Going live

The Maschine+ clearly has a studio role as a beat-making and production instrument, but it’s arguably even more at home on stage. First, it is of course a standalone device – you don’t need to drag a delicate, possibly unstable computer along with you. Second, it has just enough of everything to make an effective front-end for performance, with 16 large, hard-tomiss, backlit pads, ready-to-launch song sections or to play instrument parts. The surrounding function buttons are also large and easy to locate during a set, and there are the eight user-assignable knobs below the dual displays. These knobs feel like quality items in their own right, with a sensible amount of space between them, and a good amount of resistance as you turn them. Above the knobs are the dual displays, they provide an excellent opportunity to divide tasks between them, and to make sure you see what you want to see at any given time. Finally there’s the touch strip, which is a cool way to add pitch/mod wheel type interaction for anybody who misses those from their MIDI keyboard. Lots of interaction here!