Coming from Maschine
You already know this controller. You do not need to know anything about Zynthian. This page is the translation: what your MK2 becomes, what each printed button does now, and which words in the rest of the guide are borrowed from the platform underneath.
The short version
Your MK2 stops being a controller and becomes the whole instrument. A Raspberry Pi takes the place of your computer, and Maschine software is not involved at any point — not installed, not running, not needed. The pads, both displays, the encoders and every LED are driven directly over USB.
What you get is not a Maschine clone. It is an eight-channel generative groovebox: five drum channels and three melodic voices, always alive, where the machine writes the patterns and you steer them. You set how many hits, where they sit, how much they wander — not which sixteenth is on.
The MK2 cannot be used by Maschine software while this is running, and nothing here writes to the controller's own memory. Unplug it from the Pi, plug it into your computer, and it is an ordinary MK2 again.
What Zynthian is, and why it is underneath
Zynthian is a Linux synth platform for the Raspberry Pi. It supplies the parts an instrument needs and this project does not want to reinvent: the sound engines (samplers and synths), the sequencer that holds the patterns, the effects, the mixer, and the snapshots that save all of it. You flash it to an SD card; it is a complete operating system, not an application.
It normally has its own small touchscreen and four knobs. Here it is the engine room, and your MK2 is the surface. The patterns the generator writes go into Zynthian's own sequencer, which is why they survive a save and why Zynthian's pattern editor shows exactly what your pads show — the same notes, not a copy.
You can play without ever looking at it. A screen is needed to install and to save; everything else is on the panel in front of you.
Your printed buttons, and what they do now
Most legends still mean what they say. Four do not, and those four are the whole learning curve. Every number below was measured off the hardware, one button at a time.
| Printed on the panel | What it does here |
|---|---|
| PAD MODE | FREEZE — holds the machine still so nothing evolves under your hands. A tap latches, a hold is momentary |
| SELECT | ARM — builds a gesture that fires on the next bar instead of under your finger: a drop, a break, half or double time, a ratchet ramp |
| SWING | MOD — hold it and an encoder sets how a value moves rather than what it is |
| ALL | The lens — hold it and the eight encoders stop being eight controls of one channel and become one control across all eight |
| GROUP A–H | Selects the channel. Eight, fixed, always alive — no groups to create or load |
| CONTROL · STEP · AUTO · VOLUME | The four modes: how it sounds · what it plays · what the machine does by itself · what holds for everything |
| The eight encoders and two displays | Eight controls of the selected channel, labelled on the screen above them. Which eight depends on the mode and the page |
| The big encoder | Turn it to walk the pages of the current mode. Press it for HOME — back to the start, latches dropped, nothing armed lost |
| The two buttons beside it | Previous / next sound for the selected channel: a sample on a drum, a preset on a synth. Hold SHIFT to step the kit instead |
| Arrows beside the display | Page back and forward within the current mode |
| MUTE · SOLO | What you expect — and MUTE's grid has a second row that lands on the bar instead of immediately |
| F1–F8 | Mute channels A–H, in every mode. Solo while SOLO is held |
| DUPLICATE | Hold it: the sixteen pads become sixteen banks — whole eight-channel arrangements, saved with the set |
| ERASE | Hold only; a bare press does nothing. Held with a pad it removes that step; with other buttons it cancels what they armed |
| PATTERN | Regenerates the selected channel. One press arms it, a second press before the bar takes it back |
| GRID | The step division. SHIFT + GRID switches a channel between drum and voice behaviour without changing its engine |
| NOTE REPEAT | Undo for a voice's melody — four deep. Dark when there is nothing to undo |
| PLAY · REC · RESTART | Transport. SHIFT + REC records the master output to a file on the Pi |
| STEP▶ (transport) | Beat repeat while held |
| TEMPO | Tempo. Held, it restores the old encoder speed for fine moves |
| NAVIGATE · SHIFT | What they say |
| BROWSE · SAMPLING · ENTER · SCENE · ◀STEP | Nothing, and they never have. They sit dark with the rest of the unbound panel |
The surface is the full grammar, button by button.
What is gone, and what took its place
| In Maschine software | Here |
|---|---|
| Sampling, slicing, the browser | Not present. Sounds come from Zynthian's engines and packs; you step through them with the two buttons beside the big encoder |
| Groups holding Sounds holding plugins | Eight fixed channels, each with its own engine and its own pair of effects. Nothing is built or torn down while you play |
| Scenes and the arranger | Banks — sixteen whole arrangements under DUPLICATE, switched live and saved with the set. There is no song timeline: you perform it |
| Patterns you draw | Patterns the machine writes. You set hits, rotation, randomness and how far it may stray; the pads show what it wrote, and a tap edits what it knows |
| Automation lanes | Modulators — bar-synced shapes bound to any control, and macros that land on the bar |
| Your project file | Snapshots, Zynthian's own format. They hold the patterns, the mix, the effects and everything the surface was showing |
The lights say five things
NI's convention is that a Group's colour is its identity. That is kept: hue is which channel, and brightness carries the state. Every lamp on the panel says the same five things, so a light you have not seen before is still readable:
| The lamp is | It means |
|---|---|
| Dark | Pressing it would do nothing — either it has no job, or its job is unavailable right now |
| Dim | Available |
| Bright | Acting now |
| Blinking | Latched — you tapped it and it stayed |
| Pulsing | Counting down to a bar |
A dark button is never a question, which is why the unbound ones are named above rather than left for you to discover.
Zynthian words you will meet
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Snapshot | The save file. Everything: patterns, mix, effects, engines, and what the surface was showing |
| Chain | One channel's signal path — its engine plus its effects. There are eight, and they are built for you |
| Engine | The thing making the sound: a sampler for the drums, a synth for the voices |
| Preset | A sound for one engine. Distinct from a snapshot, which is the whole instrument |
| webconf | Zynthian's configuration page, in a browser on your computer. Used to install and to load, not to play |
| LV2 | The plugin format the effects use, like VST on your computer |
Where to go next
- Requirements — what to buy and flash, if you have not yet
- Fast installation — one command on the Pi
- Quick start — two minutes from a running rig to something worth hearing
- The surface — the whole grammar, once the four renamed buttons make sense