This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Native Instruments MASCHINE+ MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Native Instruments MASCHINE+: what it answers to, and the 2 controls it offers.

At a glance

Firmware: Not recorded.
MIDI channel: Any one of 1 to 16.
Parts: Sound: on a MIDI channel of its own, taking notes and controls.
Group: on a MIDI channel of its own, taking notes.
Voices: Not recorded.
Note range: Not recorded.
Velocity: Not recorded.
Aftertouch: Not recorded.
Pitch bend: Not recorded.
Program change: Received.
MIDI clock: Sent and received.
Start and stop: Not recorded.
Control change: Assigned by the player, apart from the 2 controls below.
NRPN: Not recorded.
System exclusive: Not recorded.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by part and group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("native_instruments/maschine_plus") has loaded them.

Sound

Smart strip

Control	CC	Values
Modulation `modulation`	1	0-127

Sampler

Control	CC	Values
Sustain `sustain`	64	0-127 Received, never sent

Where these facts come from

Source documents

MASCHINE+ Manual, dated 13 May 2022, its user manual, read on 4 October 2026 (the file read).
MASCHINE+ Manual, dated 1 October 2020, its user manual, read on 4 October 2026 (the file read).
Maschine Downloads – Native Instruments, its download page, read on 4 October 2026.

How they were read

MASCHINE+ Manual, English edition of 13 May 2022, 243 pages: the MIDI sockets and the clock at pp. 17-18, the Controller Editor and what it is for at p. 19, the Smart Strip's modulation mode at p. 43, the MIDI settings at pp. 58-60, the Sampler's envelope at p. 94, the MIDI control chapter at pp. 162-166, and the Macro Controls at p. 174. And the English edition of 1 October 2020, 215 pages, read in full and cited for nothing. And Native Instruments' Maschine downloads page, for what is published.

THE PRINTED PAGE IS EIGHT BEHIND THE SHEET, so page_offset: 8, checked on five sheets spread through the document rather than on one.

THERE IS NO MIDI IMPLEMENTATION CHART AND NO CONTROLLER MAP, which the instrument survey said and which is confirmed by reading the maker's own list of downloads rather than the survey's summary of it. That list offers this manual, an online edition of it, and manuals for nine other Maschine products - five of which are Hardware Control Reference documents and none of them for this one. That phrase is in the page's markup, in the file names, and not in its visible text, so it is in backticks rather than quote marks: it cannot be cited. The Maschine MK1, MK2, MIKRO and STUDIO each have one; the MASCHINE+ does not.

SO THE WORK ON THIS INSTRUMENT WAS TO ESTABLISH AN ABSENCE, AND A MACHINE ESTABLISHED IT. Five patterns, written wider than what was expected to be found, over every page of both editions. The whole result:

"MIDI CC #1" (manual p. 43) the Smart Strip's modulation mode

"Control Change 64" (manual p. 94) the Sampler's envelope Sustain

Two passages in 243 pages, and the 2020 edition names the same two. So nothing about this changed between October 2020 and May 2022, which is worth knowing because the older edition is live and the downloads page does not link it.

BOTH NUMBERS ARE ONES THE MIDI SPECIFICATION HAD ALREADY SPOKEN FOR, and the manual knows it about one of them and not the other. Of controller 1 it says "This MIDI Continuous Controller is reserved for the modulation wheel" (manual p. 43) - so the maker is naming the protocol's own meaning rather than claiming a number. Of controller 64 it says nothing: "This can also be controlled by an external MIDI controller or keyboard using the MIDI Control Change 64" (manual p. 94), where 64 is the damper pedal and what it reaches here is an envelope's sustain level, a continuous parameter on a number the specification defines as a switch. The maker does not remark on that and nothing here resolves it; it is recorded because a player meets it as a surprise.

EVERY OTHER CONTROLLER NUMBER BELONGS TO THE OWNER, and the maker says so in as many words: "you can also use it as a powerful and highly versatile MIDI controller to pilot any other MIDI-capable software application" (manual p. 19) by way of "an application that allows you to precisely define all MIDI assignments for your MASCHINE controller" (manual p. 19). Inside the instrument it is the same: "It is also possible to assign MIDI Control Change messages, Pitchbend and Program Changes to Macro Controls in order to control external MIDI devices" (manual p. 174), and every number in that sentence is the player's to choose.

AND THE MANUAL FOR THAT APPLICATION IS NOT ON THE WEB. The instrument's manual points at it four times, and the fourth says where it is: "the Controller Editor Manual available as a PDF file via the Help menu of Controller Editor" (manual p. 19). Not on the downloads page, not under docs.native-instruments.com among the ten Maschine PDFs there, and not reachable without installing the software. So whatever controller numbers that application's defaults use cannot be established from anything this maker publishes, and this definition does not guess at them. That is the sharpest limit on this instrument and it is a limit of publication rather than of reading.

WHAT IS ABSENT BESIDES, CHECKED RATHER THAN ASSUMED. The words NRPN, RPN, System Exclusive and SysEx appear nowhere in either edition. Nor does any implementation chart, nor a note range, nor a polyphony figure - this instrument's sound is a project of Groups and Sounds rather than a voice count, and the manual gives none.

EVERY QUOTATION IN THIS FILE CARRIES A LOCATOR, AUDITED BY PAIRING THE QUOTE MARKS: 34 quotations, 34 locators, with the seven remaining pairs being field values rather than anybody's words. The gate checks 33 of them, and the one it passes over is "MIDI CC #1", which is ten characters where it requires twelve - so the two counts reconcile and the difference is accounted for rather than left as a gap.

THE CONNECTORS ARE IN AND OUT AND THERE IS NO THRU, which is worth stating because this maker's competitors mostly have three: "MASCHINE+ has dedicated MIDI sockets that allow you to directly connect other MIDI devices using a MIDI cable with a 5-pin DIN MIDI jack" (manual p. 17), and the instructions that follow name the MIDI OUT socket and the MIDI IN socket and no third.

AND ONE COPY-PASTE ERROR IN THE MAKER'S OWN TEXT, recorded because it bears on how closely the prose can be read. Section 4.4.3 is headed Send MIDI Clock and its opening sentence is right - "If MASCHINE+ is running in Standalone mode, it can send a MIDI Clock signal to any device capable of receiving MIDI Clock" (manual p. 18) - and the instruction immediately beneath it begins "To configure MASCHINE+ to receive MIDI Clock from an external device" (manual p. 18) - receive, under a heading that says Send - which is the previous section's sentence left in place. Nothing below rests on it; the clock is settled from the settings page instead.

THE ONLINE EDITION WAS NOT FETCHED, and the reason is that it would not settle anything. Native Instruments publishes this manual as a PDF and as an online guide, as Roland does for the S-1 - where the two turned out to be the same document at the same version. Here the PDF is dated and the online guide is not, so a difference between them could not be dated either way, and the PDF is the one a machine can hash. If the online guide is ever needed, it is at docs.native-instruments.com/online-guides/maschine-plus-manual/en/index-en.