Thanks for visiting Mensch Maschine!

We are Bart and Federico. We’re producers, exploring how we can bring the kind of music we like to listen to and produce, to the world of NFTs and the blockchain.

Some of our favorite recent music explorations are fully generative, and live 100% on-chain. So dope. We wanted to see if we can create a system that’s half Mensch (that’s us, the producers, making music with Euroracks, samplers, synths, Ableton) and half Maschine. Like many producers, random events, probability triggers, Turing Machine, Marbles etc are a big part of how we make music already.

How we built Mensch Maschine

We started with an awesome MaxMSP patch, built by Fullum. He built an early version of it so people can make music together over Twitch. We liked that it was already full programmable.

Our Max patch has 5 instruments:

• a drum sampler + sequencer
• bass synth + sequencer
• FM synth + sequencer
• subtractive synth + sequencer
• standalone sampler + sequencer.

All of the instruments have full VST plugin support. The arrangement part of the patch allows for 8 scenes.

We got to work, laying out a series of grooves, clips and scenes that felt right.

Then the Maschine did its part. We tuned the machine over 7 batches, to combine the different parts in interesting and unpredictable ways.

Then we took back control, in the 8th batch. We pulled the machine generated clips back into Ableton and did our thing there. Our buddy jammed some guitar. We added some automations and effects.

It’s just a first step, but we like what we came up with.

The Meta Data

The batches represent generations of the maschine, as we added features and capabilities (including entire instruments). We also tweaked the recombinator from batch to batch, so clips within a batch tend to have some connective tissue.

• Batch 1: 2 clips. This was our very first batch. The randomizer was not super well calibrated, so these 2 are a little wilder.
• Batch 2: 9 clips. Batches 1 and 2, the Maschine didn’t generate the attributes Json file yet, so the DNA here is invalid.
• Batch 3: 6 clips.
• Batch 3: 6 clips.
• Batch 4: 3 clips.
• Batch 5: 6 clips.
• Batch 6: 5 clips.
• Batch 7: 29 clips. This is the MxMxM batch. After the Maschine recombinated the track, we pulled these clips back into Ableton and the Mensch had another turn. One of these has guitar. One of them is 2x speed.

The Crew

• Lucas Stoffel - Design
• Maxx - Front-end
• Ryan Ouyang - Web3
• lenopix - Smart Contract

Wanna join us?

If you’re a producer or music coder and would like to use the Mensch Maschine or get involved, come hit us up on Discord.