Hybrid setup: Chris Liebing’s Traktor-Maschine combo

A man who knows his gear, Chris Liebing talks about how Native Instruments Traktor and Maschine work well together to get the most out of his DJ sets.

NI Chris Liebing Traktor Maschine

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The war for your laptop screen rages on, with Pioneer DJ, Serato, and Native Instruments seemingly in a never ending skirmish, like something out of 1984. With Denon DJ now throwing their hat into the ring, it looks like the latest weapon of war is the ‘VIP endorsement’. The brands will be shoring up the support in the coming months, and for us, that means lots of cool videos of DJs and gear.

One thing you can be fairly sure of in all that, is the sight of a techno DJ using Traktor. NI hasn’t gone as far as cornering the market within the techno scene, but at the top, the list of Traktor users is long… and near the top is the smiley German face of Chris Liebing. Here… Look! Smiling!

Over the years, Chris has been one to push hard in the direction of digital DJing, and extending his setup to include more than just DJ gear. He’s used the hybrid hardware/software Maschine groovebox pretty much since it came out, and has now added the new Maschine Jam. I think it’s safe to say he’s a bit of a Native Instruments fanboy.

“I’ve been using the original MASCHINE in my performances for a long time,” Chris comments. “It sits front and center in my setup, allowing me to transform another producer’s song into something completely different by adding extra drums or spicing it up with some new percussion or melodic elements.”

NI has compiled this trio of videos to give you insight into the life and setup of the DJ/producer, and hopefully convince you to buy the stuff in the videos.

My thoughts

I have to say, I always enjoy watching interviews with Mr Liebing. Not only does the man beam with happiness at every moment, he seems like a jolly nice bloke and his enthusiasm and passion are infectious. The man is also a complete of a gear geek who gets as excited about a new toy as the rest of us do.

Adding the Maschine Jam to his setup seems like the logical thing to do. Even though the form-factor is similar to the Push, what you lose in control in some areas, you gain in others like with the touch faders. There’s some very clever workflow designs going on that are perfect for DJs.

Unlike Richie Hawtin (who doesn’t beatsync any part of his setup), Chris is happy automating the tempo of his sets. I don’t blame him. Beatmatching is fun, but it’s just an extra variable to if you want more than two tracks playing.

“I have no problem with syncing. For me, it’s more important what comes out of the speaker. And if I don’t have to worry too much about staying in sync with everything else all the time, I can use that time to be way more creative and do other things.”

Personally, I’m always fascinated by what people do to enhance their DJing further than two decks and a mixer. I enjoy some straight up ones and twos mixing on occasion, but I’m one of those people that have been enthralled by what Native Instruments have been trying to push in recent years. Bringing new things like Stems and Remix Decks (and the S8, I suppose) might have been a traumatic experience for Native Instruments, with some fairly big pushback on social media, but at least it’s something exciting. I feel like people need to understand that it might not be for everyone, but for those willing to unleash their imagination, there’s loads of options.

And it’s not just NI. Serato recently updated Serato DJ with both MIDI clock and Ableton Link. If you’re feeling particularly brave, there’s even a way to get a Raspberry Pi to work with Link. It’s definitely a DIY project, but you’ll be able to confidently add your old synths and grooveboxes to your setup!

Your thoughts

Have you tried adding something extra to your setup? If not, what’s putting you off?

Check out the landing page on the NI site to find out more about the gear Chris Liebing uses.

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Dan Morse
Dan Morse

Opinionated DJWORX newsie. Loves Traktor, analogue mixers, vinyl and Android. The best Techno bedroom DJ you know.

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27 Comments

  1. I’d tried to implement Remix Decks and Stems into my sets, and the workflow has simply never clicked for me personally, but this Maschine-Traktor workflow seems like it could finally click for me.

    But I’ll frequently bring my 2nd gen Electribe sampler to plug into the mic input on a mixer for my CDJ sets, just to add some extra claps or hats over the occasional track that might need them.

