So, what do people who have used Massive think of it?

ew

Thanks you ew!

Really Massive is now my favourite synth, I love the saturn rings & Macro control concepts, especially for live act situations.

All the best
Antonio Blanca

 

in terms of wavetable synthesis, there is nothing absolutely nothing that gets near it in Reaktor. it is really a very flexible synth with loads of potential. the wavetables can be modulated both horizontally and vertically, which i think is quite unique

i like it a lot but i wish that it had been made as a Reaktor instrument. i feel that it could have been.

sowari

 

This synth is gritty and dirty very Nord Lead with a bit of Access Virus thrown in. so think of an inbetween which is freakin awesome!!!! but it can also be very melodic and smooth sounding.
If this thing were done in reaktor considering its somewhat high cpu usage it would bring many a machine to its knees. The .mp3's do NOT do this thing justice!!!

 

It's the best-sounding soft synth I've heard. Superb presets!

My only gripe is I wish it could handle microtonal/alternative tunings. FM7/8 and Absynth can do it so why not Massive?

 

That's a good question. I'll submit a feature request- I'd like it myself.

ew

 

After using it about a week, its my favorite synth - hard or soft! I've put some of my thoughts down in a blog as a mini-review:

http://synthwire.blogspot.com/

 

Massive is a very cool synth.

BUT: up to 70% CPU load on my Pentium 4, 3,2 GHz laptop with 1 GB RAM.

CRAZY

 

Reduce the number of voices to 6 or 8. That will suit most purposes and reduce the CPU load.

 

Or use it in low quality mode. On a lot of Massive sounds, you'd be hard pressed to hear the difference.

ew

 

Look up Sidechain Modulation [SC] in the manual, if this is active the ring is not drawn. Just found out myself.

 

So far I'm not hearing this exceptional sound quality people are talking about. I like the architecture and there's a good tradeoff of complexity vs flexibility here but the basic timbre isn't all that striking.

The CPU hit is pretty insane too.

 

Check the quality setting. Also, what soundcard are you using? I agree about the CPU hit...worth it though

Its probably the best-sounding digital synth I've ever used, hard or soft. And I have had a *lot* to compare it with over the years

To me its similar to a Waldorf Q, only warmer. Its also slightly reminiscent of a Nord Lead without the brittle "fizz". The interpolation in the wavetables during scanning is smooth as silk...very different than the "granular" sweeps I would get on the Microwave or Fizmo...

http://www.carbon111.com/studioa.jpg

 

I'm running it on high quality through a MOTU Ultralite to a pair of Dynaudio monitors, comparing it to other synths I've got around

It does sound good, but not qualitatively better than the competition, at least to my ears. The filter's not as good as FabFilter Twin or Minimonsta and the oscillators don't have the presence or punch that my Nord Lead 2x or Monomachine do. Zebra 2 and Surge do similarly smooth wavetable scans and both allow you to design your own wavetables.

Massive is a nice synth but I think the marketing is a little overboard and the CPU hit compared to the alternatives is very painful.

 

Hmm...we obviously have different ears (thats a GOOD thing, BTW)



I honestly don't know what people like about zebra - nice features but the sound left me cold...same with surge.

 

I lump Massive (and NI's other synths), Zebra, and Surge into roughly the same category. Versatile but somewhat cold sounding digital synths. Massive might be a little smoother but I suspect, based on the CPU load, it's doing a lot of internal upsampling. Rendering other plugins at higher sample rates accomplishes basically the same thing.

For raw sound quality in softsynths I much prefer Vaz Modular, FabFilter Twin, and the GForce stuff, but the colder stuff can still be musically useful.

 

I was reading in "Sound on Sound" magazine an interview with some people at NI, they said that all prototyping of vst plugins was first done in Reaktor. Then they got the coders involved to turn it into a vst and refine it.

So there probably is a reaktor version hiding in Germany somewhere.

Cheers

Andy

 

"Massive is a sonic monster"

True to fullest extent!

I am totally in love with it. In fact, previously when anybody would have asked me if I'd like to leave one synth, that would be Roland's V-Synth. But now I would not be able to make a definite choice! Massive blew my expectation for a software synth. It can sound like a warm analog, with all that punch in the envelopes that I've been dreaming of for many years. Sonically it's damn flexible, very close to a modular which is cool, and the UI is a blast to work with. Working with the demo now but can't wait for the box to arrive!

 

I went out and traded my Micro Korg for it, it has an amazing sound, It’s so warm and fun to use. I make “Jungle” and “leftfield hip-hop” so you know it fits in just right with my music.

This is has hands down my favorite synth!!!


Big up the NI

 

I dont like Massive at all.

What do I think...
After fiddling around for an hour or so I’m sorry to say that this is the first Native let down. I have only played with the presets and judging from them this is more like a loop player, a “one finger” ting.
Hard to find presets that would be part of something else. It’s like the old Roland D50, the presets has a sound so rich that it fills the hole sound space.
It may be that there is a possibility to program more usable results, but then when there are Reaktor, FM7 and Absynt, do I need an other synth to cover the holes in between? NO, and if, Massive is not the one that will do that. The Arturia pluggs is a much better choice.

It could be that Massiv will work for those that like to use only one finger when they play or maybe no finger at all, for the rest of us.....Massive is a definite No-no.

I had originally ordered 4, but I canceled them all.
Even Native make mistakes, this is the first one when it comes to plug in concepts (read synths).

 

I don't think you can damn a synth by listening to its presets.

For instance the Clavia Nord G2 factory presets are really bad, but the synth itself is fantastic.

Cheers

Andy