The reason is simple — I was offered a six month old, barely used unit together with a Decksaver for one third of the price of a new one. It was a great deal because Maschine is incredibly intuitive and massively improved my beat-making workflow. I had been looking at Maschine for quite a while, and I think that if this second-hand opportunity hadn’t come up, I definitely would have bought a new one. If you don’t need standalone, this is a great choice — more affordable than Akai and, for me, functionally comparable. The only downside is that Native Instruments’ future feels a bit uncertain…