Automating Effects with Maschine

Let’s say you found the perfect Massive synth pad and you’ve decided to use it for both a background element, and a rhythm element by having it restart every few bars. Sounds great. But, what if you are concerned about repetition and the sound becoming boring over time. You can’t really spend all of your performance time micromanaging small changes in this one sound, and that’s why automating effects with Maschine is so easy to do. The folks at Native Instruments built in a sweet little feature called Auto Write to help you get the job done.

For this example, I have laid down a four bar loop playing a single note of a pad from Massive. I also put together a simple beat to keep it company on a separate group.

Now, one really great way to use this automation feature is to simply make a duplicate pattern of your instruments that you want to spice up a little bit. So I have copied both of these groups patterns, giving me exact replicas to work with. Now all I have to do is find some effects that suit my needs. I do not want to completely change what I have already created, just modify them slightly to create some variation and interest. So I added a Reflex effect to the Massive pad and a Beat Delay effect to the drums.

Now all I have to do is hold down the Auto Write button while making adjustments to the effects settings by turning the corresponding knobs at the top of your Maschine hardware device. You do not need to record anything, as you play the sequence in Maschine, it will remember the automation data you have inputted.

Doing all of this on a separate pattern than the original now gives you the ability to switch to one of the new patterns whenever you want to. You can repeat this process again with different effects, or perhaps just more extreme changes. It’s up to you how you use it to enhance your music.

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Cheers,
OhmLab