# NI MASSIVE X : Your thoughts about it ?



## muziksculp

Hi,

What are your thoughts about NI's *MASSIVE X* Synth ? 

Do you use it frequently ? 

What do you feel it's very good at compared to other SW Synths ? 

Thanks,
Muziksculp


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## Pier

I don't own it, but will get it at some point in a future sale. From the demos, it sounds phenomenal.

There were a lot of complaints about its UI when it was released but NI has addressed those AFAIK. Looks fine to me.

Shame they removed the second filter though. Guessing NI was _inspired_ by Serum.


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## Mega

I love it! I initially thought the GUI was confusing but, after watching a couple of tutorials I gained a good understanding. I also use U-he's ZebraHZ & Repro, and SonicLab's Thermo frequently. But, when I need to sound design, NI's MassiveX is my go to.


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## gsilbers

not a fan.


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## muziksculp

I come across some big fans of Massive X, and then ... just the opposite, big non-fans of it. 

That's one of the reasons I wanted to get some more feedback about it from both camps.


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## Mega

muziksculp said:


> I come across some big fans of Massive X, and then ... just the opposite, big non-fans of it.
> 
> That's one of the reasons I wanted to get some more feedback about it from both camps.


I'll be honest, I originally planned on not liking it but, after realizing that it's the synth that I'm best at programing I had to rethink my position. With Massive X, I can go from the INIT patch to something amazing in a fraction of the time it takes with my U-He synths.


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## José Herring

Awesome, not really as hard as people think. It's different but it's pretty intuitive. 

I wish I could spend more time with it though. I'm kind of caught between knowing 30 synths kind of okay or picking 5 that I know really really well.


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## José Herring

muziksculp said:


> I come across some big fans of Massive X, and then ... just the opposite, big non-fans of it.
> 
> That's one of the reasons I wanted to get some more feedback about it from both camps.


I think the "non-Fans" are stuck with the fact that it really isn't Massive. I like Massive X because it's not Massive. I never really liked Massive. Too hard a digital for me. Massive X isn't that.


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## Macrawn

I think it's great. It got some flack because of the rocky start. It wasn't really finished when it was released.

I think it's up there with Pigments, Phaseplant. It doesn't have all of the capabilities of Pigments, or the crazy modulation stuff of Phasepant but I still think Massive X is a great synth. Pigments and Phaseplant are very easy synths to use because of the interface and that they are mostly one pagers and doing modulations is super easy without needing a matrix. Massive X is just as easy. But what people have trouble with is that it is it's just set up differently than other synths (except Massive) so it takes some getting used to. 

I like the routing map it has. You have blocks that represent the different parts like osc, filters, effects and you just visually arrange them on the map and connect them with lines. It's got nice wave tables, and I like the wheel that shows different waveforms that can be used for the lfo.


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## Collywobbles

I really like the sound of it, but it seems to have a rather steep a learning curve. It's probably fine once you've put the hours in, but personally that's a mountain I've yet to climb.

Speaking of Massive X, I read an interview with Mitsuto Suzuki where he talks about using Massive X (and other NI stuff) for the Final Fantasy 7 remake soundtrack. He specifically mentions using it on a track called "Midnight Rendezvous", which just so happened to be one of my favourites. You can actually find the presets he used (if you have Massive X) and play around with them yourself.

Interview: 









How Mitsuto Suzuki helped reimagine one of the best-loved video game soundtracks of all time | Native Instruments Blog


To recreate a classic soundtrack for modern gamers, the Final Fantasy VII composers turned to a thoroughly modern set of scoring tools.




blog.native-instruments.com


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## gsilbers

muziksculp said:


> I come across some big fans of Massive X, and then ... just the opposite, big non-fans of it.
> 
> That's one of the reasons I wanted to get some more feedback about it from both camps.



The synth itself is not bad. It’s the business desision at ni that kind of screwed it’s launch.

they decided to do it avx and alienated a lot of mac users. They say it’s only 5%. (If u are using any ni synth try not to uncheck the send private data cause they seem to use that when deciding about synth. I should have kept it checked).

now it seems they’ll have to re write the whole damn thing due to Apple m1. Or so I read. Not too sure.

the other thing it’s that patches are not compatible with massive.

so tons of developers and users where using massive and wanted an upgrade, mainly gui, wavetables and easier sequencer and maybe a few other things.

instead we got something new, hard learning curve synth and a whole lot of distrust towards NI if anyone was planning a soundset launch.

Not only because of the unstable ground a new version might come out in the future making soundsets obsolete but also the adoption rate has been extremely poor.

Yes people have it from Konplete but it’s not like massive where many where actually buying to get those dubstep basses and skrillex type sounds. Was being talked about in serum forums and all that.

now massive x is this really over the top sound designer heaven for the few who want a whole sound design playground. And the gui didn’t help much as it looks like a reaktor synth. And sure, some might learn it 
And say it’s easy, like everything else, but in general that the view point. 

oh and the whole point of avx was so it can use more juice for some amazing sounds, and yet doesn’t sound any better than any other synth out there, specially agaisnt uhe .

so yeah, it’s a cool synth no doubt but the whole launch, business behind it , etc left a really bad sour taste on many peoples mouth. I’m sure it can do some nice things but I doubt we will see the amount of 3rd party presets we see from diva, zebra, Omni, etc.
Which in turn gets more poeple interested in it and it’s sounds and more presets.

I rather use zebra, Omni, pigments and investing time to learn those seems to bring a lot more reward.


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## TomislavEP

I also have Massive X and I'm pretty impressed with it, especially when in comparison with its predecessor. So far, I haven't really ventured into programming my own sounds so I can't judge its ease of use or complexity in that respect. Speaking about included presets and expansions available to me, there are plenty of sounds included that are more fit for ambient, cinematic, new age, and other styles that I'm mostly into rather than being mainly in the EDM domain. I will definitely continue to explore it further.

In general, I think that all virtual synths and synth-based libraries from Native Instruments have excellent quality and potential. As an owner of Komplete, I don't really feel the need to venture outside the ecosystem when it comes to synth sounds.


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## SupremeFist

For sure it has nothing to do with Massive, so calling it Massive X created a lot of expectations among Massive fans that went unfulfilled. It can sound absolutely incredible though. I'm one of those who has found its deep workings hard to grok thus far but I've still used at least one instance of it in all my recent hybrid/synthwave tracks, alongside Divas/Zebras/Alchemys/Oberhausens/TAL-J-8s/Repros/Super 8s etc, for sounds that require a certain ultramodern punch and shimmer.


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## KEM

Pier said:


> I don't own it, but will get it at some point in a future sale. From the demos, it sounds phenomenal.
> 
> There were a lot of complaints about its UI when it was released but NI has addressed those AFAIK. Looks fine to me.
> 
> Shame they removed the second filter though. Guessing NI was _inspired_ by Serum.



Serum does have a second filter!!


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## Pier

KEM said:


> Serum does have a second filter!!


Ah you mean the one in the effects?


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## KEM

Pier said:


> Ah you mean the one in the effects?



Exactly


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## proxima

gsilbers said:


> the other thing it’s that patches are not compatible with massive.


While Omni2 was compatible with Omni patches, it's long been stated that Zebra 3 will not be backwards compatible. It definitely feels like breaking backwards compatibility is the most straightforward way to open up larger changes. And it's not like NI dropped Massive, they're still actively promoting it (and supporting it). In general I'm pretty impressed at how NI keeps their whole lineup supported, which they seem to do to keep Komplete feeling like the massive suite it is. But I get it, they didn't overhaul the GUI (though I find Massive's GUI far better than Absynth's, which I'd love to see some kind of replacement for).


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## darkogav

I use it. Its really good. I use it for all sorts of sounds. it got released initially to a weak response, but is gaining ground in the last year i think.


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## Mornats

I love it. I've struggled to learn synths or even just play around with them but for some reason I just managed to gel with Massive X. I watched a few tutorials and started playing and got to grips with it. The big thing I like is how it allows me to create a lot of movement in a patch using the performance things (the P1, P2, P3 stuff - sorry for being completely unable to recall its name).

I always link this patch that I created when I talk about Massive X. It's just a single note held down with no mod wheel or anything. It makes good use of the P1, P2, P3 stuff. One thing though, it sounds quite... metallic? That metallic sound seems to all over MX which I guess is its nature. I wish it could sound a little more like Phonec2 at times.



The user patch management is a complete joke at the moment. There's no way to group my patches from third party ones so I have to remember to put something at the start of the name so they appear next to each other. Any third party patches are just bunched in alphabetically so it's hard to browse a new set.


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## proxima

Mornats said:


> I love it. I've struggled to learn synths or even just play around with them but for some reason I just managed to gel with Massive X. I watched a few tutorials and started playing and got to grips with it. The big thing I like is how it allows me to create a lot of movement in a patch using the performance things (the P1, P2, P3 stuff - sorry for being completely unable to recall its name).
> 
> I always link this patch that I created when I talk about Massive X. It's just a single note held down with no mod wheel or anything. It makes good use of the P1, P2, P3 stuff. One thing though, it sounds quite... metallic? That metallic sound seems to all over MX which I guess is its nature. I wish it could sound a little more like Phonec2 at times.
> 
> 
> 
> The user patch management is a complete joke at the moment. There's no way to group my patches from third party ones so I have to remember to put something at the start of the name so they appear next to each other. Any third party patches are just bunched in alphabetically so it's hard to browse a new set.



Neat patch!

And it's amazing that brand new synths still have braindead patch management. All the more a shame because Omnisphere was my first synth I really got into, and so many synths are so much worse at patch management.


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## Pier

Mornats said:


> Any third party patches are just bunched in alphabetically so it's hard to browse a new set.


