MachFive 2

[Silver Sonya]

Check the horizon for the fourth horseman of the apocalypse...

Three years in the making.

- c

[Jahrome]

I bought version 1 when it was released years ago, but never used it much. This update looks impressive. I especially like the full compatibility with different sample formats, the new loop player, and the ability to use it as a standalone software sample player.

It would have been a nice bonus if it could actually record audio.

[NorthPhilly]

Originally Posted by Jahrome

I bought version 1 when it was released years ago, but never used it much. This update looks impressive. I especially like the full compatibility with different sample formats, the new loop player, and the ability to use it as a standalone software sample player.

It would have been a nice bonus if it could actually record audio.

Yeah the ability to record audio is all that it's missing. If it could do that I'd definitely upgrade. I may have to get it just to read other formats with full compatibility. I get a mac laptop just for it if it reads giga with no problem. It will be like having giga on a mac (HOPEFULLY).

[marchhare]

I have version 1 and I liked it, but it crashed my old computer a lot. I haven't
even bothered to load it on my new machine. I wonder if version 2 will be any
more stable.

[kraznet]

The movie on the MOTU site looks pretty impressive . I believe that this sampler has been developed by by Ulimate Sound Bank http://www.ultimatesoundbank.com/
who make PlugSound Pro . Check the GUI and you will see the similarities . I was going to buy Plug Sound Pro but was put off by the negative feedback on their forum over at KVR but Mach5 v2 has definitely piqued my interest .

[T_R_S]

Originally Posted by NorthPhilly

Yeah the ability to record audio is all that it's missing. (HOPEFULLY).

What's the point?
Why would need a Sampler Plug-in that records audio?
Does your DAW not record it for you?
Structure alows you to drop regions from Protools timeline/database/etc into it.
That is really cool ...is that what your mean?

[ttauri]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

What's the point?
Why would need a Sampler Plug-in that records audio?
Does your DAW not record it for you?

Efficiency. Depends how you're working, but in the traditional hip-hop vinyl-sampling mode, say, I can go through a lot of samples before I find one that works--there's a lot of sample-try-discard-repeat action. S'pretty streamlined in the hardware sampler world, but having to go out of the sampler interface into the DAW one, maybe arm a track, then put the resulting file into the sampler (which depending on sampler and host may mean drag n drop, or going to the desktop, or opening and navigating a menu...), and then if you're not using the sample, maybe going through the process of deleting it.... It just takes more time, and hassle.

Peece,
T. Tauri

[Jahrome]

Originally Posted by T_R_S:
What's the point?
Why would need a Sampler Plug-in that records audio?
Does your DAW not record it for you?
Structure alows you to drop regions from Protools timeline/database/etc into it.
That is really cool ...is that what your mean?

Mach 5 II is more than a plug-in. You can use it as a stand alone sampler....more accurately, a sample player because it doesn't actually sample.

[Solar]

All i can say is that all i saw in the video DEMO is impressive and they raised the bar.. now lets see if all those add-ons really works well!! But at first view, it looks really promising!!

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Got my MachFive 2 upgrade! I'm going to install it in a few. I'll report back and let you know how well it works, or just how buggy it is. I'm hoping for the best. Also (after waiting more that a month!) Digidesign's Structure is finally set to arrive on Wednesday, I'll be happy to compare the two programs as soon as I get a chance.

[M2E]

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

Got my MachFive 2 upgrade! I'm going to install it in a few. I'll report back and let you know how well it works, or just how buggy it is. I'm hoping for the best. Also (after waiting more that a month!) Digidesign's Structure is finally set to arrive on Wednesday, I'll be happy to compare the two programs as soon as I get a chance.

Yeah, Let me know....So I guess I should see mine in a day or 2. Are you on PT's as well are you on Mac OS X with intel?

Thanx

M2E

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Ok, It's installed and all of the sounds have been copied to my hard drive. First I'd like to remind you that I've only worked with the plug for a couple of hours so I'm still learning but this is what I've experienced so far.

First the good news:

1) It works well with it's own sample library.

2) It works well with Apple Loops.

3) The sound quality of the included samples is very high. The VSL stuff is great.

4) The rules feature is very nice and works well with the VSL libary.

Now the bad news:

1) It's buggy. Well it's buggy on my system at least, Mac Pro Quad 2.66 w/4gig of ram, one 750 gig boot drive, three 500 gig HD's in the Drive bays, running Pro Tools HD 3 Accel. It has caused PT to crash 4 times within an hour's time. After the third crash when I re-started PT the whole computer froze up forcing me to reboot the machine.

At first it was plagued by various pops, clicks, and squelches. I lowered my buffer and that seems to have solved the problem.

2) Absolutely no luck what so ever with trying to load third party sample libarys.

