Native Instruments has offered an intriguing update regarding the future of its Maschine platform, noting that its ultimate goal is to “get to a point where you can produce tracks start to finish” when using it.

Of course, there are already many people who use Maschine as far more than as a musical scratchpad, but NI’s statement implies that we could be approaching DAW levels of functionality somewhere down the line. Whether this will extend to a Maschine that works standalone rather than relying on a computer - as Akai’s latest MPC models do - remains to be seen.

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The good news is that you might not have to wait long for at least some of this functionality to land, as NI also says that there will be features that enables you to use Patterns, Scenes and the Song-View (Timeline) in more flexible ways arriving in 2020. Extended and improvement arranging features are also very much on the roadmap.

First up, though, we’ll get Maschine 2.10, which offers improved Pattern functionality and a bug fix or three.

All of which should provide reassurance to Maschine users following NI’s announcement in 2019 that it was reducing its headcount by 20% and focusing on the development of “a new, unified and fully integrated platform on which the company’s entire portfolio of products and services will be available.”