Oh wow that sucks


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## Mornats

Pier said:


> Oh wow that sucks


Indeed it does. But an improvement has to be on their roadmap so I've got my fingers crossed.

By the way, the preset packs/expansions for Massive X from NI show off some pretty funky stuff so they're worth a look to reverse engineer if you can get them cheap.


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## ghobii

I think the lack of patch management is really hurting it. No one wants to sell sounds that get lumped in with all the others and the user then has to go find.
Otherwise my only other problem with it is the lack of animations showing active modulations. Don't see why any modern synth wouldn't include that.


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## Pier

ghobii said:


> Otherwise my only other problem with it is the lack of animations showing active modulations. Don't see why any modern synth wouldn't include that.


Personally I don't find that to be a deal breaker in other synths (eg: Zebra, Dune, Repro, Legend, etc).

Given the choice, I prefer no animations than too many. I like how Vital does animations, but somehow I find Pigments to be super distracting.


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## Kery Michael

I like Massive X. It seems very deep to me, though I don’t have a ton of other synths to compare it with.

I did have to watch a couple of tutorials but it’s really not complicated. It’s got two wave tables, a filter and a bunch of effects that you could add on top. LFOs and other waveforms to use for modulation. Same as every other synth, I guess. Once you know how a synth basically works, doesn’t take long to get going with it.


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## givemenoughrope

Messed around w it but didnt get very far. Is there a consensus on what it excels at? Pads?


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## Alchemedia

Massive-X is quirky and not exactly intuitive, however it's extremely versatile and sounds fantastic.


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## Mornats

ghobii said:


> I think the lack of patch management is really hurting it. No one wants to sell sounds that get lumped in with all the others and the user then has to go find.
> Otherwise my only other problem with it is the lack of animations showing active modulations. Don't see why any modern synth wouldn't include that.


I know that NI work in an Agile development methodology so they'll have a bunch of features/improvements in their backlog of work. Each of these will be prioritised and reprioritised as the product dev goes on, often (hopefully) dictated somewhat by consumer demand.

So, I'd bet that patch management and modulation animations are both on the backlog. In the releases so far, we've seen much wanted features added (actual ADSR graphs rather than static pictures comes to mind). I'd hope that animations are an optional thing which I guess they might be as NI do address accessibility to some level and this would be an accessibility consideration if they could not be turned off.


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## TonalDynamics

Collywobbles said:


> I really like the sound of it, but it seems to have a rather steep a learning curve. It's probably fine once you've put the hours in, but personally that's a mountain I've yet to climb.


Germans can't not fail to make something straightforward and easy to understand 😏


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## Bluemount Score

TonalDynamics said:


> Germans can't not fail to make something straightforward and easy to understand 😏


Being from Germany, I can confirm this


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## Bluemount Score

Used some of the Massive X presets here and there (a couple sound really cool imo) but didn't really change lots of parameters myself. Not that kind of a fiddly synth guy (yet, wanna take a deeper dive)

What I'm missing is a search function for presets.


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## el-bo

Mornats said:


> I love it. I've struggled to learn synths or even just play around with them but for some reason I just managed to gel with Massive X.


Interesting! In all my time using synths, I’ve never really been hugely inspired to do much in the way of programming. However, something about Massive X is so inviting. 

I think part of the reason is the amount of sound/noise-shaping options that exist upfront with just the basic oscillators/noise/filters. Makes everything seem so immediate.

Unfortunately I can’t use it. For some inexplicable reason, they didn’t incorporate ’touchscreen mode’ when building it. This makes it impossible to use with a Wacom tablet. What’s really bizarre is that the original release of Replika had the same issue and from what I remember they provided a fix within a few months. But despite a few of us bringing light to the issue on their forums, for the last couple of years, they’ve yet to implement the fix :(

And I don’t even use it for its presets. At this point it seems to suffer from a tendency for sounds to be over-busy or too complicated, as though every sound has to be a tech-demo. I’m sure many would consider it a waste to have such a feature-rich synth used in the pursuit of re-treading familiar sound territory. But simple and subtle never go out of style, especially if they can leverage what appears to be an awesome sound-engion.


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## Mornats

el-bo said:


> At this point it seems to suffer from a tendency for sounds to be over-busy or too complicated, as though every sound has to be a tech-demo.


I completely agree with you here. Few of the busier presets are remotely useful other than a tech demo. I find it's great for subtle movement and timbre changes within the same patch. 

Shame about the touchscreen capabilities, is that your main input method?


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## el-bo

Mornats said:


> I completely agree with you here. Few of the busier presets are remotely useful other than a tech demo. I find it's great for subtle movement and timbre changes within the same patch.
> 
> Shame about the touchscreen capabilities, is that your main input method?


It definitely seems to be able to handle subtle movement beautifully, and with such a great noise section I can see that in the right hands (@Empty Vessel, @Luftrum @TheUnfinished) that it could be a great ambient BOC-a-like machine. Just need to get away from all that edginess. 

I don't use a touchscreen. My main input device is a Wacom tablet/pen and it uses the same knob scaling. Without it even very small movements result in huge overshoots :(


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## EvilDragon

Pretty great 4-part tutorial on MX:


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## Kery Michael

Thanks for posting, ED. Super useful.

I've been playing around with Massive X for a while. But he does a great job of running through the details so one can really understand what's going on and what all the levers and nobs do.


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## TheUnfinished

I've not spent a lot of time with it but, it is quite easy to get something complex and full of energy going in a short space of time, once you've got your head round its mechanics.

This patch, for example, I made when I first opened it up and it only took me about 10 minutes in total to make from scratch.



Like others have mentioned, it was released full of bugs which put a lot of people off. And momentum was rather killed by that. Plus, the preset management is pretty awful - a complete non-starter for 3rd party soundsets, in my opinion.


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## el-bo

TheUnfinished said:


> I've not spent a lot of time with it but, it is quite easy to get something complex and full of energy going in a short space of time, once you've got your head round its mechanics.
> 
> This patch, for example, I made when I first opened it up and it only took me about 10 minutes in total to make from scratch.


Ok, so...10 minutes, per patch! Accounting for a tea and piss break every 2 hours, works out at about 60 patches in an 11-hour workday. Assuming a free weekend (My fantasy; My rules), you could have the set already done by Monday 

In all seriousness, would you not agree that that patch actually took you 10 years to make? Not just in the sense of knowing exactly what to do to achieve a desired result, but also in knowing (consciously or subconsciously) what not to do. 




TheUnfinished said:


> Like others have mentioned, it was released full of bugs which put a lot of people off. And momentum was rather killed by that. Plus, the preset management is pretty awful - a complete non-starter for 3rd party soundsets, in my opinion.



Definitely a lot of missteps that were (still are) frustrating to watch. Such a shame! Hopefully, once all has been forgotten, interest will grow


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## apollinaire

TheUnfinished said:


> I've not spent a lot of time with it but, it is quite easy to get something complex and full of energy going in a short space of time, once you've got your head round its mechanics.
> 
> This patch, for example, I made when I first opened it up and it only took me about 10 minutes in total to make from scratch.
> 
> 
> 
> Like others have mentioned, it was released full of bugs which put a lot of people off. And momentum was rather killed by that. Plus, the preset management is pretty awful - a complete non-starter for 3rd party soundsets, in my opinion.



3rd party preset management is appalling. Everything getting lumped together alphabetically in the user folder must be completely discouraging for any sound developer. I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed yet by NI.


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## Tronam

It seems to work on M1 now. This thread has inspired me to take a closer look at it.


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## Bee_Abney

I haven’t delved into this synth in any depth, but I did buy a third-party soundset from Triple Spiral Audio that was on sale. It is in its own separate file and I access it from there via the presets browser in Massive X (not the drop down menu). So it is easy to navigate to just that soundset whenever I want to, unlike with Knifonium which does have a problem in this area. It seems to me to be just as easy to find specific third-party soundsets as the other Native Instruments synths or the U-he synths.

Maybe I’m missing what the problem is supposed to be.

This thread has motivated me to rethink its potential.


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## sostenuto

Bee_Abney said:


> I haven’t delved into this synth in any depth, but I did buy a third-party soundset from Triple Spiral Audio that was on sale. It is in its own separate file and I access it from there via the presets browser in Massive X (not the drop down menu). So it is easy to navigate to just that soundset whenever I want to, unlike with Knifonium which does have a problem in this area. It seems to me to be just as easy to find specific third-party soundsets as the other Native Instruments synths or the U-he synths.
> 
> Maybe I’m missing what the problem is supposed to be.
> 
> This thread has motivated me to rethink its potential.


Good to read your careful, moderate impressions. Enjoy Massive and Massive X, despite noted issues.
Maybe rethink _The Unfinished_ as well ? 🤣


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## Faruh Al-Baghdadi

It's a cool digital synth. I really love its sequencer and how modulated pitch sounds. And overall I think it has an amazing digital character to it, "digital" in its best sense.

However, there's a few things that make this synth very hard to use in a more complex way(especially in media composing with endless automation and all) - you can't automate parameters directly, you have to assign them to Massive's macros and only then you can automate through the macros; and you can't use a muse wheel on any parameter of the synth except for those macros. To be honest it feels so weird in 2021, makes things so much slower. It feels like a step back or something like that...
Probably they think you should use all those modulations they put into this synth, but very often all you want/need is a little bit of automation here and there.

And another funny thing about MX is the sound of presets that were added by NI so far. Most of them sound like they were made just for the fact of being made, and not to serve as a showcase/soundcase for a user. You can get much better tones yourself(and pretty fast btw, even in the context of problems mentioned above) if you bother to read manual/watch some tutorials.


