Secrets of Maschine Swing

Maschine swing is actually a bit different and more powerful than MPCs or classic drum machines.

A lot of producers have been discussing swing as if it is a secret – the special sauce of many productions, or of an old MPC, but in fact, Maschine swing is as robust and flexible as your old MPC swing was.

Maschine swing can be applied to individual sounds, groups, or the entire project.The global swing amount is accessible by the transport controls in the Maschine software, and in the master sections of the Maschine and Maschine mk2 hardware. One can navigate to Maschine swing settings by navigating to the channel section (as opposed to the plug-in section), then the master, group, or sound pane, and under Groove settings.

[aside title=”Protip:”]Maschine swing is as robust and flexible as your old MPC’s was.[/aside]

Subtle applications of swing can be useful for mixing different patterns and grooves in and out without clashing, or to match the groove when playing with others. Sometimes, tweaking Maschine swing can be just what a track needs to match an MC’s flow, or to push the groove towards that of the next track. It can also breathe life back in to sequences that have been quantized, or step sequenced to the grid.

Using extreme settings – like an amount of 75% or 100% – Maschine swing can fundamentally change the rhythm of sequences. In the video above, triplet rhythms, using the 75% setting, and dotted-eighth sixteenth rhythms using the 100% setting are covered. These can be used to create very complex grooves using a very simple grid.

Maschine swing also has the ability to invert, playing the notes before they appear in the sequence. This opens up a realm of possibilities for a give-and-take relationship for the master and group settings, allowing for very complex and precise grooves. More tutorials on Maschine swing and quantization will follow in the next few weeks, so make sure to subscribe to ADSRtuts on YouTube to catch next week’s videos.