Hi People!
I am on the fence between the two and wanted some more opinions on the topic.
Who of you has tried both and can give me some advice?
I have used a Maschine before and thought the workflow is quite nice…only I hated was having to use soundflower to sample, why is there no loopback?
Anyway looking forward to hearing your opinions.
I had a push 2 and recently bought a maschine mk3. I like the maschine much better and ableton is my main daw. Main advantage is not having to look at computer screen and audio interface built in/ sampling capability (saves space). Also it can be powered by just usb. However it crashes constantly and I’m still waiting for support to help fix it, been over a week. Unfortunately if support can’t help me I’ll have to return it and prob go back to a push. They both are great but if your goal is to come up with ideas quickly without looking at a computer maschine wins imo.
coming up with ideas quickly is important yes. Thank for the input!
What do you find better about sampling on maschine? I’ve got push, and I like it, but I don’t find myself using it that much.
Let us know if support help you sort out the crashing.
It just feels more like an instrument to me. I like the fact that I am sampling directly into it. Ableton is much more powerful as a DAW and “sampler” but I like to use Ableton to do the actual “work” of editing and finishing a song where as Maschine is a lot more fun and I have to think a lot less.
Push to me is always an instrument first, and a controller for Live second. There’s a lot you can do from the front panel of Push, but there’s still a ton of functionality in Live that you either HAVE to use a mouse for or it’s just easier to do so. Where it really shines is letting you quickly play and sketch out ideas that you can dive into the software later on to refine and arrange more fully.
Maschine is more of a standalone groovebox, everything in the app is designed to be done from the controller itself so you can completely ignore the computer aspect if you want. Not to mention it comes with a TON of great sounds and samples for free, and the browsing on the Maschine hardware makes it dead simple to find what you want thanks to tagging.
Also, in more recent versions of Maschine sampling is MUCH more fleshed out now. It’s easy to resample individual sounds, Groups, the master channel, external audio etc. All from the hardware too, no need for soundflower anymore.
What do you use most then?
The built in interface in the Maschine is unnecessary for me as I got a MOTU Ultralite now…and the best thing I found out, I WON’T need soundflower anymore. The Ultralite apparently can do a loopback of the computers audio. So sampling of youtube will be a breeze (hopefully)
Also the Maschine crashing sounds scary to me.
Which one do you find yourself using more often?
I work for Ableton, so probably not the best person to ask to be honest.
I use Push2 as my main “keyboard” in the studio for playing any sort of synths, be it hardware or software. Maschine for me is more about putting together self-contained live sets based around more groovebox workflow. IE, I just use the Maschine hardware for everything, and I don’t plan on expanding on those ideas by turning them into a full fledged song. The performance of the hardware IS the final piece I release. Search on YouTube for Tarekith and Maschine for a bunch of examples.
I probably use Push quite a bit more than Maschine, but that’s largely just in a MIDI controller type of workflow to play my synths. I love how expressive it is, and the pad layout just fits me better than a normal key bed does.
It’s hard to sum up for people when they ask me which I like more If you’re already a heavy Live user, I think Push adds a lot to it by making things a lot more playable and easy to navigate. If you’re not already super invested in the Ableton workflow, then Maschine is a really fun way to come up with new song idea while largely letting you ignore the computer. I think it’s the best groovebox ever made, but I’d never want to arrange detailed songs with fills and transitions with it.
Sweet! Checkin out your channel as I’m writing this…great stuff!
And thanks for the answer!
I am actually not invested into ableton at all, but what I like about the Push 2 is the ability play keys “properly” as opposed to the Maschine where you only have a few pads. Also having the piano roll on the pads themselves sounds awesome in theory.
Damn, it’s a hard decision when you’re not made of money. Next question, can you make some special deals as you work for them? 
PS: What kind of work do you do for them, if I may ask?
If you’re after something you can actually play and aren’t into finger drumming, then I think you’d be happier with Push. Maschine has some really nice functions like chord mode, neat arps and what not, but I do think Push is more playable if you’re coming from a traditional instrument.
I’m one of the admins of the Ableton forums, and do advanced product testing for them . And sorry, but I can’t get deals like that
No worries, I didn’t really think I’d get a deal this way 
I am into fingerdrumming a bit, but I wouldn’t want to sacrifice other capabilities for it. I really like things that make me flow quickly (like the OP-Z), which I guess would speak for the Maschine + the included sounds are nice.
But the Push 2 on the other hand just seems more complete (not Komplete) being able to play keys better and have a full DAW at your disposal…
I just sold my MPC 2500 and now it’s time to replace it…I just want to make the right choice, but it’s so difficult. 1st world problems right there, ay?
I could buy a used Maschine MK3 for around 400 including shipping to Japan.
If you’re used to the MPC workflow, Maschine would definitely be closer to that than Push.
Thanks again, you’re being very helpful here!!
I got another question, that I think could lead me somewhere:
What is the thing you wish the Maschine MK3 / Push 2 would do better?
Which important things are missing from them?
do you run maschine rewired into Ableton? Or does it work differently today? I’m realising I don’t really understand it properly
I haven’t used ReWire in like 15-16 years to be honest. Normally I just run Maschine standalone, and don’t bother to host it in a DAW. The only time I do is when I record a live performance using Maschine like the YouTube videos I mentioned. Just so I can capture a realtime performance of all my jamming on Maschine, which would probably be my number wishlist for a native features of Maschine since someone asked.
For Push it would be better browsing of sounds and samples. Even with only a few Live Packs installed, if I go to my highhats folder for instance, it’s just a huge list of HHs. That’s really my only frustration right now with Push, it’s harder to dial into a specific sound you’re looking for compared to Maschine.
Yah I literally don’t bother browsing on push. It kinda seems like they implemented browsing kinda not greatly and just decided not to improve it.
maschine can run as a vst inside the DAW
It’s decided: Push 2 it is…I can’t resist the piano roll on the pads and that many flashy lights of course Now I just gotta find a deal!