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## MegaPixel

Its a nice.... Synth... But I don't get on with it... There's a lot of missing features. Not sound related but you can't fav a preset, but you can if you use it wrapped in maschine (i think it is)...

I pref Massive.


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## TheUnfinished

el-bo said:


> Ok, so...10 minutes, per patch! Accounting for a tea and piss break every 2 hours, works out at about 60 patches in an 11-hour workday. Assuming a free weekend (My fantasy; My rules), you could have the set already done by Monday


I do NOT work 11 hours a day! I have kids!


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## Bee_Abney

TheUnfinished said:


> I do NOT work 11 hours a day! I have kids!


What, are they going to pay their own way through university? Work more, earn more, take care of what's really important in a family - money! - none of that affection and quality time malarkey. I had plenty of affection and quality time and turned out horribly!

Won't somebody think of the children?


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## apollinaire

Despite all it's flaws, I do love it. I think it sounds unique. I've made lots of my own custom patches for it and find navigating fairly easy.


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## Bee_Abney

apollinaire said:


> Despite all it's flaws, I do love it. I think it sounds unique. I've made lots of my own custom patches for it and find navigating fairly easy.


Very nice indeed. Very much waves of synth!


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## el-bo

TheUnfinished said:


> I do NOT work 11 hours a day! I have kids!


Raising kids is apparently one of the hardest jobs in the world, according to my parents. Although, the oder I get the more i realise that they probably meant that it was raising me that was so difficult


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## muratkayi

Hi,

I think I not only own all of the NI massive X expansions, but I actually went through ALL of them! And I must say the official expansion presets are totally badass! Not only do they really deliver on the promise of genre based sounds, but they are also very tweakable and mapped usefully.

The other thing is, if you use massive X from either within Komplete kontrol or Maschine you never noticed the internal browser at all


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## Bee_Abney

muratkayi said:


> Hi,
> 
> I think I not only own all of the NI massive X expansions, but I actually went through ALL of them! And I must say the official expansion presets are totally badass! Not only do they really deliver on the promise of genre based sounds, but they are also very tweakable and mapped usefully.
> 
> The other thing is, if you use massive X from either within Komplete kontrol or Maschine you never noticed the internal browser at all


I have a terrible tendency to overlook the expansions. Since I got so many very quickly, first upgrading to Komplete, then upgrading to Ultimate Collector's Edition, I never went through them all for all of the different synths. I'll take another look.


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## iliatilev

The preset system is terrible. Otherwise, it's one of the best synths out there. Love the GUI it has a few nice skins. There's a learning curve of course but it's not that hard once you know the basics.


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## Mornats

Bee_Abney said:


> I have a terrible tendency to overlook the expansions. Since I got so many very quickly, first upgrading to Komplete, then upgrading to Ultimate Collector's Edition, I never went through them all for all of the different synths. I'll take another look.


I think you're referring to the Maschine expansions that come with Komplete? There are also some Massive X preset expansions which are separate to those.


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## Bee_Abney

Mornats said:


> I think you're referring to the Maschine expansions that come with Komplete? There are also some Massive X preset expansions which are separate to those.


Yes, I think most of the Expansions were for Maschine; but there were synth patches too in the mix. It wasn't easy to see what the different expansions were for without going through them all. Being busy, I didn't get around to many. I'm going to take a fuller look now.


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## el-bo

muratkayi said:


> Hi,
> 
> I think I not only own all of the NI massive X expansions, but I actually went through ALL of them! And I must say the official expansion presets are totally badass! Not only do they really deliver on the promise of genre based sounds, but they are also very tweakable and mapped usefully.
> 
> The other thing is, if you use massive X from either within Komplete kontrol or Maschine you never noticed the internal browser at all


It's all very well that the presets are genre-based, as long as one works within those genres. I'm not saying the sounds are inherently bad, but that they are predominantly very edgy and complex. It would be nice (maybe I'm the only one who thinks so) if the quality of the sound-engine (and specifically the noise engine), along with the sweet modulation and macro set-up, could be leveraged to produce an altogether much simpler, yet extremely characterful sound. 

I specifically mentioned @Empty Vessel, as he seems to have accomplished the same with Thorn (itself a pretty edgy synth). His presets seem full of the wonk and wooze normally associated with BOC et al, again leveraging a flexible noise and modulation section.

I do remember someone on KVR claiming they were finding it excellent at producing such minimal ambient fayre, but can't remember who it was or if they had any intent of releasing a set of presets


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## emptyvessel

el-bo said:


> It's all very well that the presets are genre-based, as long as one works within those genres. I'm not saying the sounds are inherently bad, but that they are predominantly very edgy and complex. It would be nice (maybe I'm the only one who thinks so) if the quality of the sound-engine (and specifically the noise engine), along with the sweet modulation and macro set-up, could be leveraged to produce an altogether much simpler, yet extremely characterful sound.
> 
> I specifically mentioned @Empty Vessel, as he seems to have accomplished the same with Thorn (itself a pretty edgy synth). His presets seem full of the wonk and wooze normally associated with BOC et al, again leveraging a flexible noise and modulation section.
> 
> I do remember someone on KVR claiming they were finding it excellent at producing such minimal ambient fayre, but can't remember who it was or if they had any intent of releasing a set of presets


thank you!
The sample-based noise source in Thorn helped me a lot, both directly using it in the mix and also using it as a mod source for oscillator 3 (and then modulating osc 2 with that etc. etc.). Thorn I think is capable of a vastly broader palette than most give it credit for, Dmitry hid a lot of little details in Thorn that were a bit of a sound designer gift IMO. I worry people get sick of my dusty, wonky, woozy BOC stuff tbh but I enjoy making that kind of sound alot still so I hope there are still plenty of people finding it useful. I steered in a more confronting digital direction with Pathogen so hopefully people will follow along if I take a few detours now and again to keep it interesting 

I admit I barely checked out Massive X although I took a look at the OG Massive at the advice of a customer a few years back, pre the release of X. He was keen for me to do some presets and thought it would be a good fit but I'd avoided it as i tend to do with high hype synths (bought Surge at the time instead). I found OG Massive a really great sounding and flexible synth and likely would appreciate X so maybe I'll take a look some time. I have my hands full with commissions and making Pigments & Falcon packs lately and otherwise tend to use a few Arturia synths, Lion, Bitwig native stuff and Phase Plant (or hardware), there aren't enough hours in the week!

In the end I think all of these flagship level "do it all" deep synths should be capable of going in whatever direction or genre people need, it's just the marketing departments (and factory presets) generally hyping them in one direction or another and colouring perception or expectations. Which, is a shame.


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## el-bo

Empty Vessel said:


> thank you!
> The sample-based noise source in Thorn helped me a lot, both directly using it in the mix and also using it as a mod source for oscillator 3 (and then modulating osc 2 with that etc. etc.). Thorn I think is capable of a vastly broader palette than most give it credit for, Dmitry hid a lot of little details in Thorn that were a bit of a sound designer gift IMO. I worry people get sick of my dusty, wonky, woozy BOC stuff tbh but I enjoy making that kind of sound alot still so I hope there are still plenty of people finding it useful. I steered in a more confronting digital direction with Pathogen so hopefully people will follow along if I take a few detours now and again to keep it interesting
> 
> I admit I barely checked out Massive X although I took a look at the OG Massive at the advice of a customer a few years back, pre the release of X. He was keen for me to do some presets and thought it would be a good fit but I'd avoided it as i tend to do with high hype synths (bought Surge at the time instead). I found OG Massive a really great sounding and flexible synth and likely would appreciate X so maybe I'll take a look some time. I have my hands full with commissions and making Pigments & Falcon packs lately and otherwise tend to use a few Arturia synths, Lion, Bitwig native stuff and Phase Plant (or hardware), there aren't enough hours in the week!
> 
> In the end I think all of these flagship level "do it all" deep synths should be capable of going in whatever direction or genre people need, it's just the marketing departments (and factory presets) generally hyping them in one direction or another and colouring perception or expectations. Which, is a shame.


Thanks for the thorough reply!

I think that even outside of the current retro resurgence, there will always be love for the dust, wonk and wooze, even for those who never experienced the tech that made the noise, first-hand. I think it's a natural counter-culture like response to our ever-increasingly HD-ised world.

As for flagships being capable...sure. They are flagships, after all  But you're right that marketing and expectations (The successor to *THE* dubstep synth) will hugely influence the market it gets pushed towards and heralded by. Hopefully, it'll break free of those shackles and of the reputation lost during its shaky first steps, and people will start to extend its current palette


----------



## Brasart

I like Massive X and I really want to love it, but I can't believe they still haven't fixed the preset and browsing system they have (hell I can't believe it even came out like that) — you can't even "fav" a preset, you have to save it again as a custom user preset to have anything close to that, it's insane


----------



## el-bo

Brasart said:


> I like Massive X and I really want to love it, but I can't believe they still haven't fixed the preset and browsing system they have (hell I can't believe it even came out like that) — you can't even "fav" a preset, you have to save it again as a custom user preset to have anything close to that, it's insane


I suspect that the non-AVX-ness of Apple's M1 chips put quite the spanner in the works for NI (Certainly in the case of Massive X). Hopefully, they'll get back on track once all that's been sorted.


----------



## Tren

José Herring said:


> I think the "non-Fans" are stuck with the fact that it really isn't Massive. I like Massive X because it's not Massive. I never really liked Massive. Too hard a digital for me. Massive X isn't that.


That, and there is a huge Serum hypedom out there that loves to tear down the competition - similar to "DAW Wars."

The fact that "it isn't Massive" is fine. Massive still exists, and anyone who cares about that should already have access to it.


