package was pricey to the price being a great value. Though, I do hope they release different packages in the future. I may want new hardware in the future, but not pay for the software that I already own. All in all, I haven't been this excited about a new instrument in a long time. It's powerful, creative, and most of all fun. Now NI, how about a midi keyboard?