Here’s a quick overview of how to load a plugin in the Maschine software. I couldn’t find any info on this in the bundled docs, so here goes:

First of all, when we say plugins we’re talking about VST / AU plugins. For historical reasons they exist in both 32bit and 64bit versions, where older instruments / plugins tend to only support 32bit.

Keep this in mind since the mode (32/64) that you run Maschine in will determine which plugins you are able to load.

Also, one importent thing to remember. Never load an instrument as a plugin before first starting it in stand alone mode once. This is to make sure that the instrument runs all it’s initialization code properly, such as setting up folders and performing post-installation steps.

The first thing to do when you want to load a plugin is to make sure that Maschine is aware of the plugin’s existance. Follow the steps below in order to check which plugins are currently recognized by Maschine:

1. Open the Preferences menu in Maschine ([⌘,] on Mac)
2. Select the Plug-ins tab
3. You’ll see 3 sub sections: Locations, Manager, 34 or 64 Bit (depending on what mode you are running Maschine in)
   -> In the Locations section you can confirm where on disk Maschine looks for plugins. If you do not see a particular plugin even though you are sure you are running Maschine in the right mode, check here to make sure you have told Maschine about the folder where the plugin is installed.
   -> The Manager section (the middle one) will list the plugins you are currently able to use.
   -> The last section header will display 32bit if you are running Maschine in 64bit, and vice versa. This is to show you what plugins you are NOT able to load at the moment, but would be able to if you change the mode of Maschine.
4. Select the Manager section and confirm that the plugin you want to load is present in the list.

If you only see your plugin in the last sub section this means you have to restart Maschine in the correct mode (32 or 64bit) for your plugin. The following steps explain how to do this on a Mac.

1. Quit the Maschine application.
2. Right click the Maschine application in your applications drawer and select ‘Show in finder’
3. When the finder window opens, right click the Maschine.app icon and select ‘Get Info’
4. You’ll see a checkbox called ‘Open in 32-bit mode’. Check or uncheck this to toggle between 32 and 64 bit mode.

Now that you have confirmed that your plugin is recognized by Maschine, close the Preferences window.

Next we will need to load the plugin into a Sound slot / Pad. Follow the steps below to load the plugin:

1. Select a Sound slot one from the Group you want to load into.
2. Next we are going to focus on the Control area. If you do not know where this is, confirm it in the screenshot below, or consult the bundled Getting Started doc.
3. See the Master, Group and Sound tabs? Make sure that the Sound tab is selected. This allows us to load up to four Modules (a plugin is a type of Module), designated by the four numbered tabs.
4. Click the little arrow on tab 1 and a drop-down menu will appear.
5. Hover your mouse over the Plug-ins option in the menu.
6. A submenu with the available plugins will appear.
7. Select the plugin you want to load.

This will load your selected plugin into Module slot 1. Your plugin will now appear in the Edit area for the selected Module slot (or tab or whatever you call it). In the screenshot below you can see what it looks like with the Reaktor 5 plugin loaded:

To the right of the Edit area you’ll see the knobs that correspond with the physical knobs on the Maschine controller, labeled after what function they provide. If you want to open the Plugin UI just click anywhere in the Edit area.

That’s it. Now you have a plugin loaded and ready to go.

[Applies to Maschine 1.7]