MOTU MachFIVE Mac

Guitarist for 25 years, using MIDI for 10.
Used M5 on a 12" PowerBook G4, 1GHz, 768MB RAM.

Used M5 only for a short while. The packaging did not state that M5 uses an USB dongle (iLok). The app as such is ok, the interface is well organised, but a bit hard to read. The problem is the iLok, and the crappy iLok software. It installs Kernel Extensions (on OS X), as the dongle is a piece of hardware that the OS must talk to. These are loaded on boot up. Quality requirements for system level software are much higher than for apps, as mistakes can compromise stability etc. The iLok software caused Kernel Panics in my case, which makes M5 unusable.
The uninstaller provided with the software is crap as well, as it does not remove everything that was installed. Had to do this manually, to get back to a stable system.

The samples that come with M5 are mediocre, I could find only a handful in the huge library that were actually good. I do not like the sound of the UVI Engine at all (I also use Atmosphere, same engine), but that's my personal taste.

Unusable, due to iLok and the iLok software. The reseller was kind enough to let me return the software. Don't get me wrong, I have used MOTU's Digital Performer for years, and absolutely love it, my favourite piece of software. If MOTU would get rid of the iLok, and provide a major update for M5, the rating would be much better....

Mach 5 Version 1.2.3 on a Tiger G5 2.7
I was getting no where FAST with this program despite carefull atention the manual, so I called tech support and actualy got them! The techy was very dismissive, rude and arrogant- and ultimately stupid, for a good 15 minutes elapsed in our trouble-shooting trip before he asked me what version of Mach 5 I had. As it turns out the version they are selling in the store is not Tiger compatible, but the version on their website is. Of course, it is now impetus on me to own DSL for its a 40+ meg DL that took 3 hours on dial up (they wouldnt burn a CD for me). I still am unable to convert any of my Roland library (the only reason I bought it)and furthermore, it, like Unisyn, should be part of the DP application and not an add on- because its not that special of a program.It comes with a minimum of sounds that are plain jane- the fidelity is good however. I dont really know where MOTU's head is these past few years: they have not made any significant changes in Performer i.e.same quantize and split note pages for many years,solo functions are fairly useless,etc. Its still one of the best composing tools around but they need to focus on what got them to where they are today.

Ive been writing electronic music of many genres for over 10 years now.
Im using a PC with P4 2.4 intel & 1gig of ram.
M-audio 2496 & Emu 0404 sourd cards
Event 20/20 monitors
Im using this with Cubase SX 2

The interface is great, other than the fact that some of the Text is a bit smaller than I would like.
No installation problems at all.
Midi & automation work great
The sound quality is great.

Getting the samples in the sampler is as easy as dragging and dropping, layering and looping is also just as easy. This makes creating patches simple and fast. It also has great filter and effect options. In fact, I have even found myself using it with basic wav forms in place of other virtual analog synths pluggins because it can sound so fat. The envelopes are smooth, and can also be quick and sharp if needed. Im not sure why, but the overall effect that the envelopes and LFO's have seem more effect realistic when compared to other soft synths.

Now that I have this, I might as well uninstall kontakt, halion, battery, and so on.... the quality, ease of use and simplicity make this my favorite soft sampler.

MIDI musician for 19 years. Bass guitarist for 26 years.
I'm reviewing version 1.08 which is light years better than previous versions. Old versions used to crash on me and I couldn't even import EXS24 sounds. This version has taken care of most of the bugs.
I use MachFive with Logic 6.3.3. and Cubase SX 2.2
I use MachFive for drums primarily. Hip Hop and Dance music
I'm using Mac OS 10.3.3 on a G4 DP1 GHz
I monitor on Event 20 20 BiAmplified speakers.

The interface is super clean. I have no complaints.
installation was flawless. The only negative about the dongle is that it takes up another USB slot.
The manual is decent, I pretty much found what I needed in it.
It comes with a nice sound library so it's easy to get good sound right out of the box.

The sound quality is AWESOME. I think the filters beat out Kontakt and EXS24. The sound library is more about quality than quantity. It takes forever to load even guitar sounds, but overall they sound pretty incredible.

It's worth the price tag and then some. My only complaint is its lack of support for Streaming in the Mac version. It's pretty good on your CPU as long as you don't use too many FX. The FX and filters have a distinct edge over Kontakt. The initail release has some stability problems, but ever since the 1.05 version and on it has never crashed on me. It imports so many different formats and does a pretty good job at all of them for the most part.

nearly 30 years. guitar keyboards computer etc
MachFive 1.07
Digital Performer 4.2
Music for tv commercials - so every style of music.
Mac G5 OSX 10.3.3
Mac - O2R - Genelec&NS10s

never had any problem working out how to do stuff - hardly looked at the manual.
the dongle is inevitably going to get snapped off and then I'll be fxxxed - just a matter of time...
converted my full library of Roland S7XX sounds - took a while but worth it - everything sounds much better - and its all immediately accessible. I've also converted akai discs with no problem - though because of the way the akai architecture is set up - you end up getting a soundbank with a million presets in and no way to find stuff if you're not sure what the first letter is...

plus draggin and dropping .aif files to create new presets is as easy as it should be - and they sound great.

like I said, I've hardly looked at the manual - all very intuitive.

sounds great - but at the end of the day it all depends on the original samples - machfive plays them back about as pristine as they can be.

to save processor power (and the one main glitch the plug in seems to have) I create a separate instance for sounds that I want to have reverb on, and use my outboard or O2R reverbs on those channels. But I use the MachFive delays and phasers all the time.

I'm a DP user and I figured I should move over to a soft sampler - looked at quite a few others - but eventually the need to convert my Roland library, plus the fact that I'm already a DP user convinced me.