----------



## el-bo

Just updated to the latest version (1.3.4) and noticed that it now works with my Wacom tablet (I assume it's also now touchscreen compatible, also). Can't seem to find anything in the change-log that mentions it, though.

Either way, I'm now a happy bunny


----------



## sostenuto

el-bo said:


> Just updated to the latest version (1.3.4) and noticed that it now works with my Wacom tablet (I assume it's also now touchscreen compatible, also). Can't seem to find anything in the change-log that mentions it, though.
> 
> Either way, I'm now a happy bunny


Super post ! Have Wacom Intuos already inplace , but minimum joy so far with DAW use. 
Gotta check this out ! 👏🏻👏🏻


----------



## Brasart

Massive X was unusable the last few weeks on Ableton 11 (it displayed a black screen), last update was to fix that IIRC


----------



## Pier

Bee_Abney said:


> I haven’t delved into this synth in any depth, but I did buy a third-party soundset from Triple Spiral Audio that was on sale. It is in its own separate file and I access it from there via the presets browser in Massive X (not the drop down menu). So it is easy to navigate to just that soundset whenever I want to


Hey Bee, could you post a screenshot explaining that?

How did you install it to achieve that?


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> Hey Bee, could you post a screenshot explaining that?
> 
> How did you install it to achieve that?


I'll give it a try once I reinstall it. My hard disk had to be replaced; but on the plus side, I can put off the major upgrade until next year now!


----------



## Pier

Goddammit.

I bought Massive X. The payment to the card went through but there was an error in NI's e-commerce system and the order didn't finish correctly... and it doesn't appear in my NI control panel.

Hopefully I will be able to sort this out with NI quickly tomorrow. No way to contact them via email and the chat is offline.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> Goddammit.
> 
> I bought Massive X. The payment to the card went through but there was an error in NI's e-commerce system and the order didn't finish correctly... and it doesn't appear in my NI control panel.
> 
> Hopefully I will be able to sort this out with NI quickly tomorrow. No way to contact them via email and the chat is offline.



Very frustrating. Massive X has a lot of possibilities. Databroth really makes sing - or burble and buzz. 

Is that you selling The Legend and Dune 3.5 on Knobcloud? I guess you can't hoard everything...


----------



## Dirtgrain

I got the Spectralisk preset pack for Massive X as part of a bundle, and now I hate Massive X even more for its damn preset system. The Spectralisk presets are nifty, mind you.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> Hey Bee, could you post a screenshot explaining that?
> 
> How did you install it to achieve that?


I'm sorry. It looks like I was wrong. I haven't been able to recreate what I thought I had done. The Triple Spiral Audio preset pack is listed directly in USER presets and not kept in its own file. Nor can I find a browser menu.

I'm very sorry if I gave bad information. If I remember something that I've forgotten that could help, I'll get back to you.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Dirtgrain said:


> I got the Spectralisk preset pack for Massive X as part of a bundle, and now I hate Massive X even more for its damn preset system. The Spectralisk presets are nifty, mind you.


Can you put an identifier at the front of the file name of presets to group them? E.g. TSA for Triple Spiral Audio, though Triple Spiral Audio did that already. I usually put a descriptor in the name at the end, so with Massive X I would just put it at the beginning; e.g. PAD Mushy Peas; LEAD The Pain in my Heart; BASS I Wish I Never Started This Or Made Obvious Suggestions To People Who Certainly Know Better Than Me.


----------



## Pier

Bee_Abney said:


> Is that you selling The Legend and Dune 3.5 on Knobcloud? I guess you can't hoard everything...


Yes that's me 

I adore the sound of those synths, but in truth I never actually use them. I'm not the sentimental type.


----------



## Pier

Bee_Abney said:


> I'm sorry. It looks like I was wrong. I haven't been able to recreate what I thought I had done. The Triple Spiral Audio preset pack is listed directly in USER presets and not kept in its own file. Nor can I find a browser menu.
> 
> I'm very sorry if I gave bad information. If I remember something that I've forgotten that could help, I'll get back to you.


No worries Bee!


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> Yes that's me
> 
> I adore the sound of those synths, but in truth I never actually use them. I'm not the sentimental type.


I don't know if I'm sentimental or just disorganised; but I can never work out which things should go because I use them rarely and which things should stay because though not used often, they do something I really want for specific moments.


----------



## sostenuto

"_ ....... they do something I really want for specific moments._ " 
Could not state this better ! 
Kinda like the many dusty books on shelves. So cool when needed /desired ! 😎


----------



## Bee_Abney

sostenuto said:


> "_ ....... they do something I really want for specific moments._ "
> Could not state this better !
> Kinda like the many dusty books on shelves. So cool when needed /desired ! 😎


So true of books! They are a repository of things I can't remember in detail but can remember roughly where to look. The memory works in many ways that can't easily be turned into search terms for Google.

Plus a very large proportion of my books contain things that can't easily be found on the internet.


----------



## apollinaire

more...


----------



## Pier

Bee_Abney said:


> I don't know if I'm sentimental or just disorganised; but I can never work out which things should go because I use them rarely and which things should stay because though not used often, they do something I really want for specific moments.


I know what you mean.

In these BF days my mindset has been changing radically regarding what plugins to keep.

I've come to the conclusion that, for my music hobby, I can do most of what I need in Bitwig and a couple of other plugins like Zebra. I really don't need anything else. Even without U-He synths, Bitwig gives me a great analog sounding synth, wavetable, modular, multi sampler, etc, that I can layer and route in any way I can possibly imagine with the included effects or third party stuff like FF.

So the question now has become... do I like this synth enough to focus a couple of months with it and make a library of presets? 90% of my virtual synths don't pass this test.

Maybe if I had the time to spend hours every day playing with synths my mindset would be different. But right now my main focus is in my audio hosting start up. I'd rather focus my little free time on synths I desire to dig deeper and deeper, like Zebra, than stuff I'm hoarding for whatever reason.


----------



## Pier

apollinaire said:


> more...


Nice!

You're using the comb filter to produce those string tones, right?


----------



## apollinaire

Pier said:


> Nice!
> 
> You're using the comb filter to produce those string tones, right?


Yes, simple comb filtering noise.


----------



## Bee_Abney

apollinaire said:


> more...


Well that is appallingly lovely!


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> I know what you mean.
> 
> In these BF days my mindset has been changing radically regarding what plugins to keep.
> 
> I've come to the conclusion that, for my music hobby, I can do most of what I need in Bitwig and a couple of other plugins like Zebra. I really don't need anything else. Even without U-He synths, Bitwig gives me a great analog sounding synth, wavetable, modular, multi sampler, etc, that I can layer and route in any way I can possibly imagine with the included effects or third party stuff like FF.
> 
> So the question now has become... do I like this synth enough to focus a couple of months with it and make a library of presets? 90% of my virtual synths don't pass this test.
> 
> Maybe if I had the time to spend hours every day playing with synths my mindset would be different. But right now my main focus is in my audio hosting start up. I'd rather focus my little free time on synths I desire to dig deeper and deeper, like Zebra, than stuff I'm hoarding for whatever reason.


It's a great choice. While I do play bass for purposes of recording, and I spent a little while on drums and on keyboards, I decided years ago to focus on the guitar alone. And, moreover, to focus on guitar without overly distinctive effects. Better to spend my limited time with one instrument than many tools poorly. That way, I learned a lot more about what I can do with it. As a result, I'm only a little bit rubbish on guitar instead of a lot rubbish.

It_ so_ paid off!


----------



## apollinaire

perc -like things are also fun to make in Massive X.


----------



## Pier

apollinaire said:


> perc -like things are also fun to make in Massive X.


Oooooh I'm going to have great fun with Massive X 

(once I solve this payment problem!)


----------



## SupremeFist

Bee_Abney said:


> Well that is appallingly lovely!


I too am appalled. (In a good way.)


----------



## Pier

I could never pay through NI's website so had to use BestService that only offered the upgrade to Komplete 13. Oh well, at least I also got the full version of Kontakt 6 😂

First impressions:

*Good*
- Sounds great (oscillators, filters, and effects).
- Routing is super flexible and that feedback!  
- Tons of great modulators
- Love the UI although I've needed to consult the manual a couple of times
- Voice structure is great (per voice inserts, FM, PM, etc)
- Quickly skimmed the factory presets. Good stuff in general. Very modern and varied.

*Bad*
- Only 3 stereo effects that can't be reordered ffs
- Preset browser... oof
- Unison applies to all oscillators
- Modulation on parameters is limited (eg: only 3 modulators on the filter cutoff)

Super happy so far. NI is back baby!


----------



## spektralisk

Here's first part where I explore different patching ideas with Massive X. If you have some spare time check it out. I'll be posting shorter edits from these long videos with specific ideas, tips so you can quickly find something useful.


----------



## MegaPixel

Pier said:


> I could never pay through NI's website so had to use BestService that only offered the upgrade to Komplete 13. Oh well, at least I also got the full version of Kontakt 6 😂
> 
> First impressions:
> 
> *Good*
> - Sounds great (oscillators, filters, and effects).
> - Routing is super flexible and that feedback!
> - Tons of great modulators
> - Love the UI although I've needed to consult the manual a couple of times
> - Voice structure is great (per voice inserts, FM, PM, etc)
> - Quickly skimmed the factory presets. Good stuff in general. Very modern and varied.
> 
> *Bad*
> - Only 3 stereo effects that can't be reordered ffs
> - Preset browser... oof
> - Unison applies to all oscillators
> - Modulation on parameters is limited (eg: only 3 modulators on the filter cutoff)
> 
> Super happy so far. NI is back baby!


