Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine MK1 and MK2; Maschine 3.0 Preview
Maschine 3.0 to have stem separation, per-scene tempo, a new interface, and more!
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Native Instruments discontinuing support for Maschine MK1 and MK2 hardware. · Source: Native Instruments
Is Native Instruments discontinuing Maschine? It looks like MK1 and MK2 are on the chopping block to make way for Maschine 3.0. But what about Maschine+?
Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine MK1 and MK2
Native Instruments has announced that it is ending support for older versions of Maschine, specifically MK1 and MK2 hardware. The announcement was made on its community site.
Devices to be affected include Maschine MK1, Maschine MK2, Maschine Mikro MK1, and Maschine Mikro MK2.
“As is often the case with older hardware,” the announcement said, “we are at a stage with these Maschine products where we can no longer guarantee repairs due to a lack of available components. As operating systems advance there are also limits to the changes we can make to new software without breaking legacy hardware integrations.”
The change will go into effect on 6 November 2024.
Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine: Can You Still Use Your Old Maschine?
According to the statement, this change will not have any effect on the playability or use of the sundowned devices.
“You will still be able to use your Maschine hardware with Maschine 2 software, which includes Apple Silicon and VST3 support,” NI said. “However, from November 6, 2024, we will no longer be maintaining this hardware and cannot guarantee that it will be supported by future versions of your computer’s operating system. It will also not be compatible with new updates to Maschine software.”
So no need to throw out your old hardware as long as you’re fine running Maschine 2.
Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine: What Hardware Will Be Supported?
Native Instruments’ current Maschine lineup, which includes Maschine MK3, Maschine Mikro MK3, and Maschine+, will be fully compatible with Maschine 3.0.
Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine: Maschine 3.0 Coming Soon
Why put these old units out to pasture? Native Instruments said it’s to make way for improvements in Maschine 3:
“Retiring these products also means we will be able to put more focus on the development of new Maschine software.” The post went on to state, “The main reason for us to retire them is to allow our software products and technologies advance to a degree that we could not do whilst still supporting those devices.”
This vibes with the recent official announcement of Maschine 3.0, which is now slated for November 2024.
Promised features include:
- Stem separation
- MIDI editing workflow improvements
- Per-scene tempo
- Basic Kontrol S-Series MK3 integration
- Modern interface
- Other small but valuable improvements
NI also plans to roll out a new content library called Maschine Central “with 128 multi-sampled instruments that are fully compatible with Maschine+, as well as 70 new kits and over 100 new presets.”
The software upgrade will be available for purchase on its own or bundled with the software upgrade.
More Information
- Native Instruments Maschine product page
- All about Native Instruments
- All about grooveboxes
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3 responses to “Native Instruments Discontinuing Maschine MK1 and MK2; Maschine 3.0 Preview”
Yeah that’s why I ditched Native entirely. Maschine was a superb idea (and the DAW was great) but the support was awful. New features nobody asked for would drop randomly (and rarely) while long awaited bug fixes would never see the light of day.
The maschine line always felt like an after though on the bottom of their hundreds of hit or miss products.
So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.m and quite frankly I don’t expect much from 3.0
Looking forward to the new 3.0 features. Maschine+ is still a great product and use it all the time. The pads are the best pads I’ve used
and the studio? they can’t be killing that too. I have one and will not buy a newer one.