This is just a quick video I put together showing how to use sounds from beat thang virtual in Maschine.
Of course it will work for other programs too, but Maschine has some features that makes it pretty easy and quick to do.
A lot of folks that have BTV are always looking for ways to get the sounds out of it to use in their favorite daw, sequencer, mpc, whatever.
There’s a few ways to do it, I found this way to be very quick and easy.
Some other ways to do it are recording audio directly into a wave editor or daw from btv, and chopping the samples, manually. You can make a simple beat that has what you need in it, export as a wave, and chop it manually. You can use something like Sample Robot or another automatic sampling system to do it, and there’s even a way you can do it with a script using autohotkey.
For me, using Extreme Sample Converter was the quickest and most efficient way, since BTV is a vst plugin now, I can just use the VST converter tool in Extreme Sample Converter.
Here’s the video:
So let me know what ya think, as you can see this is a dope tool to have, and automated vst sampling is like waking up to fresh pancakes…just a good thing!
Yo, ever since I bought Motu BPM I’ve been more interested in the sounds available from Motu and UVI.
Probably because they can all be opened in BPM, either way, I’ve been checking them out.
So far so good.
Today I’m checking out one of Motu’s instruments, dedicated to electric keyboard sounds.
The name of the product is simply “Electric Keys”, of course I love a dope EP so this sparked my interest even more.
Let’s check it out
So what is Electric Keys?
It’s like a buffet of electronic keyboard sounds and devices.
Despite what many may think at first (myself included) Electric Keys is not just about being another Rhodes or Wurly library….
Basically what you have is a “who’s who” of electric keyboard instruments.
Names like Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Hammond, Wurlitzer, Fafrisa, Mellotron, Moog, and Hohner should give you an idea of what to expect
And just in case you were wondering, these are all sampled in 24 bit, 96Khz, multi sample goodness
It’s a library of electric sounds broken into several major categories
Classic electric pianos, classic electric organs, electro-mechanical keyboards, funky clavs, Japanese CPianos, keyboard bass, rare & bonus keyboards, string machines, tape sampler, reed electric pianos, the B electric organ.
As you know, specs mean NOTHING if a product doesn’t sound good. Luckily for the end user, Motu specs match the sound quality so you won’t be let down at all.
What I noticed at first playing with this, is that the sounds are very dynamic and “authentic”. Meaning an old 1960′s organ sounds like it should, not extra hi-fi. Same for old string machines…they sounds as cheesy as ever!
Each category was recorded in a way to capture the actual feel of the instrument. Some of the organs actually had the sound of the mechanical parts of the instrument in there.
With a library as diverse as this, covering so many different areas, you’d expect there to be some overlap, maybe an organ that sounds like the Wurly, or the Wurly that sounds pretty much the same as the Rhodes with just a different fx on it…not true.
These instruments could have been instruments on their own. Meaning…you could have broken down each category, and sold it as it’s own product, and folks wouldn’t be disappointed. Despite how vintage these instruments are, the recording and quality is still top notch.
I haven’t even talked about the fx engine, which allows you to take your sounds to a whole new level instantly. Everything from slight reverb to weird flanged-out chorus type multi fx…basic and usable to insane and wacky.
But it all works.
Not to mention the quick controls on the front panel of the instrument that let you quickly adjust things like bass, mid, treble and drive, or add tremelo while adjusting the depth and speed.
The sound is really good, think the fact that there are so many different categories represented, with so many different types of electric keyboards, really adds to the sound quality.
As you can tell, I like the sound and playability of the instruments, as well as how true they are to the instruments themselves. You get the smooth mellow sounds of Rhodes right next to the bite of a B3, followed by the cheesy and synthetic sound of a random string machine.
What’s the bottom line?
It’s easy to see how someone can become a fan of the Motu products, honestly, I wasn’t paying much attention until I got bpm and wanted to expand it. Knowing it could read all of the Motu instruments was definitely a plus in the decision to get it.
