I'm actually embarrassed to admit I've owned this Machine MK 1 for years now, but never bothered to learn such important features as how to choke pads. It's not that the choke option wasn't sitting there, in my face, a gazillion times. It's that I end up having too much fun with the damn thing and pissing away time instead of focusing on valuable workflow items. And, I also only recently started using it as a primary sampler, one of it's strong points. At the moment using it mostly as an FX plugin on audio tracks, capturing sounds from hardware synths, slicing them up, etc.
To circle back to the Maschine stand + Roland PDS-10 I mentioned above in message #32 (hard to believe that was over a year ago -- how time flies!) This turned out to be one of the best purchases I could have made, would have done it much sooner had I realized the impact. I've learned a great deal about the importance of ergonomic flexibility. Instrument placement is of course a matter of personal preference, but putting this thing on it's own percussion stand was a game changer for me.
Despite all this, I still do most functions with the plugin+mouse. It's just easier that navigating things using knob and mini-menus. The one exception to that is when I'm auditioning particular samples. For example looking for a specific type of kick or snare sound. Using the hardware knob to quickly cycle through them is a big time saver.
The newer more expensive Maschine studio would be nice for people who like using the Maschine hardware to control things more than a mouse and decent sized monitor, but for me I can't see any purpose it would serve -- more buttons/knobs and screens to go unused with my particular workflow. Sometimes I do wish my MK I had multicolored pads so I could make all kick variations one color, snares another, etc. but that sole feature isn't worth spending more when my current one still works great.
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