Yeah, I very much agree with:

- Preset browser
It's sooo bad... no fav's, no user folders? (not opened it in a long time now), my bets it will probably get clogged up and lock up after a few 1000 presets are added just like Massive, FM8 & Absynth (so watch them free presets in those emails).

NI really don't know how to make a preset browser, or how to program a list to show many items without locking up the application (Massive, FM8, Absynth). And the menu's and approach to lists, ordering, favourites etc, kontakt is a good example of how not to do this also  I'm surprised native access can handle a list that long for KUCE13 

But this is a good thing, it teaches/shows other developers & companies how not to do it... 

*It did sound good though... *Last time I used it... 

Also has a really small pool of actually good presets...


But u-he, xfer, kiloheartz & synapse... Need I say more... 

*But it did sound good,* I will re-open it some day, maybe in version 5 when I can remember the names or maybe star a preset so I can remember which one was good.

To be fair I have used it in a few tracks, and it does sound quite good, but I drifted away back to the others...


----------



## Bee_Abney

MegaPixel said:


> Yeah, I very much agree with:
> 
> - Preset browser
> It's sooo bad... no fav's, no user folders? (not opened it in a long time now), my bets it will probably get clogged up and lock up after a few 1000 presets are added just like Massive, FM8 & Absynth (so watch them free presets in those emails).
> 
> NI really don't know how to make a preset browser, or how to program a list to show many items without locking up the application (Massive, FM8, Absynth). And the menu's and approach to lists, ordering, favourites etc, kontakt is a good example of how not to do this also  I'm surprised native access can handle a list that long for KUCE13
> 
> But this is a good thing, it teaches/shows other developers & companies how not to do it...
> 
> *It did sound good though... *Last time I used it...
> 
> Also has a really small pool of actually good presets...
> 
> 
> But u-he, xfer, kiloheartz & synapse... Need I say more...
> 
> *But it did sound good,* I will re-open it some day, maybe in version 5 when I can remember the names or maybe star a preset so I can remember which one was good.
> 
> To be fair I have used it in a few tracks, and it does sound quite good, but I drifted away back to the others...



I don't know about favouriting or 'locking up' (freezing? Slow to load?), but it does have a USER folder. You just can't make sub-folders and any 3rd-party presets go there too. Native Instruments expansions get nice, separate folder of course!

Finding presets in the USER folder can be helped by always using descriptive codes at the start of names. And any that you like can be resaved with 'FAV' or some such at the beginning. 

There is the option of ordering and keeping presets separately and dragging them in from File Explorer/Finder.

It's not good, but it doesn't affect my decision for or against using Massive X.


----------



## MegaPixel

Bee_Abney said:


> I don't know about favouriting or 'locking up' (freezing? Slow to load?), but it does have a USER folder. You just can't make sub-folders and any 3rd-party presets go there too. Native Instruments expansions get nice, separate folder of course!
> 
> Finding presets in the USER folder can be helped by always using descriptive codes at the start of names. And any that you like can be resaved with 'FAV' or some such at the beginning.
> 
> There is the option of ordering and keeping presets separately and dragging them in from File Explorer/Finder.
> 
> It's not good, but it doesn't affect my decision for or against using Massive X.


Yep, I know all about it, user folder etc, sub folders don't work etc etc...
But thanks for the re-hash, it may help someone else...


----------



## Bee_Abney

MegaPixel said:


> Yep, I know all about it... But thanks for the re-hash, it may help someone else...



Yes, that was the idea. It is bothersome, but as there is a User folder, there are ways of managing.


----------



## muratkayi

Guys, as there is no standalone version of Massive X and you have to always load it as a plugin anyway, do yourselves a favor and load it inside of Komplete Kontrol first. The KK browser can do it all. I never use MX's browser.


----------



## Bee_Abney

muratkayi said:


> Guys, as there is no standalone version of Massive X and you have to always load it as a plugin anyway, do yourselves a favor and load it inside of Komplete Kontrol first. The KK browser can do it all. I never use MX's browser.



That's a good reminder! I used to do that, but I'm fine without extra browsing functions. It is, I think, what Native Instruments had in mind, so I'm glad you mentioned it.


----------



## Pier

muratkayi said:


> Guys, as there is no standalone version of Massive X and you have to always load it as a plugin anyway, do yourselves a favor and load it inside of Komplete Kontrol first. The KK browser can do it all. I never use MX's browser.


Is Komplete Kontrol solid these days?

A couple of years ago I bought a small M32 controller to test out KK, the NKS environment, etc, and it was quite flaky.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> Is Komplete Kontrol solid these days?
> 
> A couple of years ago I bought a small M32 controller to test out KK, the NKS environment, etc, and it was quite flaky.



I believe it is fairly stable, though it loads and runs rather slowly for me.


----------



## jbuhler

Bee_Abney said:


> I believe it is fairly stable, though it loads and runs rather slowly for me.


Every time I open KK, it has a bunch of plugins to add and then it rebuilds the database, so it's like a 5 minute wait. It's very annoying. I know this wouldn't be the case if I used it regularly, but still. Mostly I only use KK to modify or add presets to my S61 keyboard.


----------



## muratkayi

Try hitting escape during boot up of KK. I am not sure if it works with KK, too, but that abandons the deep scan in Maschine


----------



## jbuhler

muratkayi said:


> Try hitting escape during boot up of KK. I am not sure if it works with KK, too, but that abandons the deep scan in Maschine


Thank you!


----------



## EvilDragon

Pier said:


> - Modulation on parameters is limited (eg: only 3 modulators on the filter cutoff)


In this regard nothing changed from OG Massive, and for good reason. This _is _a constraint, but one that was well thought through. And at any rate, it doesn't seem to be a creative limitation based on diversity of sounds that MX ships with (+additional soundpacks).



MegaPixel said:


> NI really don't know how to make a preset browser


*ahem* Kore 2, GR5, GR6.


----------



## Pier

EvilDragon said:


> In this regard nothing changed from OG Massive, and for good reason. This _is _a constraint, but one that was well thought through. And at any rate, it doesn't seem to be a creative limitation based on diversity of sounds that MX ships with (+additional soundpacks).


It's not a dealbreaker for sure.

The preset browser is a dealbreaker for anyone wanting to make presets for it. U-He plugins are so much more user friendly for third party sound designers.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Pier said:


> It's not a dealbreaker for sure.
> 
> The preset browser is a dealbreaker for anyone wanting to make presets for it. U-He plugins are so much more user friendly for third party sound designers.



Fortunately it doesn't put everyone off; but it is a big disincentive. It's similar to (but in some ways worse than) UVI's somewhat inhospitable attitude towards third parties. That is, it seems deliberate.


----------



## EvilDragon

NI's hard at work in bringing a much improved preset browser for MX and beyond.


----------



## EvilDragon

Bee_Abney said:


> That is, it seems deliberate.


It was absolutely not deliberate that preset browser in MX ended up like that. It was simply time constraints (remember the multiple release date delays?) and they took DSP engine bugs as more important ones to solve than preset browsing UX. Rightly so, if you ask me.


----------



## Bee_Abney

EvilDragon said:


> It was absolutely not deliberate that preset browser in MX ended up like that. It was simply time constraints (remember the multiple release date delays?) and they took DSP engine bugs as more important ones to solve than preset browsing UX. Rightly so, if you ask me.



That's good to know, thanks.


----------



## TomislavEP

I find myself using Massive X more and more, though I'm yet to start programming something from scratch. I've found a number of usable patches suitable for ambient, cinematic, and new age styles; in my book, Massive X is a big step up from its predecessor here.

I agree that the preset browser could be a tad better. Personally, I would be happy enough with a basic star favorites system that Battery 4 uses. KK is certainly an option too, but I don't use NI hardware so I'm a bit on edge about it. In any case, I'm glad to hear that there will be further improvements in the future.


----------



## Pier

EvilDragon said:


> It was absolutely not deliberate that preset browser in MX ended up like that. It was simply time constraints (remember the multiple release date delays?) and they took DSP engine bugs as more important ones to solve than preset browsing UX. Rightly so, if you ask me.


I agree but it's been almost 3 years since Massive X was released.

In any case I'm happy to hear the browser is being worked on!


----------



## spektralisk

Regardless of browser shortcomings I still have a lot of fun with it. The only way for me to make it workable with managing sounds is Komplete Kontrol. Good to know they are working on improvements!

Here's a second part of my explorations with Massive X. Hopefully you'll find some ideas useful.


----------



## Bee_Abney

spektralisk said:


> Regardless of browser shortcomings I still have a lot of fun with it. The only way for me to make it workable with managing sounds is Komplete Kontrol. Good to know they are working on improvements!
> 
> Here's a second part of my explorations with Massive X. Hopefully you'll find some ideas useful.




Thanks for posting, I look forward to the weird noises!


----------



## Mornats

New update available it seems. I've not managed to get a chance to download it yet but the biggie is an improved browser and patch management.









Official update status - Massive X (current version: 1.4.0)


This thread provides information about upcoming patches for Massive X. It will be updated whenever new information becomes available.




community.native-instruments.com


----------



## spektralisk

Browser was improved but more for NI related banks. Managing user or third party banks is still not supported unfortunately.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Well that was a quick emotional rollercoaster ride. Up with Mornat's post, down again with spektralisk's.


----------



## spektralisk

Hehe, don't want to upset anybody. It's much better than before though to the point that I can skip using KK for it and use it directly now. I've been using 'Character' tags for tagging my banks so this is how it looks in new browser.






From other positive aspects: presets loading was improved and is much faster in my experience.


----------



## Mornats

spektralisk said:


> Browser was improved but more for NI related banks. Managing user or third party banks is still not supported unfortunately.


