Also owning a Maschine, I do agree it seems hard to get excited about new drum machines, because in addition to the sample library we also have the drum synths and the ability to play other plug-ins and tweak and manipulate in real-time. Because percussion is the least of my CPU worries in a DAW environment, dedicated hardware for this doesn't bring much to my particular setup.
But another side of this I see is that new gear is inspirational, and a because an existing piece of gear in our collection can perform a certain task it doesn't preclude a new piece of gear that also performs the task from bringing a fresh sound to the palette. A new piece of gear inspires discovery and creativity, perhaps even more so if there's an interesting story behind it (like the designer of a previously legendary instrument). Sometimes acquiring new stuff keeps us motivated. Even just getting a new plug-in can make me want to sit down and learn it in depth, and at least for folks like me who do it purely for the love of music, that can make it all worthwhile.
It's amazing what impact just a change in physical layout can have. I wrote before about what a gamechanger it was for me when I bought the Maschine stand and mounted it atop a Roland PDS-10. Who would have thought a couple of pieces of metal make that big of a difference? Just a simple shift in ergonomics changed & improved how I use Maschine and the impact of it to me in large amounts. Berni, also being a former drummer, do you remember that feeling when gigging and someone moved one of your instruments about 1/8th of an inch out of kilter and you immediately felt the impact? If so you can relate to what I mean about ergonomic layout here.
So I don't want a new drum machine right now but I guess there are others that are interested in these. In terms of my personal thoughts -- I look at the new stuff at NAMM this year and I have a hard time getting excited about any of it. Nord is starting to get confusing with their product line and positioning of things, I don't know what I would do with a Moog that I can't already do with my Leipzig-S (the comments in the Moog vid about the sequencer being a "future possibility" are going to be funny to any Leipzig owner), I really don't know what Roland is even trying to accomplish these days or at least how their products apply to me. As far as this Bitwig Studio DAW -- one of the first questions they should answer in their FAQ is why do we need yet another full priced DAW and what does Bitwig bring to the table that current DAWs do not? Fail, it wasn't there.
In the mean time I'm pretty happy with my current gear setup. I'd love to see Access suddenly get themselves excited about their own Virus product line and do something interesting or innovative, particularly as it relates to the integration aspect, but I stopped holding out for that day about three or four NAMM shows back.
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