Could not load any EXS 24 sounds.

Could not load and Kontact 2 library sounds.

Could not load any VKB Collection sounds.

I was hoping to invest in some Giga samples but now I'm afraid to. This is a big disappointment since it's the main selling point for me. This feature didn't work all that well in MachFive Ver 1, the conversion process left a lot to be desired. it's worse in MachFive Ver 2 since it does not work at all, at least so far. Keep in mind that it's only the first couple of hours all of this can just be user error actually I really hope so, because if it's not then I've been ripped off in a big way. As always YMMV.

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

At first it was plagued by various pops, clicks, and squelches. I lowered my buffer and that seems to have solved the problem.

I take it back. The pops and clicks are still there.

[marchhare]

Sounds like they included the "special features" from version 1.

[Killahurts]

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

2) Absolutely no luck what so ever with trying to load third party sample libarys.

Could not load any EXS 24 sounds.

Could not load and Kontact 2 library sounds.

Could not load any VKB Collection sounds.

Wow, this is not good. You must keep us apprised on this.

Some of us got tired of waiting for M5, so we abandoned that and got Kontact and went with it for months/years. If it can't read Kontact samples it will not work for me- In fact, some of the samples I had made for M5 ver1 would not translate to Kontact, so I had to do them all by hand, one at a time. I'm not going to go through that again from the other direction.

Damn, the whole point was to have Giga sounds on a mac with no conversion.

[The MPCist]

Thanks for the report, Mind-Over-Midi. It seems MOTU's standard is still at where it's been ever since I stopped using DP over 4 years ago. Just had way too many problems with MOTU software that I had to jump ship.

From the sounds of it, seems M5 mk2 is really buggy. Perhaps MOTU wants you to beta-test for them for the next 3 years until they release M5 mk3?

Hope it works out for you. I really would like to get it if it works with any/all formats in its native state without conversion.

Keep us up to date.

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

From the sounds of it, seems M5 mk2 is really buggy. Perhaps MOTU wants you to beta-test for them for the next 3 years until they release M5 mk3?

Well it's still early, a lot of it could be pilot error. I usually won't post any complaints until I've worked with something for at least a week, but we all wan't to know about MachFive so I decided to break my own rule.

By the way late last night I was able to get MachFive to read some EXS 24 samples but via a weird workaround. I had to go into Logic and open up an EXS 24 instrument, then load in a sample, in this case fingered bass. Then I quit logic and re-opened ProTools, opened up a MachFive instrument and suddenly the EXS fingered bass loads with no problem, but only the fingered bass will load. MachFive won't recognize any other exs samples via it's own browser. I have repeated this process three more times with the exs electric grand, Rhodes MKii, and EXS Strings 1 patches, so the process works, just a lot more painstaking than I would like, however once loaded into MachFive everything works as it should except for the clicks and pops which at the moment only happen after I hit the stop button, which (for now) I can live with.

[Silver Sonya]

I am astonished about this. I figured the three year delay would mean that they would have figured stuff out before they released it.

I am one of the people who bought the first MachFive and I just got so frustrated w/ it (the original sample import utility was bizarre and primitive), I migrated to Kontakt. I prefer the way MachFive looks, but a sampler is only as good as its user interface.

-- c

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by Silver Sonya

I am astonished about this. I figured the three year delay would mean that they would have figured stuff out before they released it.

I am one of the people who bought the first MachFive and I just got so frustrated w/ it (the original sample import utility was bizarre and primitive), I migrated to Kontakt. I prefer the way MachFive looks, but a sampler is only as good as its user interface.

-- c

I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that when my copy of Digidesign's Structure arrives it will be tight, tight, tight. People around here hate on Digi, but my experience with them so far has been very positive, they really seem to have their sh*t together.

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that when my copy of Digidesign's Structure arrives it will be tight, tight, tight. People around here hate on Digi, but my experience with them so far has been very positive, they really seem to have their sh*t together.

Will Structure read Giga files?

[K-Slash]

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

[...]
2) Absolutely no luck what so ever with trying to load third party sample libarys.

Could not load any EXS 24 sounds.

Could not load and Kontact 2 library sounds.

Could not load any VKB Collection sounds.

I was hoping to invest in some Giga samples but now I'm afraid to. This is a big disappointment since it's the main selling point for me. This feature didn't work all that well in MachFive Ver 1, the conversion process left a lot to be desired. it's worse in MachFive Ver 2 since it does not work at all, at least so far. Keep in mind that it's only the first couple of hours all of this can just be user error actually I really hope so, because if it's not then I've been ripped off in a big way. As always YMMV.

