12.2 Managing Scenes
Sequencing music in MASCHINE is done in a multi-tiered manner, the tiers being Patterns,
Scenes, and Timeline. The most basic building block in the MASCHINE sequencer is the Pat-
tern. This is where you program notes (events) and control information that trigger the Sounds,
Instruments, and Effects loaded into a Group. You can have multiple Groups in your MA-
SCHINE project, and each Group has its own unique set of Patterns.
Each Group will usually correspond to a musical element in your composition, such as Drums,
Bassline, and Melody. You will then use the Patterns in these Groups to create motifs, riffs, or
grooves for each part. For example, in the case of the drums, you might have a Pattern for the
intro groove, a Pattern for the verse groove, and a third Pattern for the chorus groove. You can
then make similar Patterns for the Bassline and Melody.
Once you’ve created these various musical motifs, you’ll probably want to group them together
to create “sections” in your composition. For example, the intro section of your song would
probably include the intro Drum Pattern, the intro Bassline Pattern, and the intro Melody Pat-
tern all playing together. This is the purpose of a Scene, which is essentially just a “snapshot”
of what Patterns should be playing on the Groups at any given time. You can have multiple
Scenes in your project which correspond to multiple sections in your song, though only one
Scene can play at a time. For example, you can have a Scene for the intro (as was just descri-
bed), another Scene for the verse (which contains all the verse Patterns) and a third Scene for
the chorus (which contains all the chorus Patterns). This now gives you the ability to play your
composition live by triggering these various Scenes as you wish. You could for example, begin
playing the intro Scene, let it play for 8 bars, then trigger the verse Scene and allow it to play
for 32 bars. When it feels like it’s time for the chorus, you trigger the chorus Scene and all the
assigned chorus Patterns will play. If you want, after 16 bars, you could then trigger the verse
Scene again to perform the second verse of your song.
The Timeline is where you arrange the Scenes so that MASCHINE will trigger them automati-
cally instead of requiring you to trigger them by hand. Following our previous example, you can
put the intro Scene at the start of the Timeline and set its length to 8 bars. You can then place
the verse Scene after it and give it a length of 32 bars. The chorus Scene would follow with a
length of 16 bars. Now, when you play MASCHINE from the start of its Timeline, you’ll hear
your entire arrangement play back automatically. This is how you build a basic song structure
in MASCHINE’s sequencer.
Creating a Song Using Scenes
Managing Scenes
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