I love the internal FX - delays, phasers etc, though the Reverbs create a bit of noise, and sometimes seem to feedback on themselves (!?!?!??!?) - in fact the reverbs are the worst thing about it - hopefully this will be sorted out shortly, but otherwise it works great.

Also as I'm jumping about between projects a lot - its great that I don't have to save a separate file - it all comes back as part of the plug in.

I don't think I'd bother trying to run it on a G4 - it does use up a bit of processor power on my G5 - but I can minimize this by only having one MachFive window open, and avoid the reverbs.

Making music for 15 years. Musician for....ever (20+yrs). Drummer (main), keys, bass, gtr. Use motu DP4.12/Mach V on a Platinum G4 Laptop w/1 ghz running OSX.2, 828 FW interface. Needed software synth; Mach V was a finance friendly alternative.

I write eclectic music that I'm trying to master to get a "sound".
I have a pair of Roland (cheap) monitors & headphones.

One of Mach V's problems is trying to read the lettering on the interface. Another problem was triggering samples via midi: even with my buffer down, there was still latency. The samples are ehhh: I've heard better. Unfortunately, I'm using Mach V with a Motu Micro Lite midi interface so...there was no support in the manual, but luckily, I got it to work.

I have tried to tweak some of the samples (without using the manual), but there seemed to be a problem: maybe operator error. Maybe I'll have to look into the manual again.

I have yet to try to edit or load new samples.

I think there should be some better support from MOTU for this...and I LIVE near Cambridge, MA!!!!

Also, I wish the interface had a way to bring up windows whenever you wanted to instead of every window open in one screen.

making music for around 15 years. Running DP4.1 and Machfive. Dual G5 with motu 828mkII

Fairly obvious to use, never touched the manual. Dongle sucks as expected. Very easy to converct my huge emu and akai libraries, much faster loading than my emu.

Sounds great and alomst totally replaces my emu which motu haven't bothered to support over scsi in dp - grrr.

Well worth the money and very convenient. Dump the dongle and I could use it on my laptop a whole lot easier.

I've been making music all my life, and now earn a living by composing and producing music for movies, also postproducing other people's movies in terms of audio & sounddesign.
I play trumpet (professionally) and keyboards, among other instruments.
running Mach5 1.07 in Digital Performer on a 667MHz Powerbook, System 9.2.2 with Hammerfall RME.
Making all sorts of music (pop, jazz, classical and mainly filmmusic)

It's VERY intuitive, it had NO problems installing,
the copy protection works without a glitch,
fully automatable, and very flexible.
The manual speaks for itself, but is not needed.

It sounds AWSOME!
the pitch shift algorithm sounds excellent.
It even supports 5.1 samples!!!!
(Is there competition?
It's multi-timbral and polyphony only depends on the computer speed...

It never crashes, very compatible with other sample libraries (separate Xtract program takes care of this!)
I love the way you can easily build your own samples!!
(Drag and drop soundfiles from your favourite sequencer into mach5, and instantly play with it!!!)
The fx section is great and VERY manipulative!

I'm a long time DP user who uses it primarily for film compositions.I'm using a G4 733.

By far the worst manuel ever written.It tells you what it can do but never tells you how.I've had it for a couple of months and still have'nt figured out how to load samples.I know of 2 other Mach 5 owners and they can't figure it out either.And we're not that dumb.The sounds are fair although you get a lot of loops with no docs.i.e.tempos,keys,basically useless.

OK sounds supplied.Since I can't load sound,I don't know what it sounds like.

OK so I got ripped.Motu support is incredibly slow and their solution is that all my akai discs must be bad.

As a DP user, I had nothing but high hopes for this software. The main reason I got it was a fluid sampler converter from all the formats I have.

I have BitHeadz Unity and it converts sample formats beautifully, but it's a very buggy affair otherwise and not reliable. Well, it stands heads and shoulders over
MachFIVE which didn't successfully convert any sample format (and it achieved this failure slooooooooooooowly!).

The manual is atrocious. MOTU went so out of its way make this seem like a non-MOTU product that everybody is sent back to his (or her) sequencer manual
to figure out out to audio/MIDI configure the thing (yes, "thing"). And finding anything logically presented is impossible: you jump here, then here, then back
to there. Maybe you find the answer. Maybe you don't. Convoluted? A tad.

The interface is very pretty. But some of the lettering is very small. And printed against dark colors. In other words, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

My favorite feature is the USB dongle. Yup, MOTU now uses dongles. I realize a good number of musicians are crooks (you know who I'm talking about; you
there, give that guy his gear back!), but what about those of us who aren't? You get a dongle either way.

Well, it's supposed to do all kinds of things. "Supposed to." I've come to the point where if I can't get somethign going after about six hours, all features
become meaningless, as though there WERE NO features. This is the case for MachFIVE

Well, the few sounds that came on the CD are plain jane. The ones on the DVD were basically a sampling of samples from other companies. Ehh. Not too
impressive. Would have liked to have heard Akai and ProTools formats on it , but as I say above, it did not happen.

I have had too many bad experiences with incompetent designs in the past to suffer such unprofessionalism gladly. I got rid of this turkey as fast as I could and
am not sorry (though I am sorry I wasted my time and money). It's hard to use, doesn't work anyway, and should be considered a software hate crime.

MachFIVE was supposed to have been released in March 03 and didn't get released until several months later. I had hoped that meant they had gotten it
working properly and were ready to support it. Nope.

I have actually gotten people to become DP users in the past. I'm hoping I now have the opposite effect and get people to NOT become MachFIVE users. Save
your money. RUN. RUUUUUUNNNNNNN.