The interface of Electric Keys is simple but very nice, I need a good interface on my software, sorry…if it’s ugly I can’t use it. Call me superficial if you must but I HATE ugly software.
The fact that you can load these up in your daw on their own, as well as in Mach 5, UVI Workstation (free) or Motu’s BPM just makes it more flexible.
The sound quality is just flat out good, and usable…even without adding any fx. Many vintage key lovers will instantly recognize many of their favorite sounds and instruments, which could possible provoke inadvertent “old school” jam sessions…..that’s a good thing though
I really could find nothing wrong with this library, it really delivered above and beyond my expectations, I’m an EP fanatic, but the fact that you get multiple types of electric instruments in one library is like getting two prizes in the cereal box…just makes for a great day
Electric Keys without a doubt in my mind gets 5 out of 5 subs. Like I said, what impressed me even more than the sound quality is the diversity of sounds in here.
Check out their demos and such. I don’t think you can purchase directly from their website, but you can get it from some of your favorite online retailers.
Yo, yall know I’m a huge fan of Maschine…but you also know I’ve recently become a huge fan of BPM as well.
I love them both for different reasons.
The hands on workflow of Maschine is un-matched.
And I love how it handles sampling, editing samples, chopping, etc.
But I also love the BPM sound engine, fx, and expandability with Motu/UVI sounds.
Luckily there are ways to use the best of both in a quick and efficient workflow.
I will be using Maschine for what it does best, namely sampling, sample editing, and holding the hundreds of kits I already made in it!
And I will continue to use BPM as a workstation with the various expansions and instruments available from UVI and Motu.
These two products don’t have to be against each other, and in fact, they work very well together.
I have the Maschine controller mapped to BPM so it can be more hands on (though still not as fluid as Maschine with it’s own controller)
In this video I had started a drumloop in Maschine, but couldn’t find the sound I wanted to lay over it, this prompted me to explore dragging audio into BPM, since I knew the sound I wanted was available in one of it’s many expansions.
While so many people are trying to figure out which one is better, I’m busy figuring out how to use them together!
I got my update for BPM yesterday so I got it installed last night and today I just messed around with setting up the custom mapping.
It’s really deep, you can map pretty much anything, makes it very hands on now.
They also added the Beatbox Anthology expansion, which is basically a library full of tons of classic drum machines.
They added note repeat, with various rates, and undo button (no redo), aux fx in each bank, etc.
They even added midi pad select, so if you hit the pad on your controller, it will take you to that pad in the software…
Yeah…it may seem small but when building/editing kits and samples, this is very useful, because if you forget to use your mouse to go to the next pad….yeah…you just replaced your custom drum sound lol.
Overall some good stuff added, mainly on the workflow side of things. Of course there is quite a bit more kits and patterns included now, still along the lines of dance/urban and electronic styles of music.
They also updated a lot of the content from the previous version, removed some ground noise/hiss that was on some of the samples, and overall just cleaned it up even more.
So this is just a quick vid showing what’s in it, showing some of the content folders, and the various things you can now map to any controller.
I’ll probably do some videos on each part, maybe show how to map stuff quickly, run through some of the patterns/kits for those interested, etc…we’ll see.
You all know I’ve been using Maschine for a while, and one question I get quite a bit is how to lay out a song using scenes.
It’s a little different than traditional song mode in a beat machine…
where you just put a pattern in a list and tell it how many times to loop.
But once you understand it…
you’ll be making songs very quickly.
Here are some things to remember about scenes, patterns, and tracks in Maschine:
a scene is pretty much a “snapshot” that holds the state of the current pattern for each group
There are 8 groups, each can have 64 different patterns
Each scene can only hold up to 8 patterns, 1 for each group
Each pattern in a group can hold 16 tracks or “sounds”
a scene will play as long as the longest pattern in the scene, smaller patterns will repeat to match the lenght of the longest pattern
patterns are linked across scenes, if you change a pattern in one scene, it changes in others, it’s best to use different patterns to make changes
renaming the scenes can help you keep track and have a nice overview of your song
I hope this helps you out, if you have any questions feel free to ask as usual. Maschine is very powerful and capable of full productions, sometimes it just takes a little help to understand the best workflow for doing so.