Well that sounds like a pretty half-arsed job. Will give some more intellectual thoughts on it after I've tried it.


----------



## Pier

spektralisk said:


> Hehe, don't want to upset anybody. It's much better than before though to the point that I can skip using KK for it and use it directly now. I've been using 'Character' tags for tagging my banks so this is how it looks in new browser.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From other positive aspects: presets loading was improved and is much faster in my experience.


Yeah this looks like a big improvement.

Hopefully they will improve third party banks too! I would love to spend some time with it and make a library but not like this.


----------



## Mornats

spektralisk said:


> Hehe, don't want to upset anybody. It's much better than before though to the point that I can skip using KK for it and use it directly now. I've been using 'Character' tags for tagging my banks so this is how it looks in new browser.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From other positive aspects: presets loading was improved and is much faster in my experience.


How do you add tags to banks? Are you doing this within Massive X?


----------



## spektralisk

Mornats said:


> How do you add tags to banks? Are you doing this within Massive X?


I've been doing this in Komplete Kontrol. When you edit the presets via "Edit" button (see bottom) you have two sections: "Types" and "Characters". I've been using the "Characters" section in KK to add my custom tags to distinguish the presets in my own banks. It looks like it get's populated in new Massive X browser as you can see on the screenshot in my earlier post.

However, this is just a workaround that I've implemented for the time being until NI gives us proper solution for tagging user/third party banks.


----------



## Mornats

spektralisk said:


> I've been doing this in Komplete Kontrol. When you edit the presets via "Edit" button (see bottom) you have two sections: "Types" and "Characters". I've been using the "Characters" section in KK to add my custom tags to distinguish the presets in my own banks. It looks like it get's populated in new Massive X browser as you can see on the screenshot in my earlier post.
> 
> However, this is just a workaround that I've implemented for the time being until NI gives us proper solution for tagging user/third party banks.


Aha, thanks! I got that working. It's a workaround like you say but I can see a spark of organisation creeping its way into my patches. Shame I can't add a cool library tag/block like these:


----------



## spektralisk

Yes, that's how it should be implemented for user banks 

Let's hope NI guys read these posts and are already working to add this for us :D


----------



## Pier

spektralisk said:


> I've been doing this in Komplete Kontrol. When you edit the presets via "Edit" button (see bottom) you have two sections: "Types" and "Characters". I've been using the "Characters" section in KK to add my custom tags to distinguish the presets in my own banks. It looks like it get's populated in new Massive X browser as you can see on the screenshot in my earlier post.
> 
> However, this is just a workaround that I've implemented for the time being until NI gives us proper solution for tagging user/third party banks.


Sorry but... what are trees?


----------



## SupremeFist

Pier said:


> Sorry but... what are trees?


They are the things that provide wooden end panels for synths


----------



## spektralisk

Pier said:


> Sorry but... what are trees?


It's the name of my sound bank for Massive X


----------



## AndrewS

SupremeFist said:


> They are the things that provide wooden end panels for synths


...but that's not important right now.


----------



## MegaPixel

It's better than what it was... But it's still...

We've got to remember NI Developer's have never used a Visual OS or a Mouse before, they all use Unix or Linux, keyboard shortcuts and work in black and white in DOS/SHELL/CLI/TERMINAL all day and night... They've never seen a visual file browser, this is next level string theory to them...


Try adding 1000 presets to massive, it will never stop loading... How old is that now? It will never be fixed... All hope is lost.. Much like my patience for NI... How they can make some things great and the basics just soo shhhhhait is a mystery to me...


I have heard though, that it's not all the developers fault however, so whatever directions they are getting from above and from else where is also contributing to making things absolute shait for us also... Often the case of management / account managers etc not listening to designer and developers...

See Kontakt, it's still in the 1990s...
Amazed everyone has not moved to Falcon long ago...


----------



## EvilDragon

spektralisk said:


> Let's hope NI guys read these posts and are already working to add this for us :D


They're aware. The new browser is iterative development.



MegaPixel said:


> See Kontakt, it's still in the 1990s...


Was released in 2000s. 



MegaPixel said:


> Amazed everyone has not moved to Falcon long ago...


Because it's just not as CPU efficient, nor does it support background loading, nor does it support multicore processing, nor has the same market reach.


----------



## spektralisk

EvilDragon said:


> They're aware. The new browser is iterative development.


Great to hear. Thanks.


----------



## Mornats

I second that. Great to hear that more improvements are in the pipeline.


----------



## MegaPixel

EvilDragon said:


> They're aware. The new browser is iterative development.
> 
> 
> Was released in 2000s.
> 
> 
> Because it's just not as CPU efficient, nor does it support background loading, nor does it support multicore processing, nor has the same market reach.


For some reason when I was typing that I was saying to myself, "EvilDragon will probably reply to this"..


----------



## Bee_Abney

MegaPixel said:


> For some reason when I was typing that I was saying to myself, "EvilDragon will probably reply to this"..


Evil dragon is like Alexa. Always listening. Biding his time, waiting for his moment then... He strikes! With alarmingly helpful messages of exacting concision, full of technical know-how that strikes me dumb. Alright, dumber.


----------



## MegaPixel

Bee_Abney said:


> Evil dragon is like Alexa. Always listening. Biding his time, waiting for his moment then... He strikes! With alarmingly helpful messages of exacting concision, full of technical know-how that strikes me dumb. Alright, dumber.


He works for NI and helps with the build of Surge XT (if memory serves me correctly)...

Just wish NI would let him run things, would make us all happy...


----------



## EvilDragon

Oh you don't want me running things. Things would probably end up in fire.


----------



## creativeforge

EvilDragon said:


> Oh you don't want me running things. Things would probably end up in fire.


I thought dragons and fire went well together...


----------



## EvilDragon

But fire and companies?


----------



## Pier

EvilDragon said:


> But fire and companies?


Why not?

It worked for Elon.









Flamethrower — The Boring Company







www.boringcompany.com


----------



## MegaPixel

*Just Announced!!!*
*Kontakt **2097*






*SORRY FALSE ALARM*... Was a dream I was having...
_Now that's what I call Kontakt 2097 was playing... Oh such sweet dreams..._

Someday... Many years after Star Citizen is released and mankind has gone the way of the dodo...


----------



## Michel Simons

I for one am quite pleased with this first step in browser improvement.


----------



## tressie5

I demo'd Massive X in Studio One but the daw spit it out and placed a pox on my house. Cubase 12 was kinder and gentler, though. I can get 6 to 8 voices of polyphony before my laptop starts smoking from the rear.


----------



## Bee_Abney

tressie5 said:


> I demo'd Massive X in Studio One but the daw spit it out and placed a pox on my house. Cubase 12 was kinder and gentler, though. I can get 6 to 8 voices of polyphony before my laptop starts smoking from the rear.



That's odd. I use Massive X in Studio One all the time and I've never had an issue. My PC is an i5, so it doesn't have the best CPU.


----------



## AlphaCen

My only thought about Massive X is that it should have been M1 native looong time ago…


----------



## Tronam

AlphaCen said:


> My only thought about Massive X is that it should have been M1 native looong time ago…


Doesn't Massive X use some kind of unusual (for plugins anyway) x86 CPU extension that makes this more difficult to port than normal for NI?


----------



## AlphaCen

That’s a good question to Mr Dragon here 

The code base should be more modern, as Massive X was released relatively recently. With NI, one never knows…


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## EvilDragon

It's not unusual. AVX1 instructions have been in CPUs for over 10 years now. It does make porting to M1 trickier but not impossible.


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## Tronam

EvilDragon said:


> It's not unusual. AVX1 has been in CPUs for over 10 years now. It does make porting to M1 trickier but not impossible.


Ah, okay. Is it commonly used in other audio plugins as well?


----------



## EvilDragon

Not all but some definitely use it, like Synapse Audio The Legend/Obsession, Acustica Audio, etc.


----------



## nightjar

EvilDragon said:


> They're aware. The new browser is iterative development.


If this browser in Massive X update is a "preview" of what is to come in KK, then I am happy enough with this as an embryonic start.


----------



## TomislavEP

Yesterday, I've updated to the latest version of Massive X. I really like the new preset browser; in fact, I was expecting something more rudimentary, so this is a pleasant surprise.

The only feature that Massive X still "lacks" in my book is a standalone mode which is far more elegant for certain applications than running it inside a DAW. However, you can always use a VST host including Native's own Komplete Kontrol so this is not that a big issue.


----------



## richiebee

muziksculp said:


> Hi,
> 
> What are your thoughts about NI's *MASSIVE X* Synth ?
> 
> Do you use it frequently ?
> 
> What do you feel it's very good at compared to other SW Synths ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Muziksculp


I find it confusing. It looks a lot cooler than Massive but it just doesn't feel as intuitive as Pigments or even Synthmaster for me so those are my go to's. I've heard some pretty awesome patches out of it (especially rhythmic aggressive) but it ways feels a bit daunting to try and program something like that.


----------



## EvilDragon

SAVIHost on Windows would be the quickest road to a standalone.


----------



## richiebee

TomislavEP said:


> Yesterday, I've updated to the latest version of Massive X. I really like the new preset browser; in fact, I was expecting something more rudimentary, so this is a pleasant surprise.
> 
> The only feature that Massive X still "lacks" in my book is a standalone mode which is far more elegant for certain applications than running it inside a DAW. However, you can always use a VST host including Native's own Komplete Kontrol so this is not that a big issue.


Didn't know there was a browser update. That's quite a biggie in my book.