      • It’s fun! The samples sound great so it fits into my sets pretty cleanly.
        I’ll typically run a midi cable out of the mixer to the Electribe, but I’ll typically only rely on that to get the current bpm registered. I don’t trust midi syncing 100%, so i’ll usually rely on just my own timing to hit play on the sampler, and drift often comes into play, but at that point I’ll just beatmatch the decks to the clock on the Electribe. Plus I’ll occasionally just trigger the sample pads live or run a roll/fill. I don’t often leave it running for too long just in case of any major drift, but it works great to add that extra layer of percussion over an otherwise empty breakdown, so the crowd doesn’t lose the downbeat.

          • Perfect way to do it. Have you tested it with the Link protocol yet? Traditional midi sync is nigh on useless in comparison, from the limited testing I’ve done with Link. Still have yet to take it out and really stress test, but I’ve had nothing but good results so far.

            • External syncing requires delay compensation most of the time (until Link or OSC) but internally (Traktor itself) should work solid with the right settings (and all well warped and sync on, of course…)

            • I have, and it’s stable. But sometimes the phrasing gets out of sync and I haven’t figured out how to reset it. (So for example, Ableton is stuck at 2 beats out from Traktor when I’ve got a 8 beat drum rack loop set up.) I imagine there’s a way to reset it, but I don’t know what it is.

    • Same for me.
      Remix Decks were a pain in the ass to prepare (if you made your own) and Stems simply lack interesting releases.
      I would have loved to see some house classics re-releases where you could use vocal parts etc. to make your own live-mashups – but that never happened.
      Instead, there is just boring tech house stuff.

      The combination of Traktor and Maschine got really interesting with Ableton Link.
      Especially with Maschine Jam there are tons of possibilities and it’s great fun to explore it.

      Concerning the video:
      This is exactly what I would like to see more.
      Nice and talented people (Chris Liebing is really cool!) showing their techniques and how they use the gear.

        • Yep, that’s the way I did it.

          While it’s easy to save loops to cells, the hard part is finding good source material, preparing it (especially acappellas can be hard to grid) and creating a remix deck that makes sense for my preferred style(s).
          It’s rather a creativity issue on my side than the fault of NI ;)

          • The remix decks aren’t hard to put together in terms of sourcing material. For me, they’ve just never flowed right in sync with other decks. Like there’s always a weird bit of behavior when pausing or starting a remix deck, and having to keep in mind the intricacy of how they’ll sync up with other decks has always seemed like more trouble than it’s worth. Granted, I haven’t tried using an external midi sequencer like the Twister, but a feature shouldn’t rely on a third party piece of hardware like that to work out of the box.

            • Again… why you find out of sync? Did you check the launch cells options and properly warped material (for the remix deck).
              If you record from warped/synced material into a cell it usually works flawless…

      • Im thinking to connect Ableton and Traktor. I would use the Akai APC40 for ableton, 2 normal traktor decks, a STEM deck and a remix deck for sampling. Maschine never really worked for me. The only + was the step sequencer but you can map this in ableton to.. Dillema.

      • This is why I still buy records. We have multiple formats at our disposal but when it comes to some releases, it’s another story.
        Hybrid performances for me is the way to go. You guys rarely refer to Mark de Clive Low or DJ Enferno who kinda spearheaded the tendency, some years back. Standing out of the DJ masses with a reliable set-up in a constantly evolving technological environment is still hard.

  2. Do people even care about sync anymore? I’m pretty sure we all agree that, so long as you know how to beatmatch, it’s OK to use sync if you’re doing something else that requires skill or bring something fresh to the table. Case and point, Craze used sync during his MikiDz set, but we all know he’s a top-tier DJ. We’re not going to criticize him for using sync, are we?

  3. Buttons Djs, the cancer of Djing. And yes, I was a button Dj for some time in the past until I realized it was sucking the life out of my sets. Anyways, If CL is being paid for using that set up, nice for him. Not my style of Djing nor music (and yes again, I bought a lot of CLR vinyls back in 2000, until his music turned into copy-paste crap).

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