Native Instruments Maschine MK2 mod with 8 gates and 2 CV out

Totally voided my warranty for my Maschine MK2 and installed a small CV interface.

Why? - I wanted to integrate Maschine with my analog stuff without having to run Maschine's MIDI through an external MIDI-CV converter first. The gates and CVs now feel like a direct extension of Maschine's possibilities.

- 8 gate outputs (5V)

- 2 CV outputs (NOT 1V/oct but 0-5V)

So how does this work together with Maschine hard/software?

SIMPLE:

- I assign a MIDI out module to a sound (channel 1)

- I go to keyboard mode on that sound and play pads 1-8. The gates correspond to those 8 pads. Done. Velocity CVs are available for pads 1 and 2.

DETAILS:

- The interface is a Midibox CV with one AOUT_LC module. I was surprised how much space there is available under the Maschine PCB. I could fit some other toys there, and I think the next step will be an additional 1V/oct CV interface from midimplant.com.

- I've assigned the gates to MIDI notes C3, C#3,...G3 and the CVs to velocity of the first two gates. I am using gates and not triggers because you can do some great on/off sequencing stuff with them, e.g. opening/closing a filter etc.

- If I want to use the CV outputs for smooth progressions, I record the respective pad with note repeat active (the highest note repeat resolution is 1/64th which works quite well for the CVs since the interface itself has a built-in slew rate that I set to 8 ms).

- Technically, the CV outputs run at about 0.48 V/octave if you will, and they have a precision of 8 bit. They are meant for percussive sequencing and not playing melodies, so I'm good! The background is that the interface runs solely from Maschine's USB power (5V) anyway and I omitted the AOUT_LCs op-amp scaling and offset circuit.