It feels solid, slightly heavier than the mk3 at 2.5kg, with every button and knob feeling sturdy. It’s a credit to Native that they spent so much time making the mk3 usable without a computer that when you remove the computer entirely, nothing needs to change. In fact, it’s identical - apart from a re-labelling of Arranger to Ideas / Song mode - which will be good news for current users.

Maschine+ has the same form factor as Maschine mk3, all the way down to the layout of each button. But as the functionality, features and libraries grew, can NI really cram over a decade of innovation and updates into a single box, minus the laptop screen, without compromising on usability? Let’s find out. Maschine mk1 was born - a bespoke piece of hardware tied to a bespoke piece of software, promising to make the best of both the physical and digital worlds.įast forward 12 years and things have come full circle with Maschine+ - Native Instruments’ first completely standalone version of Maschine, no computer required. But the fact remained when it came to hands-on beat making, be it the immediacy, workflow or sound, many still longed for a modern MPC-style solution. Despite its sound, legacy and aforementioned workflow, it was phased out in favour of bigger screens, more CPU and flexibility offered by the modern DAWs. No piece of hardware encapsulated that elusive ‘workflow’ better than the Akai MPC, a legendary sampler and ‘groovebox’ used by everyone from J Dilla and MF Doom to Mark Ronson and Kanye West. Computers had become powerful enough to supersede hardware-packed studios that came before, meaning that while in-the-box music-making was possible, powerful and largely prefered, the tactile feedback and focused workflow of hardware was missing from the modern studio. When Native Instruments first released Maschine, it was attempting to fill a gap.

Maschine studio reviews