Originally Posted by MOTU's website

Load third party sounds natively

MachFive 2 transparently loads every major sample format. From Giga to EXS, SampleCell to Kontakt, Apple Loops to REX files, third-party formats load without any conversion. You can even load disc-based formats like Roland S-700 or Kurzweil K2000. Load right off the CD, or make disk images of them to access the sounds without the CD in your drive.
For a full list of supported formats, please see the Specifications.

So normally it must load without conversion like they say. Maybe a problem to be updated ?

[T_R_S]

Originally Posted by Mind-Over-Midi

I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that when my copy of Digidesign's Structure arrives it will be tight, tight, tight. People around here hate on Digi, but my experience with them so far has been very positive, they really seem to have their sh*t together.

Why Wait get over to Digi's Web site and download the demo and use it till yours arrives. The Demo works fully you just don't get the big library but if your using your old library it will work with the demo.

[Goliath|Audio]

Originally Posted by no ssl yet

Will Structure read Giga files?

No, but there is a converter supposedly coming.

[magicd]

Some sample libraries use "absolute" file name paths between the instrument preset and it's child samples. That's the case with EXS samples for example. There are a number of things that can break this path, and that will cause MachFive 2 to not find the child samples when the instrument preset is opened. Copying the sample library, moving presets or sample, or renaming the hard drive will all cause absolute sample paths to be lost.

I did some checking and with EXS libraries, the EXS sampler will go out and look for child samples if the absolute path is broken. If the samples are on the same hard drive as the instrument preset, EXS will find those samples and update the instrument file (automatically). If the samples are on a different volume, EXS will not find the child samples. If EXS does find the child samples and updates the instrument preset, then when MachFive 2 opens that EXS instrument, it reads the new path and finds the child samples. MachFive does not write to EXS format and does not search automatically for samples when the absolute name path is broken.

If MachFive 2 opens an instrument preset but can't find the child samples, you do get a window that lets you re-establlish the link to the samples. Assuming the samples do exist on a local drive, once you've found those samples with MachFive, you can save the preset as a new (MachFive)preset. The new preset will remember the links to the child samples.

Magic Dave

Man guys I hope they get it working. I honestly never had a problem in version one. But the conversions weren't great. Also, I hated that the keymap window was so little. But the new version fixes everything I would want in the old one "on paper".

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

Why Wait get over to Digi's Web site and download the demo and use it till yours arrives. The Demo works fully you just don't get the big library but if your using your old library it will work with the demo.

Great Idea! Thanks.

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Originally Posted by magicd

Some sample libraries use "absolute" file name paths between the instrument preset and it's child samples. That's the case with EXS samples for example. There are a number of things that can break this path, and that will cause MachFive 2 to not find the child samples when the instrument preset is opened. Copying the sample library, moving presets or sample, or renaming the hard drive will all cause absolute sample paths to be lost.

I did some checking and with EXS libraries, the EXS sampler will go out and look for child samples if the absolute path is broken. If the samples are on the same hard drive as the instrument preset, EXS will find those samples and update the instrument file (automatically). If the samples are on a different volume, EXS will not find the child samples. If EXS does find the child samples and updates the instrument preset, then when MachFive 2 opens that EXS instrument, it reads the new path and finds the child samples. MachFive does not write to EXS format and does not search automatically for samples when the absolute name path is broken.

If MachFive 2 opens an instrument preset but can't find the child samples, you do get a window that lets you re-establlish the link to the samples. Assuming the samples do exist on a local drive, once you've found those samples with MachFive, you can save the preset as a new (MachFive)preset. The new preset will remember the links to the child samples.

Magic Dave

Errr, what he said. I could never get MachFive to find the EXS samples on it's own. Not even when I guided it step by step to the actual sample for example: Library/Application Support/Logic/ESX factory Samples/etc. Didn't work M5 just couldn't see the file. But I have now gone through and loaded all of my EXS samples into the EXS and now all of them are behaving as they should in M5, thank the Lord! Now, I'll have to learn what to do to get my Kontact sounds working. Also I saw over on UnicorNation that some folks have their Trilogy, and Atmosphere sounds loaded into M5 as well. That truly would be a God send since none of my Spectrasonics stuff works on Intel-Mac yet. The pops and clicks are bugging me though, but they are only happining after I hit stop, never during play. It seems that the CPU spikes just after playback.

[Mind-Over-Midi]

LoopLab is Very Cool...........Very.

The Mix window is also Very Cool.

[Mind-Over-Midi]

Ok, I trashed my entire kontact 2 Library and re-copied it to my HD from the install disk. It's working fine now in M5. If I can just get rid of the Jiffy pop, pop, pop... I'll try to tackle Spectrasonics tomorrow.

I downloaded Structure, authorized my iLok and so far life is good, smooooooth sailllllllling. Haven't had much time to put it through the paces though.