Producer’s Guide: Maschine Mikro Mk3

Creating full tracks with Mikro

Native Instruments’ third generation Maschine Mikro has just arrived and – alongside the affordable A-Series controller keyboards – offers the cheapest entry point yet into the Maschine ecosystem. With its MPC-like, pad-focussed interface and emphasis on sampled sounds, as a newcomer it’s tempting to think of Maschine as purely a sampler and beat sequencer. While those elements were the original heart of Maschine, and are still core to the software workflow, there’s much more to this current gen version, from the ability to play plugin instruments to advanced mixing and routing and arrangement tools. In this feature, we’re going to help uncover a few of the features that sit just below the surface. Let’s assume you know your Maschine basics, and can sequence or record simple patterns – if you’ve not got that far, check out NI’s well-structured Quick Start Guide. Instead let’s dig into a few workflow tips, overlooked features and advanced tools. While we’re angling most of these tutorials primarily towards Maschine Mikro users, almost everything is also going to be relevant to users of other Maschine controllers, or those controlling the Maschine software with an S- or A-Series controller keyboard.