This article is about processing Maschine Expansions. For help with non-Maschine expansions (Sample Packs), click here.

Please read the full article below before messaging for support.

Maschine Mode reads your Native Instruments / Maschine Expansions and converts their drum kits into ready-to-use presets for other DAWs and hardware. Point Kit Maker at an Expansion folder, choose which formats to export, and it rebuilds each kit — same samples, same kit name — for the destinations you’ve toggled on.

Maschine Mode converts existing Maschine kits for use in other DAWs. It does not create Maschine presets to use back inside the Maschine software itself. To make kits you can load in Maschine, see Making Kits for Maschine below.

What Are Maschine Expansions?

“Expansions” are sound packs made by Native Instruments. They were originally called “Maschine Expansions,” but they’re now branded “Native Instruments Expansions” (or “NI Expansions” for short) to encourage their use beyond Maschine. There are over 150 Expansions to choose from — examples include Crate Cuts and Certified Gold.

Kit Maker can convert these Expansions into drum kit presets for a range of DAWs. In fact, Native Instruments specifically recommended Kit Maker as a good way to use their Expansions with more DAWs (on their blog).

How to tell if a pack is compatible:

Watch out: “Massive X Expansions” and “Leap Expansions” also use the word “Expansion,” but these are for specific synth products and are not compatible with Kit Maker.

Official MPC Expansions (a separate product)

Akai/MPC now sells official MPC versions of some Expansions (on the Native Instruments site) — built to work with MPC out of the box. So far only about 10 of the 150+ Expansions have an official MPC version, at around $39 each, and they must be purchased separately even if you already own the Maschine version. These official versions are more polished and add instrument plugins.

Kit Maker covers everything they don’t: the 140+ Expansions with no official MPC version, plus any Expansion you already own — so you don’t have to re-buy a pack just to use it on MPC. It converts those drum kits for MPC and the other supported DAWs.

What Kit Maker Can and Can’t Process

✅ Compatible in Maschine Mode:

  • Official Native Instruments Expansions
  • The Maschine 2 Factory Library (folder titled “Maschine 2” or “Maschine 2 Library”)
  • The Battery 4 Factory Library — because Kit Maker builds 16-pad kits, Battery kits with more than 16 sounds are scaled down to 16 samples. Battery libraries outside the Factory Library are not supported.

❌ Not compatible:

  • Kontakt libraries, encrypted .nki files, and VST/AU plugins
  • Specific drum plugins that aren’t labeled “Expansion” (e.g. Studio Drummer, 40s Own Drums)
  • Synth-instrument Expansions (Massive X, Leap)
  • Third-party (non-NI) Maschine libraries — though you may be able to process their .wav files in Sample Pack Mode instead
  • A rare few Expansions in a completely different format — for example, Community Drive (a free Expansion) does not work like the others and is not compatible

Importing Your Expansions

There are two ways to bring Expansions into Kit Maker:

  1. Drag and drop the Expansion folders into the Import window.
  2. Or click the “Import Maschine Expansions” button. This opens a window that scans your Native Instruments folder and finds your installed Expansions for you.

In the scan window, click the Expansions you want to import and they’ll be added to Kit Maker. When you’re done, exit the window to return to the main screen.

Import the Expansion folder itself, such as “Amplified Funk” (or “Amplified Funk Library”) — not an inner subfolder like “Groups” or “Samples.”

Where Are the Expansion Folders on My Computer?

Your Expansions live in your main Native Instruments content folder — the location where your Maschine content is installed.

Default install locations:

  • Mac: Users/Shared
  • PC: locations may vary, see article link below

To find them:

  • If you use Maschine: Open the Maschine app Preferences → Library tab. Click the small directory icon next to the Maschine 2 Factory Library path to reveal the Factory Library’s folder. Your Expansions are installed in the same location.
  • If you don’t use Maschine: Use the Native Access app to locate your Expansion folders.
  • Quick trick: Search your computer for the name of an Expansion (e.g. “Street Swarm”).

For more on locating (or moving) your Maschine Library, see Native Instruments’ support article Can I Move My MASCHINE Library to an External Hard Drive?

