Plays back multiple file formats, functions in multiple plug-in formats.
55 People rated this product : 7 out of 10
8 People wrote reviews









5 out of 10
Feature:
it has alot of great features. If you are an experienced 'samplist' and read the product description on the MOTU website, you will lust for it, immediately.
Quality:
I would have to say that it looks damned good. Sweet colors and user interface, but use a big screen. I HDMI'd it into my 37" HDTV so my eyes didn't have to squint to find all the little icons all over the user interface, and it works out well.
Sound:
Sounds good, does what it should. You better have a lot of RAM (IE at least 4GB and preferable 8GB), which means you HAVE to be running XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit. I had to buy Vista 64 bit ultimate since Steinberg stopped supporting XP 64 bit with Cubase. I tried to install MOTU on XP and it did run, but once I loaded MachFive as a VST, the system crashed into blue screen of death and Memory Dump Vxooooodddd yada yada began and I had to reboot, so right now, you have Vista 64 bit as your safe bet. Oddly, Machfive ran standalone on XP 64 bit, just fine so if you are using an external sequencer (MPC or whatnot) you can run the program within a third party VST host, I am sure and simply use the 'puter as a musical instrument only.
Ease of Use:
This product is easy to use, once you RTFM a few times.
Support:
Call them and it becomes a 'day on hold' experience, so forget it. There website sucks even worse. No user experience work arounds posted . Think I need to start a Machfive Users group off site for MOTU only refers you to their 'canned' troubleshooting pages, which covers the basic stuff that most anyone could figure out on their own. It is the installation and requirements that kill a PC user before they ever get it out of the box, and that is what really needs to be covered, but of course MOTU acts like
Overall:
IF MOTU gets the PC install bugs worked out, it'll be a great system. Until then, this is A Mac product thats been half-assed code chopped Frankenstein style to work on a PC format. As you can see from my below posts, the only thing I could ever get it to load on properly in standalone mode was a Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM. When I tried it on my PC laptops, nada, never not gonna happen. Same was true for my XPC shuttle with 4GB RAM. Forget it.
I finally got it to run partially on Windows Vista 64 bit, with ASUS P5E-VM HDMI mobo using Intel G35 Express chipset, running an Intel Core II duo E8400 at 3Ghzwith & 8 GB of RAM and 7200 RPM Seagate SATA II harddrive, but only within a VST host.
When I built the above system, installed Vista 64 bit, then installed the 64 Bit Interlok software for the stupid usb dongle MOTU uses, it would not load version 2.01 or 2.02 of Machfive.
Once installed, You'll get 'Intitialization Error'-"This software could not find the required user interface DLL. Please reinstall the software, and try again." I did, ad naseum to no success. I was about to take MOTU to small claims course when a miracle happened.
All was not lost! I installed the 64 bit early release beta version of Cubase Studio 4 from the Steinber website and placed the Machfive into my x86 programs files Steinber VST folder. When I initialized Cubase, MachFive loaded just fine as a VST instrument within Cubase. About Damned time! Finally! wooo hoo!
I'm up and running and since I'll sequence it anyway, I don't care if I run it standalone. Odd how I still get the DLL error trying to run it standalone on a system where it fires right up within a VST environment. I have a decent amount of RAM, so that could be a MAJOR factor in it running for when I loaded it on a 4 gig system, it was sluggish as hell and unusable, but that was a different MOBO (see other reviews I wrote on it)
The caveat to all this is that if you are running an xp or vista 32 bit system, you cannot use more than 3.5 GB of RAM as the OS is designed to not see more than that, so you are screwed trying to run Machfive and must install either Vista or XP 64 bit, and your mobo and chipset must be designed to run on 64 bit OS, so if you got an older system, build yourself a newer, bigger and badder machine, or simply get a Mac. I'm cheap and like more muscle for less money, so I have stuck with PC but to run MachFive properly as much money into my system now, with software yada yada than you'd have if you just went out and bought the basic Macbook and added your own RAM and 7200
RPM laptop drive (don't pay apple to do it, it's a 400 dollar scam for 40 bucks worth of memory).
Submitted: 4/17/2008









4 out of 10
Feature:
NA
Quality:
NA
Value:
If you have a Mac
Desirability:
nice colors
Sound:
NA
Ease of Use:
Can't get it working
Support:
nonexistent..they'll blame your program, system etc not their product. Plausible deniability. Worse than the goverment if you ask me.
Overall:
Built an Antec with ASUS P5E-VM HDMI Mobo and 8 gigs of RAM running Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz.
Installed within Cubase Studio 4.1 with latest upgrades from Steinberg. Downloaded MachFive v 2.02 from MOTU site. Installed on my system. Went to run machfive as a plugin within the VST environment and it crashed my program. Did the same but within XP 64 bit, and got the blue screen of death and crash vxdoooooooo error cannot blah blah...removed Machfive from VST folder and Cubase fired up fine and was stable, so it is with MachFive, not Cubase. Go figure. Ran Machfive on its own standalone within Vista 32 bit and it seems to run, but sluggishly, and screen is too large, right part of Machfive cannot be seen on my puter screen and I could not resize it with the mouse. Just a jacked up program on ANY Windows platform.
Use only with a Mac.
Submitted: 4/13/2008
Style of Music: techno
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"I'm already looking to place my next order with Zzounds." - customer on August 14, 2008
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