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

Only two words:

MASSIVE POWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Thanks to NI for Break up the typicall synth concept, I can´t wait to reveive my Massive Box....

Massive is different ;-) and it´s cool!

regards

Biotek

 

Jepp you are spot on but then you immediately hear that the Clavia Nord has a fantastic potential, it screams "program me!"
But Massive.....it says im fat, im massive, but where is the excitement?
How I can judge a synth by its presets, well 30 years of experience helps ;-)
What I say is, its not for me and I think it limits creativity, its steers you in a direction you may (or may not ) want to go in…the “on finger music production technique”….
Im probably all wrong, this synth will sell because this may be what the crowd wants, sounds that completely fill the sound space. Its so much simpler to use just one finger than develop an sound idea by yourself....:- )
Im happy to pass this synth to the “instant weird sounds techno guys” (aged 13-17) :- )
Long live Reaktor (and the rest of the Ni synth:s)

 

I do agree with you on the one finger presets…but in all fairness who would buy this synth such as this just for presets. It has so much under the hood; I love it for the easy sound editing from scratch abilities.

I don’t want to harp on you opinion but maybe you need to spend more then an hour with it and get in-depth with its programming abilities.


No disrespect intended.

 

personally I think fm7 and fm8 are much better synths, as a bonus - both are easy on my CPU. massive is far to hard on my CPU for it to be usable. I will NOT be purchasing it. the demo shows the limits of my machine... or shall I say, massive's overly greedy CPU requirements.

dual-core amd x2 4800+ shuttle XPC with 2gb 400mhz ram running windows xp pro.

 

I'll have to agree with the above post myself. There's a lot more going on under the hood than you could imagine.

And I started in 1973 with an ARP 2600. What difference does it make? Absolutely none...

Maybe it's not for you; that's cool. But to write it off as a one finger wonder is doing both the synth and yourself a disservice, I'd think...

ew

 

Everything I've programmed on this so far has been excellent! Great sounds that sit well in a mix or shine on their own. NI touts it as an "agressive" sounding synths but I've found it to be great at the evolving pad timbres that, up until this point, I'd only heard from my Waldorf Microwave XT...so far, I've only used the step sequencers to add a little animation, no "one finger" patches for me

The interface is brilliant - It allows for quick editing of all the parameters...nothing hidden in menus...instant visual feedback of mod routings...extremely intuitive! This has been my *best* softsynth experience both UI-wise and sound-wise.

 

Those are FM synths not *wavetable* synths...you're comparing apples and porcupines.


I've got plenty of FM...

 

For me the best thing about Massive it the UI, it is very well thought out.

Setting up modulation routeing is simple, and from a glance you can easily see what is affecting what.

Also sounds ok to me but I haven't had 30 years experience programming synths, I have been listening to them for that long though.

Cheers

Andy

 

Wow! More than thirty wear without learning something, respect.
:- )

 

I bought Massive yesterday (download version) after playing around with the demo for a couple of days. I'm loving it. The programming is very intuitive and the flexibility is awesome, especially for weird rhythmic stuff and hard sounding bass/leads. Having said that, Massive can do beautiful pads, too, although I haven't had enough time to really delve into it. Two thumbs way up here, so far.

 

Not true; I just don't have time for condescending attitudes like yours.

ew

 

Respect is maybe something you should concentrate on, rather than a word you throw at the end of a sentence that shows disrespect.

 

I think Massive is wonderful - it sounds fantastic and the user interface just begs you to dive in and start creating your own sounds. Given what it does and what it sounds like, I'm not too concerned about the CPU usage. Could this be the best yet from NI?

 

Massive is a welcome addition to my rig for sure. To echo BobTheDog's comments - exellent UI, and the oscillators & filters are remarkable to my ears. I'm still taking it all in - but I'm sure I'll be using it a lot.

 

The Reactor and Massive do the same work but in other ways and you know why...

what can i say? i checked it out and i already love that father of inspiration ) it sounds amazing and its realy enjoyable when you working on your own sound the presets has all the basic suff that you need in your everyday work and a lot of amazing sounds that only Massive can make including kore library there will no longer be wasting of time if you looking for some stable and massive sound.. defenetly its worth every cent of your money

 

Only had it for a few days, so limited time on it so far, but all I have to save is BOOYAH! The sound is great, and the controls are located well. From initial time spent, I can see how this could be a very deep machine. I do have some concerns regarding CPU usage, but hopefully this comes around(Please). I hope we see more excellent control layouts and options on some of the future updates. Nice work NI.

 

I feel kind of ungrateful saying this (I received Massive for free due to the KC2006 debacle)

Honestly, I'm underwhelmed. I've read the manual, watched the video, and played around with the presets and constructed some of my own.

I'm not certain what need this synth was developed to answer?

Battery = drum machine
Kontakt =Sampler
Etc. Etc.

All of NI's products answer a specific studio need (except bandstand) but Massive...well...it's like a ready made Reaktor synth with some cool elements from Absynth thrown in...
In fact, the more I dig into it...it looks like this is NI's answer to Z3ta...
The assignable "everything" is reminiscent of Z3ta's assignment page (the box at the bottom of the synth).
Zeta lacks the step sequencer but any good DAW has an arpeggio function, so that's not missed too much.

I dunno...I can't beat the price, so for me, it makes it an excellent synth. I'm also very pleased b/c I probably would have spent my NI coupon on this synth and then might really feel buyer's remorse.

Z3ta and Reaktor user synths do the same thing as massive with 1/10th the footprint and CPU usage. I don't foresee it making to a lot of my projects.

So, thanks so much, NI for the peace offering...but unfortunately, I'd rather have my K4 quicker...


[Some people are just never satisfied] ;-)

 

You could ask what need FM7 and its ilk are supposed to answer.

Massive is simply the best PPG-style wavetable synthesizer out there right now. You can create timbres with it that are impossible with any other synthesis type.

 

I have tried the demo and I was extremly dissapointed. Hundreds of sounds which I have heard so many times. I use Reaktor for years and basically Massive doesn't offer anything (soundwise) what was not available in Reaktor before.

Another point is that almost all presets are useless when using them in arrangements. They play on their own, they are tunes, not sounds. Of course, I could program my simple patches, but well, there are simpler and easier synthesizers which offer this, and have more usefull, classic sound.

 

LOL!

I wish there was a nice wavetable-scanning synth in Reaktor.
I'm a huge fan of PPG style wavetable syntesis and, other than the Waldorf Microwave series, this is the only game in town right now.

If you don't like the self-playing patches, turn off the step sequencers!

I have created one of the most responsive EP simulations I've ever programmed using Massive and some of the best evolving wavetable pads I've ever heard - its great to have another Wavetable synth in my setup...just having waveforms dynamically morph during the duration of a note without even having to resort to filters is very liberating.