About the folder names: Expansion folders are named after the Expansion itself (e.g. “Street Swarm”). On Mac, the folder name usually ends in “Library” (e.g. “Street Swarm Library,” “Maschine 2 Library”). On PC, the word “Library” may be absent (the folder may just be “Street Swarm”). Each Expansion folder typically contains subfolders like Groups, Documentation, Projects, Samples, and Sounds.

Making the Kits

Once your Expansions are imported, simply toggle on the formats you want to export and press Make Kits! Each kit is rebuilt using the same samples and the same kit name as the original Maschine kit.

Where are the kits made?

By default, kits are created in the Kit Maker Kits folder on your desktop. For some DAWs, kits are placed in that DAW’s own user-data kits folder instead. To open your output folders, click the folder icon in the bottom-right of the main menu. You can change where kits are created in Preferences.

An option in Preferences lets you add the Expansion’s name to each kit’s title — handy for keeping kits from different Expansions organized.

Layouts

The pad names in Maschine Mode reflect the most common sounds in a typical Maschine kit. If you leave the Layout set to “Classic,” kits are built in roughly the same pad order as the original Maschine kits — or you can choose a different layout. On supported formats, pads in the exported kits are colored by drum type.

For more on layouts, see Custom Layouts in Kit Maker.

Making Kits for Maschine

Maschine Mode converts Maschine kits out to other formats — it doesn’t build encrypted Maschine presets directly.

If you want to turn sample packs into kits you can load inside the Maschine software, use the Numbered Files format. It’s a quick, easy way to make kits for Maschine, though it does not create encrypted Maschine kit presets.

Instruments & Multi-Samples

Maschine Mode is for drum kits. If you want to make instrument or melodic presets from your Expansions or the Factory Library, check out the companion app Preset Maker, which can build multi-sample instruments from any .wav files labeled with note info in their filenames (e.g. “Soft Piano A1.wav”).

Preset Maker also can’t read .nki / Kontakt instruments — only unencrypted .wav multi-sample files.

Troubleshooting

Some pads are missing samples

A few kits will have pads that don’t transfer over. In the original Maschine kit, those sounds are generated live inside the Maschine software (synths, basses, and some drums) rather than stored as .wav files, so there’s nothing to copy.

Examples: the Factory Library kit 3l3ktro uses live-synthesized drums, and the Expansion Lazer Dice relies heavily on computer-generated sounds. Occasionally a kit also borrows samples from a sampled instrument that wasn’t made for that kit, leaving a few blank spots. The vast majority of pads transfer fine — most Expansions use .wav sounds that work great.

Some kits aren’t being created

  • The 5-sample minimum. If a kit would end up with fewer than 5 samples, Kit Maker skips it — this avoids creating sparse, disappointing kits. It usually happens when an Expansion’s drums are live-synthesized or simply aren’t included as .wav files. Vintage Heat is an example of an Expansion with several kits too sparse to build.
  • Known problem Expansions. A limited number of kits aren’t converting yet — Amplified Funk and Grey Forge are the two most affected. This is on the fix list for a future update.

Kit names look slightly different

Some kits come out with a shortened name versus the original (e.g. Abbey Road 50s becomes “AR50s”). This is expected.

Third-party libraries aren’t processing

Only official NI Expansions and the Factory Library work in Maschine Mode. For third-party (non-NI) libraries, try processing their samples in Sample Pack Mode instead.

MPC previews aren’t playing for some kits

Expansions usually include MPC preview files, which Kit Maker copies over. In some cases NI names a preview file differently from its kit, so the preview won’t play. To fix it, open the [Previews] folder inside your generated MPC kits and make sure each preview’s name matches its kit:

Example: if the kit file is “Cool Kit.xpm” but the preview is “CoolKit.xpm.wav”, rename the preview to “Cool Kit.xpm.wav” (adding the missing space) so the two match.

A couple of known cases:

  • The Maschine 2 Factory Library kits don’t currently come with preview files.
  • Chromatic Fire (a free collection of kits pulled from other Expansions) sources its previews in a way that can’t convert for MPC.

Still having issues?

If kits aren’t coming out right in either Sample Pack Mode or Maschine Mode, run through the basic troubleshooting steps first. If the issue is specific to Maschine Mode, message me with as much detail as possible: which folder you imported, what you expected versus what you got, and so on. Vague reports (“it’s not working”) are hard to diagnose. Attaching your main.log file helps a lot.