Betical on staying minimal and intentional with Maschine

With the release of their remix of Sailor & I’s “Tough Love” on Siamese, and the continued momentum from their 2023 rework of “Back On 74” – a track that quickly became a mainstay in sets from Keinemusik, Bedouin, and Adriatique; Betical have carved out a sound that’s deep, emotional, and dancefloor-focused.

The French duo, made up of brothers Max and Martin, blend afro house, melodic house, and minimalist techno into a signature aesthetic that feels both intuitive and surgically arranged.

Their secret weapon for rhythm?

Maschine MK3. Whether they’re building grooves from scratch or chasing spontaneous moments mid-session, Maschine gives them the tools to move quickly while staying locked into feel. Its tactile interface and powerful sample library help them simplify the writing process, keep their drum work cohesive, and stay focused on the right elements.

In this interview, the brothers break down how they use Maschine MK3 together in the studio, how it helps them avoid clutter while still landing on fresh grooves, and why hardware has become essential to their creative flow.

Jump to these sections:

• How Maschine speeds up groove writing
• Their process for jamming and refining custom kits
• Why physical hardware keeps ideas moving
• How they divide creative roles without stepping on each other
• The relationship between design, rhythm, and restraint

It’s a duo workflow built on movement and minimalism so here’s how they do it.

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What makes Maschine MK3 the right tool for locking in your grooves when you’re writing together in the studio?

We always love to put a lot of focus on our drums to give our music personality.

Using Maschine has been a really helpful tool because the samples sound amazing, there’s usually no need to process them afterward. Depending on the pack we use, we can achieve a very coherent sound across the drum elements. It also makes it much easier to jam and explore different rhythms, which can be harder to do when working only with samples or clicking around with a mouse.

Pro tip from Betical: It’s great to spend time finding the right samples, like the kick, for instance. The drum is one of the main elements that will allow your track to sound great. It’s like the foundation of a house, so the better it sounds from the start, the faster you’ll finish the track and get a great mixdown.

Do you build your core drum ideas from scratch in Maschine every time, or do you have kits and templates you keep coming back to?

We usually start by jamming ideas, and once we have a clear direction, we focus on finding the right sounds.

Most of the time, we use one pack or blend different one-shots to create our own custom kits. We build a strong foundation with Maschine and then add individual elements like hi-hats, lasers, and other textures to enhance it.

Pro tip from Betical: It’s great to start from a pack, you can hear that the samples are usually in key, which is pleasing to the ear. Try to identify the key of the drums to start jamming chords, for example, or you can just pitch the drum shots -1 or +1 to match the key of your demo.

When you’re both in the room, how does Maschine help you stay in sync creatively without stepping on each other’s ideas?

When we’re both in the room, it’s usually one of us who starts working on the drums while the other listens. Having someone jamming and the other observing really helps us lock in the direction without both of us getting too caught up in the gear. It creates a natural flow and keeps the creative process intuitive and collaborative.

Pro tip from Betical: Work on at least a 16-bar loop to have enough space for groove variations, so it doesn’t sound static.

Do you ever bounce between Maschine and other instruments live during a writing session to chase ideas?

Absolutely, we often bounce between Maschine and other instruments during writing sessions. Some tracks even started entirely from a drum groove made on Maschine.

We can easily bounce those ideas and drag them into our DAW, which makes arranging much easier later on. Sometimes we’ll just let a groove run on Maschine while we jam on chords or basslines, that’s actually how we approached “Back On 74 (Rework).”

Pro tip from Betical: Make as much material as possible so that when you bounce everything, you have a lot of loops to evolve in your arrangement.

How important is it to have that tactile, physical interface when you’re working on rhythmic energy together?

We think that dragging lots of different loops or one shots samples directly on our DAW Logic Pro, sometimes brings too many elements, and you kinda lose the simplicity of making music, and it’s a headache sometimes to have to clean up everything later in the process.So we would say that it helps to focus on the right elements and not overcharging our tracks. The touch is also really precise so it allows us to play on the intensity of the note, really good for hat rolls for example, to give some grooves and not belong static.

Pro tip from Betical:Sometimes you can just create lots of drum loops for fun and experiment without the pressure of a direct outcome. Save them, they might fit perfectly into a demo you start in the future. ✌🏼

For a duo like you that’s so rhythm-forward, what makes Maschine MK3 the one piece of gear that keeps things anchored?

For us, it’s essential to have a piece of gear we really understand and trust to deliver quality results. Maschine MK3 does exactly that. It also looks and feels great, which fits our preference for keeping things minimal in the studio. Plus, it’s compact and easy to transport, which is perfect when we travel for writing camps or studio retreats.

Wrapping it all up

Thanks to Betical for opening up their rhythm-first workflow. It’s clear that Maschine MK3 isn’t just a drum tool for them, but instead it’s more of a way to keep their process lean, collaborative, and grounded in feel. Whether they’re building a groove from scratch or jamming on top of one another’s ideas, the goal is always the same: lock into something real, and stay out of the way.

For anyone working in a duo, this is a solid blueprint for staying creative without overcomplicating the process. Betical proves that rhythm doesn’t need to be loud to be powerful, and that it just needs to be true to your instinct.

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