NI Massive - anyone?

[solaristica]

Wasn't that amazing?

Eno:

On Land - one of the best Ambient albums ever...
Music for Airports - just cause it is THE classic... that last track on the ARP is too good...
Another Green World - the album that pointed him into that direction; some glam rock mixed with ambient vignettes, awesome!
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (with David Byrne) - one of the earliest uses os samples, awesome sequences, basses and drums, and an ever present atmosphere created by synths. Really hard to believe that album is from 1981...

V.

[dustinh]

I posted this in another thread, but here's an ambient soundscape I made with it last night called Snowform.



One instance of Massive and some modulating Moog Voyager bass, both played in real time into the computer.

It's definitely going on my "next to buy" list. I also downloaded the demo of FM8, but I already have a lot of FM based synths and so far I'm not hearing anything that makes me want to plunk down the cash for it.

VERY impressive for just one instance of massive. Nice job! Perhaps I need to start delving into it deeper myself :s

Massive is definitely my favorite soft synth. The thing that makes it so great for me is that it can be as simple or as complex as you want. It's easy to make bare bones analog sounds but it's also pretty easy to make complex evolving sounds as you can modulate anything to anything.

I have to give NI kudos for the user interface of this synth. The way they designed it couldn't be any simpler or more intuitive.

[Music Maven]

Been fooling with the demo - pretty sweet. Anyone use it a lot here? Looks very deep and I like the sound so far.

Massive has one of the best synth programming interfaces I have used. The way modulators are assigned and presented (as colored "ranges" around the knobs) is brilliant.

However, like almost all the NI stuff (and soft synths in general I suppose,) the sound just leaves me cold. I've come up with some nice, dynamic digital sounds that certainly have a place in the mix. However, I wouldn't want to rely on Massive for everything. It's too digital and sterile (not as bad as Absynth, though).

This is a topic for another thread, but I'm really moving away from soft synths. I don't understand why the sound is so lackluster. Modern computers are certainly powerful enough to produce some truly, er, "massive" sounds. And yet something like my original Nord lead (hardly a "fat" sounding synth) still sounds better to me than 99% of the soft synths out there.

[astroidmist]

I only use the Kore Player and don't have the full version nor Massive, but I did purchase a Massive soundpack for Kore Player and it's really worth it. It's pretty good and a cheap way to get some quality Massive sounds fast. Since it's just the Kore Player, there's not much editing, but assigning MIDI controls to the XY modulator makes it possible to morph between sounds fluidly. I just wish that the reverb could be disabled because like most synth presets, it's too wet for my taste.

[b3groover]

However, like almost all the NI stuff (and soft synths in general I suppose,) the sound just leaves me cold. I've come up with some nice, dynamic digital sounds that certainly have a place in the mix. However, I wouldn't want to rely on Massive for everything. It's too digital and sterile (not as bad as Absynth, though).

I wouldn't want to rely on one synthesizer for everything either. Which is why I have a room full of digitals and analogs, software and hardware.

[bluedad]

I posted this in another thread, but here's an ambient soundscape I made with it last night called Snowform.

[

wow, that is so lovely! thanks for posting it.

[tekkentool]

The cold and Inorganic sound is the reason I love it so much, great for pads that fill out the background, very complex effects. And of course it really is the synth of choice for dubstep wobbles. I normally make about 2-3 Instances of it, bus those out to frequency strands, distort it then send it all back through the same filter and you get a killer screamy "brostep" wobble with plenty of low/low-mid presence.

[tshear23]

Yeah, I think part of the reason it rubbed people the wrong way when it first came out is that they were trying to use it as a virtual analog. It can do some sounds like that okay, but it's really a synth meant to be used for unapologetically digital sounds. Great for a different flavor of stuff that Waldorf does so well. And agreed with the poster about the interface being one of the nicest to program with. It took me awhile to warm up to it, but once I figured everything out, it was great to work with.

http://www.waveformless-soundware.com

[tripleflows]

Talking about the morphing in Massive - check this, as this is the first stuff that allows you to morph 30-40 Massive parameters with a twist of a modwheel:

Watch on youtube.com