----------



## Marko Cifer

TomislavEP said:


> The only feature that Massive X still "lacks" in my book is a standalone mode which is far more elegant for certain applications than running it inside a DAW. However, you can always use a VST host including Native's own Komplete Kontrol so this is not that a big issue.


Still, would be nice to have, especially for when you get a craving to do a bit of sound design but Komplete Kontrol takes too long to load due to the other plugins added to it.


As for my opinion, I generally like it for its quirkiness and its sound, and I've gotten sort of used to its UI and workflow. I don't use it a TON, but I do use it from time to time. It really did launch in a state that didn't work in its favor to say the least, and it launched in an relatively "opaque" state while its competition was going for making everything visual and animated. It has gotten some improvements, but I still get this feeling like it's undercooked to this day and would need quite a bit of love to reach its full potential.

It can sound fantastic, the routing lets you do some really nice things, same with the performer, and the updates and expansion packs really did add a lot to it, but I always had this feeling that not letting users import their own wavetables or even incorporate a wavetable editor was a decision that ended up being an Achilles heel when compared to the rest of the market (same with the visual feedback thing). 

So, if you have it as part of Komplete? Please give it a chance. Yes, it does have a bit of a learning curve, but it's a wonderful tool. As something you'd intentionally purchase? That's a much harder question to answer, and everyone needs to answer that question for themselves - not to mention it also depends on what other synths they have access too.

I'd personally say that at this point it's worth a grab during a sale - if nothing else, it can get pretty damn quirky and insane, and I love it for that. I'd just be hesitant to recommend it to someone as their main synth due to some of the other options out there.


----------



## Mornats

One day Massive X will be a great synth. One day.

I mentioned way back in the early parts of this thread that I've struggled to get my head around synths and get my own sounds out of them. However I took to Massive X easily and gelled with it and just love the sounds I'm making with it. Which is weird when others say there are more intuitive synths out there. Maybe I'm just a weirdo and my weird matches Massive X's weird


----------



## richiebee

Mornats said:


> One day Massive X will be a great synth. One day.
> 
> I mentioned way back in the early parts of this thread that I've struggled to get my head around synths and get my own sounds out of them. However I took to Massive X easily and gelled with it and just love the sounds I'm making with it. Which is weird when others say there are more intuitive synths out there. Maybe I'm just a weirdo and my weird matches Massive X's weird


If "intuitive" meant the same to everyone, there would be a lot less synths on the market. Lets face it, most of them do pretty much the same thing. One man's confusing as hell, is another man's logical.


----------



## telecode101

I have had it for ages and have yet to really use it in a project. I still use the old Massive more. Something about Massive X screams EDM to me when I look at its interface. I tend to use Pigments more in projects. But its great to see NI supporting it and constantly updating it.


----------



## spektralisk

It's definitely not only EDM. I highly recommend digging into it. Patching your sounds is a lot of fun. I generally like this idea of the patcher in the bottom where you can configure your own signal flow. I hope there will be more modules in the future to play with.

The overall impression I have about it is what the name says: Massive.

I know most of the stuff is subjective but imo playing with the instrument only for one day (not suggesting anyone here is doing it) is not enough to give a final verdict. I have a lot of synths that initially didn't do it for me but after spending some more time with them, even sometimes forcing myself to do it, I have completely changed my mind about them.


----------



## SupremeFist

The new preset browser is a huuuuuge improvement and will likely make me use it more: I was just looking through some of the expansions I got back when they were cheap and found some stunning sounds that I'd never happened across while scrolling like treacle through that tiny KK list.


----------



## SupremeFist

spektralisk said:


> I generally like this idea of the patcher in the bottom where you can configure your own signal flow..


This is exactly what I don't like about it, it's some kind of weird skeuomorphic throwback that makes me feel like I'm using a monochrome computer from the early 90s.


----------



## Pier

SupremeFist said:


> This is exactly what I don't like about it, it's some kind of weird skeuomorphic throwback that makes me feel like I'm using a monochrome computer from the early 90s.


I agree the UI of the modular patcher is... bad... but the sonic possibilities are amazing. Specially the feedback thing.


----------



## davidnaroth

I think the engine has a ton of potential, but every time I open up Massive X I immediately feel overwhelmed by the GUI. Old massive, everything was laid out clearly, in X I have no idea where to go for simple things. Also, (and maybe theyve added this), there is no way to filter presets like in the old massive as far as I can tell.


----------



## Mornats

Considering I get on well with Massive X, are there any other synths I should also check out?


----------



## Naroth Audio

Mornats said:


> Considering I get on well with Massive X, are there any other synths I should also check out?


Serums one of my favorites, and pigments too


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## SupremeFist

Mornats said:


> Considering I get on well with Massive X, are there any other synths I should also check out?


Get Diva and the Aiko skin from Plugmon and you'll feel right at home.


----------



## Mornats

Pigments certainly looks interesting. Worth a look although I can't buy anything as I blew my plugin budget on having a baby.


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## Bee_Abney

Mornats said:


> Pigments certainly looks interesting. Worth a look although I can't buy anything as I blew my plugin budget on having a baby.


Congratulations!


----------



## tressie5

After aaaaaaaaaalllllll this time (three years, actually), I'm finally able to play nice with Massive X as well as Chromophone and Pigments. Why? I loaded up LatencyMon which indicated that _something_ was spiking the software/hardware interface driver, causing me snaps, crackles and pops. Further investigation with the Windows Performance Toolkit pointed to AUEPMaster.exe, or AMD User Experience Program, a program that had been installed in my laptop as part of bloatware when I bought it three years ago. Interestingly, I couldn't uninstall it with the regular W11 uninstaller since it wasn't listed, but my trusty WiseCare uninstaller came to the rescue once again.


----------



## Pier

Mornats said:


> Pigments certainly looks interesting. Worth a look although I can't buy anything as I blew my plugin budget on having a baby.


Congrats on the baby!


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## Mornats

Bee_Abney said:


> Congratulations!





Pier said:


> Congrats on the baby!


Thanks! Little one is almost 18 months old now. She can wiggle in time to music and loves singing so I can't wait to let her loose on my music stuff when she's less destructive. Maybe Massive X will have that user preset management by then 😲


----------



## jbuhler

Mornats said:


> Pigments certainly looks interesting. Worth a look although I can't buy anything as I blew my plugin budget on having a baby.


Pigments combined with getting a Moog Grandmother was what finally cracked synth logic for me. I’d tried to learn about a billion synths before but always got confused And little seemed to work the way I thought it should. Having the physical synth with patch cords really focused on signal flow and I find Pigments very logically designed and with lots of visual feedback. So together the two have been very instructive.


----------



## Mornats

jbuhler said:


> Pigments combined with getting a Moog Grandmother was what finally cracked synth logic for me. I’d tried to learn about a billion synths before but always got confused And little seemed to work the way I thought it should. Having the physical synth with patch cords really focused on signal flow and I find Pigments very logically designed and with lots of visual feedback. So together the two have been very instructive.


Oh I almost bought a hardware synth. I'd tried loads in a shop but the only one that I bonded with was the Korg Minilogue XD. Whatever knob I turned I got an sound I liked. It was just lack of space at home that stopped me. The Novation Peak was similar but way more expensive.


----------



## EvilDragon

Just be aware that Pigments is a horrendous CPU pig.


----------



## TomislavEP

spektralisk said:


> It's definitely not only EDM.


This is probably the main reason why it's my favorite VST synth for the time being (with Prism and Kontour closely behind). So far, I didn't feel the pressing need for programming something from scratch; there are many useful and down-to-earth presets suitable for ambient and cinematic styles that are easily tweakable and customizable. I have also bought a few expansions, but the included sounds in these are a bit of a letdown for me.


----------



## richiebee

Mornats said:


> Pigments certainly looks interesting. Worth a look although I can't buy anything as I blew my plugin budget on having a baby.


Can you send it back?  (sorry, never had kids - I imagine its more appropriate to congratulate you).



> Maybe Massive X will have that user preset management by then 😲



MassiveX has preset management, through a recent update, but I actually came across a fail on that last night - Once I had initiated a first search, I couldn't get back to a list of everything, without removing the plugin from my track, and re-loading it. The reason I wanted it was to get the init patch, which it did not find through a search! So, close, and yet, so far...


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## Bee_Abney

richiebee said:


> Can you send it back?  (sorry, never had kids - I imagine its more appropriate to congratulate you).
> 
> 
> 
> MassiveX has preset management, through a recent update, but I actually came across a fail on that last night - Once I had initiated a first search, I couldn't get back to a list of everything, without removing the plugin from my track, and re-loading it. The reason I wanted it was to get the init patch, which it did not find through a search! So, close, and yet, so far...


I now that if you are searching through categories you can go backwards by deselecting the categories you had selected. I haven't tried searching by typing in a name though.

I like it when a synth has a nice little 'Init' selector in its main menu - typically something like 'New Patch' just above 'Save'. It's very convenient, until you click it by accident...


----------



## Mornats

richiebee said:


> Can you send it back?  (sorry, never had kids - I imagine its more appropriate to congratulate you).
> 
> 
> 
> MassiveX has preset management, through a recent update, but I actually came across a fail on that last night - Once I had initiated a first search, I couldn't get back to a list of everything, without removing the plugin from my track, and re-loading it. The reason I wanted it was to get the init patch, which it did not find through a search! So, close, and yet, so far...


No returns unfortunately! 

Yeah I noticed the preset management update but it's only for the commercial and inbuilt patches. Nothing for user made presets unless you add tags in Komplete Control and browse using those. There's more to come in this area though so fingers crossed.


----------



## Voider

EvilDragon said:


> Just be aware that Pigments is a horrendous CPU pig.