This is by no means the only way to use Maschine, I’ve just found that this way works for a lot of folks used to building songs with patterns, and working on sections.
With all the scenes and patterns it’s definitely very flexible for live use and performance, but that’s not something I do so I wouldn’t be the best person to show you how to set that up lol.
You know I’m always looking for the best tools, that get out of the way and let you work.
One of my gripes with the current choice of drum sampling software is their inability to understand how simply we want to layer sounds.
Many folks just want to drag a sound to a pad, then another, and another, and have instant access to each layer to tweak and create new composite sounds.
Unfortunately, many of the products out just don’t get that. Most make you go deep into the keymapping setup to layer sounds on the keys, or they don’t allow layering at all, or it’s so complicated you just say forget it and just play each sound on it’s own, layering “in sequence”!
Enter Poise…from an independent developer one small clue…someone who, like me, must have been fed up with the current crop, bloat, and “just don’t get it” operation of the majority of software drum samplers out now.
What we need is something that’s simple, cost effective, lean, clean…and to the point.
So what is Poise?
In my mind, poise is the drum sampler we’ve all been looking for.
Poise is what I would make if I could write software….
Poise is a simple, 16 pad drum sampler that lets you quickly add layers, manipulate the layers, and come up with new sounds.
Poise is NOT a sequencer. You can NOT sample into it.
from the site:
Direct, straightforward, no frills and no bloat! Poise aims to make working with drum samples quick and painless, allowing you to focus on making music.
sounds good to me, so good I had to keep it under wraps until I could actually SHOW you what it did. It’s not new, it’s been around, but I just found out about it and I know many of you will love it, because I get the same questions from folks looking for an easy drum sampler that let’s you layer your drums quickly and tweak each layer.
Why I think Poise “gets it”
Why do I think it’s the best? Let me list the reasons.
It’s easy to layer sounds, just drag them onto the pad, and a layer number will appear in the window
layers can be played in round robin, layered, or velocity switching mode
You can have up to 16 outpus, enough to send each pad to it’s own track in your daw if you want
Very easy, very clean, very straight forward, and very intuitive.
It has everything you need to layer and play with your samples, and nothing you don’t.
No sequencer screen that you won’t use getting in the way.
No complex menus of keygroups and mapping to mess with.
16 pads, each with 8 layers, knobs to tweak each layer/sound…and not much else.
right-clicking on a pad let’s you access things like note on/oneshot mode, or mono mode, pad linking, etc.
It’s really simple, and everything you would try to do naturally, it just does it…this is the way a simple drum sampler should be…not a bunch of bells, whistles, and balloons.
So you really like it huh?
Uhhh….yeah.
This plugin is 5 subs all the way around in my honest opinion…I could hardly contain myself when I found out about it.
Try it and tell me it’s not what you’ve been looking for. You can layer, edit start and end points of samples, send each pad to it’s own output in your daw for simple tracking….tweak each layer, save your kits….really what else do you need in a drum sampler?
I honestly, so far, can’t think of anything I would change about it. It does what it needs to do…allow quick playing and manipulation of samples.
check it out at One Small Clue, download the demo, and see for yourself.
let me know what you think of course, leave a comment below.
It’s like a buffet of electronic keyboard sounds and devices.
As you know, specs mean NOTHING if a product doesn’t sound good. Luckily for the end user, Motu specs match the sound quality so you won’t be let down at all.
But it all works.
Electric Keys without a doubt in my mind gets 5 out of 5 subs. Like I said, what impressed me even more than the sound quality is the diversity of sounds in here.
Very easy, very clean, very straight forward, and very intuitive.
When I looked on the platinumloops website, I saw TONS of content.
