Maraschino

Open-source songwriting controller for the Maschine Mikro Mk3. It turns the 4×4 pad grid into chords and notes that you can use to compose melodic music, instead of just playing drums. You do not need to use the Maschine plugin in your DAW for this to work.

What it does

• Chords & notes locked to a key. Pick a key/scale (12 roots × major or minor) and the pads play in it: 6 diatonic chord pads (3 major, 3 minor; the diminished triad is deliberately excluded), 8 scale-note pads, and 2 hold-to-shift octave pads (default octave 3). Chord/note assignments update live when you change key.
• Plays into any DAW as MIDI — Maraschino creates its own MIDI port; no extra MIDI software or driver needed (see below).
• Full MIDI-controller behavior: pitch bend, mod wheel, etc...
• DAW transport & track controls: Play / Stop / Rec / Restart and Solo / Mute / Select via Mackie Control (default), or mappable CCs / MMC.
• Visual feedback: pad LEDs colored by role; the OLED shows the current key, octave and strip mode.
• Desktop GUI (Windows / macOS / Linux) for key/scale, octave, velocity, MIDI channel & port, strip and transport modes.
• Coexists with NI software on Windows — it doesn't stop the Native Instruments background services, so Maschine 2 / Komplete Kontrol keep working.

Requirements

• Maschine Mikro Mk3: this might work for other models, but it was only tested on this one.
• Windows: For Windows 11, nothing extra is required. For Windows 10 or earlier, you will need to install a loopback driver.
• macOS: macOS 10.15+
• Linux: GTK 3 + WebKitGTK 4.1, ALSA and libudev at runtime (libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 libgtk-3-0 libasound2 libudev1 libxdo3).
• For transport / solo / mute: a DAW that supports Mackie Control (Studio One, Cubase, Reaper, Ableton Live, FL Studio) or one-time control-surface setup.

MIDI

Two ports appear:

• “Maraschino” (“Maraschino Out” on Linux/macOS) — chords, notes, mod/pitch, volume. Use it as your instrument track's MIDI input.
• “Maraschino MCU Transport” — transport + track buttons; add it as a Mackie Control surface.

On Windows you'll also see two “Host” ports, which can be ignored.

Limitations & status

• Only tested on a Maschine Mikro Mk3. Other variants might work, but aren't guaranteed.
• MCU Solo/Mute act on the first Mackie bank slot, not your selected track.
• The diminished chord is excluded due to space.
• The macOS build is not notarized, so Gatekeeper warns on the first launch.
• Older version of Windows require a loopback driver to be compatible.

Install & build

Pre-built Windows / macOS / Linux artifacts are attached to each GitHub Release. To build from source:

cargo build --release -p maraschino     # native build for the current OS

CI (.github/workflows/release.yml) builds all three OSes and publishes a Release when you push a v* tag:

git tag v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0

Prior Art

Maraschino code is written from scratch and MIT-licensed, but the following OSS projects were essential in understanding the hardware protocol that the Maschine uses.

maschine-mikro-mk3-driver (MIT), rebellion (LGPL), maschine.rs (LGPL) and open-maschine (MIT).

Maraschino is not affiliated with or endorsed by Native Instruments.