Can't confirm that, when I did the promo video for my soundset I've had 30 (!) individual instances of Pigments up, one for each patch and everything was smooth and fine as usual. My machine runs on a Ryzen 7 2700X @3,7GHz.


----------



## Bee_Abney

Voider said:


> Can't confirm that, when I did the promo video for my soundset I've had 30 (!) individual instances of Pigments up, one for each patch and everything was smooth and fine as usual. My machine runs on a Ryzen 7 2700X @3,7GHz.


Maybe it is the granular engine? Some systems really struggle with that, and I think Ryzen handles it better.


----------



## jbuhler

Voider said:


> Can't confirm that, when I did the promo video for my soundset I've had 30 (!) individual instances of Pigments up, one for each patch and everything was smooth and fine as usual. My machine runs on a Ryzen 7 2700X @3,7GHz.


This has been my experience too, though I’m running a 2020 i9 iMac and so have lots of cpu. I also haven’t been using tons of in synth effects. But certainly dozens of instances of pigments without issue.


----------



## Pier

Voider said:


> Can't confirm that, when I did the promo video for my soundset I've had 30 (!) individual instances of Pigments up, one for each patch and everything was smooth and fine as usual. My machine runs on a Ryzen 7 2700X @3,7GHz.


I mean... the 2700X is a beefy 8 core desktop CPU. Also I imagine you weren't actually triggering notes on the 30 instances all at once?

I'm not saying Pigments is CPU heavy (I don't really know) just that, if it was, you probably wouldn't notice.


----------



## richiebee

Voider said:


> Can't confirm that, when I did the promo video for my soundset I've had 30 (!) individual instances of Pigments up, one for each patch and everything was smooth and fine as usual. My machine runs on a Ryzen 7 2700X @3,7GHz.


I must say I was surprised to see the comment about Pigments being a hog. It hasn't been my experience either on my 8th Gen i7 laptop or my 12th gen i7 desktop. Can't say I've loaded 30 instances, but I have as many as I want for a project.


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## Bee_Abney

On my i5 PC, I have trouble with playing too many notes or too quickly with granular synthesis. But, well, it is an i5 so I'm not blaming Pigments for that. It's even worse with granular in Falcon.

When I have thirty or so synth tracks, I always bounce most or all of them to audio. But, then, I prefer to bounce tracks to audio (or export and re-import stems) for mixing when time allows anyway, to give me more certainty and control of the audio.


----------



## Pier

richiebee said:


> I must say I was surprised to see the comment about Pigments being a hog. It hasn't been my experience either on my 8th Gen i7 laptop or my 12th gen i7 desktop. Can't say I've loaded 30 instances, but I have as many as I want for a project.


Well if you're using an i7 you probably wouldn't notice it either. Specially on desktop.


----------



## Voider

Bee_Abney said:


> Maybe it is the granular engine? Some systems really struggle with that, and I think Ryzen handles it better.





Pier said:


> I mean... the 2700X is a beefy 8 core desktop CPU. Also I imagine you weren't actually triggering notes on the 30 instances all at once?
> 
> I'm not saying Pigments is CPU heavy (I don't really know) just that, if it was, you probably wouldn't notice.


I've just ran a test with 16 instances of Pigments and granular-only patches for fun, playing all at the same time: My CPU had a load between 32% and 51%. With 8 instances the load was between 16%-25%. I think being able to use 8 granular instances that play notes simultaneously for just a maximum of 1/4 of the CPU isn't too bad, given that that's a huge setup already which is unlikely to happen within one composition.

Of course, to really make an _actual_ accurate statement we'd need to compare kind of the same actions with different synths on average CPUs to figure out what's normal and which synthesizers exceed that.

Based on my personal experience, I have dealt with synths with a noticable effect on performance (such as Diva; _on my previous system to be fair - which was maybe slightly inferior to my current one at that time, but I still already came across performance issues with I believe two or three instances_) while Pigments always has been running super smooth, so just by comparison my impression is rather that Pigments feels light.

I'd say that my Ryzen 7 2700X is maybe an upper middle class CPU - it was released in 2018.


----------



## Pier

Voider said:


> Of course, to really make an _actual_ accurate statement we'd need to compare kind of the same actions with different synths on average CPUs to figure out what's normal and which synthesizers exceed that.


Of course. Obviously someone on the internet did that.

When Pigments 2 was released, Cameron from Venus Theory compared it with other granular synths. Go to 1:37:49 for the CPU comparison.




TLDW: Pigments used more CPU than even Falcon with the IRCAM granular.

This was with v2 so it's possible Arturia has improved it though.


----------



## telecode101

richiebee said:


> I must say I was surprised to see the comment about Pigments being a hog. It hasn't been my experience either on my 8th Gen i7 laptop or my 12th gen i7 desktop. Can't say I've loaded 30 instances, but I have as many as I want for a project.


FWIW.. on my setup (dual Xeons), Pigments uses less CPU in the situations for what I use it for. But I defer to expertise of EvilDragon as he's more well versed in the technical nitty gritty of the computing.


----------



## EvilDragon

All I know is most new Arturia synths hog Reaper's RT CPU meter way more than a bunch of other plugins. And I have 400 plugins.


----------



## HCMarkus

Am I missing something or is neither CC7 nor CC11 mapped to volume in MassiveX presets? If this is the case, is there a way to set this up globally?


----------



## zzz00m

HCMarkus said:


> Am I missing something or is neither CC7 nor CC11 mapped to volume in MassiveX presets? If this is the case, is there a way to set this up globally?


As far as I can tell in MassiveX, there is no MIDI learn, and only the 16 macros are mapped to automation. You can use the MIDI learn feature in a host such as Komplete Kontrol, but you are limited to the 16 macros knobs.


----------



## richiebee

zzz00m said:


> As far as I can tell in MassiveX, there is no MIDI learn, and only the 16 macros are mapped to automation. You can use the MIDI learn feature in a host such as Komplete Kontrol, but you are limited to the 16 macros knobs.


Yes, I think its a way for NI to force you into their hardware if you want that level of control. I don't think it matters if you work in a single DAW (where you just assign macros to a controller lane, or however your DAW implements that) but I can see it being problematic if you want to export midi files for importing into a different DAW, if you want to play them live on a non-NI keyboard/controller, or if you want to use them in a bare bones DAW that doesn't have controller lanes set up by the VI. I suspect its MIDI's way of evolving.


----------



## HCMarkus

richiebee said:


> I suspect its MIDI's way of evolving.


Sounds a lot more like DEvolving to me. 

If I have to set up custom controller assignments for every patch just to control volume with a CC11 foot pedal, I guess won't be using MassiveX very much. CC11 should default to control volume pre-FX. 

Omnisphere and so many other VIs do it right.


----------



## Tim_Wells

zzz00m said:


> As far as I can tell in MassiveX, there is no MIDI learn, and only the 16 macros are mapped to automation. You can use the MIDI learn feature in a host such as Komplete Kontrol, but you are limited to the 16 macros knobs.


Didn't realize this. I'm disappointed in NI. At least there's a work around with the automation lanes.


----------



## zzz00m

Well I acquired Massive X through Komplete 13, and decided to give it a fair shot. Have been going through it and marking favorites. The good ones sound great!

But compared to Phase Plant or Pigments, which I also have, the Massive X workflow just doesn't click as well with me for some reason. NI should up the game and upgrade the interface, because the sound engine under the hood is one of the best!


----------



## Cideboy

EvilDragon said:


> All I know is most new Arturia synths hog Reaper's RT CPU meter way more than a bunch of other plugins. And I have 400 plugins.


man your everywhere haha - thanks for all the support over at the NI forum over the years.


----------



## Bee_Abney

zzz00m said:


> Well I acquired Massive X through Komplete 13, and decided to give it a fair shot. Have been going through it and marking favorites. The good ones sound great!
> 
> But compared to Phase Plant or Pigments, which I also have, the Massive X workflow just doesn't click as well with me for some reason. NI should up the game and upgrade the interface, because the sound engine under the hood is one of the best!


Isn't the workflow of Massive X almost the same as Pigments? Almost as if Pigments were influenced strongly by Massive X?

Pigments feels easier, so perhaps it is - more intuitive and more visual in its main routings, anyway; but they aren't far off. Massive X has the modular section which is a real advantage.


----------



## zzz00m

Bee_Abney said:


> Pigments feels easier, so perhaps it is - more intuitive and more visual in its main routings


That's what makes Pigments more inspiring to work with for me. 

Maybe workflow was the incorrect term? Try substituting "creative experience". I guess I just prefer the visual feedback regarding the changes I make, in addition to what my ears tell me. The UI's are both very busy, so the visual part helps me to keep track of it all.

Anyway, I think that Phase Plant beats them both in that regard!


----------



## Bee_Abney

zzz00m said:


> That's what makes Pigments more inspiring to work with for me.
> 
> Maybe workflow was the incorrect term? Try substituting "creative experience". I guess I just prefer the visual feedback regarding the changes I make, in addition to what my ears tell me. The UI's are both very busy, so the visual part helps me to keep track of it all.
> 
> Anyway, I think that Phase Plant beats them both in that regard!


When it comes to what synth is right for you, it's all about the experience and the sound. All of these are great sounding synths, so that's taken care of (obviously adjust for tastes and purposes)! I find both synths attractive to look at in different ways, so I enjoy spending time with them.

Phaseplant... I will eventually, it's just about timing. The ease of getting the subscription makes it hard to feel rushed by a sale price; yet it clearly seems as though some changes are ahead with moving so many snapins to free which does add a little pressure. I liked to follow the discussions of it here though, along with listening to demos, so I'm constantly keeping it in mind.


----------



## grabauf

Fortunately we have till June 13th to make a decision.


----------

