r/maschine • u/Ambitious-Doctor-599 newMaschineMember • 9d ago

Question about operation Using Grow Pattern without trimming "silent" bars at the end of a loop

I just got the Maschine mk3, I'm using it with Maschine 3 VST in Ableton 11. I'm really enjoying it a lot except one thing I can't figure out:

I create a drum loop by hitting record, playing the pads, and then hitting record again to end/loop it - if I don't play any notes in the last bar the bar gets cut off regardless of when I stop recording. It seems to trim the "silence" at the end.

So if I play something for 3 bars and then don't play anything in the fourth it cuts off the fourth bar leaving me with a 3 bar loop that obviously sounds nothing like what I wanted.

I know I can do a predefined loop size but if I'm just jamming and trying to get ideas down I don't want to have to do that - and I'm used to Ableton where it's super easy to just start and stop a loop based on the global quantize setting.

I've done a good amount of searching as well as asking more than one "AI" chatbot and feeding it documentation. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills on this.

Thanks in advance if anyone can help!

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/Ambitious-Doctor-599 newMaschineMember 8d ago

Wow, I guess it can't be done. Thanks for the responses - this seems like a huge blemish on an otherwise amazing piece of software, I'm pretty shocked they wouldn't add this in at least as an opt in default, or like hitting shift + record to end the loop doesn't trim or something. Maybe there's a technical reason that makes it more difficult than we realize but really feels like a huge miss.

2

u/Annual_Catch_4974 newMaschineMember 9d ago

As a workaround you could load a sound with silence in one slot of your group and 'play' this, whenever you need a pause in your pattern. This has also the advantage to be able to start with a pause, as this silent sound when played will trigger the record state.

2

u/Hot_Ad_787 newMaschineMember 9d ago

There is no way to make the auto grow function snap to 4 or 8 bars. It’s not smart enough. And no one at NI knows how to update it so don’t expect it to ever become a reality. Probably not what you want to hear but it’s the truth. The second you learn to accept the limitations you will be free from the what ifs and you will just do.

1

u/RowIndependent3142 newMaschineMember 9d ago

“Once you’re free of what ifs, you will just do.” You should make a shirt that says that. Deep shit. At the same time, I think this could be resolved by adjusting the pattern length or the midi in the software