NI MASSIVE X : Your thoughts about it ?

[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.

 

[sostenuto]

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 ?

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[TheUnfinished]

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!

 

[Bee_Abney]

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?

 

[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.

 

[Bee_Abney]

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!

 

[el-bo]

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

 

[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

 

[Bee_Abney]

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.

 

[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.

 

[Mornats]

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.

 

[Bee_Abney]

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.

 

[el-bo]

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

 

[emptyvessel]

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.

 

[el-bo]

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]

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]

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.