When is someone going to release good presets for massive

And that says it all.

 

FarBeyond:

Unlike ew who seems to be displaying the patience of a saint, I am not going to waste my time answering every detail of your post. I think ew has done that very clearly.

If you don't understand the observations I made in my prevous post, again, I'm not going to waste my time discussing further. Suggest you take some time to analyze your behaviour on this thread. Its not pretty, its not healthy and its certainly not enhancing the knowledge of forum members. The only thing it is, is an exhibition of someone who likes the sound of their own voice and who gets some sort of cheap thrill from continuing an argument long past its sell by date

It is regrettable that you don't seem to understand how your behaviour is wrong when it is blatantly obvious to others. Thankfully, thats your problem, not mine

 

*facepalm*

You're claiming you hear a vastly superior S/N ratio with the TI. With Massive, your S/N ratio's 144 dB- well below the threshold of human hearing. Yet, you claim you hear a difference. If your S/N's below the threshold anyways (and by a huge margin), how can you say you hear a difference? Do you have super powers, or you just delusional/wishful?

Shall we go back to my original statements on page 3? You wrote:

And I replied:

Now where isn't that self-explanatory?

Once again, read what people say, and not what you think they're saying.

Frankly, I'm getting bored with it. But if you like it, we can keep going =)

Then why don't you try it and see? What have you got to lose?

You're making a lot of assumptions about what people do and don't know, don't you think. Let's see- I got my first Boss graphic EQ in '82 or so, and my first Boogie in '85 or '86; I'm very well aware of what EQ placement does as far as sculpting sounds- before vs after distortion, before vs after a wah and between preamp and power amp. Where were you 25 years ago? Probably still a figment of your parents' imagination...

Once again, why don't you do it yourself? If you're the pro tweaker you claim to be, surely it can't be that hard. Think of your oscillators as a guitar, and the filters as your EQ for starters. Envelopes, LFOs and the like as well as velocity, aftertouch, etc. are the equivalent of your technique with a guitar; that's what shapes the notes, etc.. But, that has nothing to do with the tone, or so you say. See the contradiction in what you're saying here?

That wasn't my question. You said the salesman recommended this. What other options did he suggest?

Your option. I stated my opinion- I don't like them. More power to you if you do.

Once again- read what I said, and not what you want to read. I said my big complaint about the Valvestate is that it claimed to emulate a tube power amp with its power amp response. That was the advertising Marshall themselves used at the time. And, they failed in doing so.

Trust me- I know the difference. I'll quote Andy Brauer, owner of Andy Brauer's Guitar Repair:
http://andybrauer.com/
He's been one of the biggies in studio amp rentals since the mid-late '70s. His quote from a Guitar Player article about him in the June 1988 issue went something like this:
"I hate sounds that rely completely on preamp distortion; it sounds like my cat's in heat"

I couldn't agree more. A balance between preamp and power amp distortion's what works for me. The older I get, the more I find myself turning the gain down and the master up, and let my playing control the distortion and not the other way around. Power amp distortion's dynamic in a way that most preamps can never achieve because they don't use enough voltage in the preamp circuit. A 12AX7 can take upwards of 400 volts; your Valvestate (if you have one of the ones with a "tube preamp" uses maybe 250 volts if that on the tube grid, and makes up the gain elsewhere- you aren't even driving the tube circuit into clipping; you're just giving tube coloration to the sound. While you might have the gain structure you want, you have very limited dynamics as far as your distoirtion goes.

Then why did they claim otherwise?

And you're both irritating and funny.

Your opinion. Personally, I disagree, and for the reasons listed above.

That would explain the delusional behavior =)

ew

 

Then why is massive noisier? There is noise you can hear during any patch whatsoever - even the starting initial blank oscillator! All sounds on Massive have white noise! On the TI, there is no noise at all. So if its not the S/N ratio then its something else that is programming or algorithm related. I never claimed expertise in that matter - but it does not take expertise in programming to realize the fact that the DSP architecture is clearly different. (And btw you assumed I thought it was the TI's converters that gave it the better quality - but I have shown that this was just a claim you just placed in my mouth arbitrarily.)

You referred to yourself as writing:

and then you said:

Oh it's quite self explanatory - but it is simply just a downright error in reason and physics because you are saying that the hands have the primary influence on the tone where in the reality that the rest of us live in - the instrument and gear has the main influence on the tone - even as much as a simply EQ pedal before inputting has a huge bearing, or changing strings, or bridges, pedals, filters, amps - speakers. Yet you somehow want us to believe that one person playing a powerchord simply strumming it normally has different fundamental tone than a different person playing the same powerchord - simply because it is a different person? That is some quackery you will have to explain.

And then you go as far as quoting me as:

"An yet I just showed you how you admitted right there that you could not get the tone the other way around. If tone is mainly in your hands then why not? Surely that wizardry would make the Les Paul be able to Sound like the RG since you said you can make the RG sound like the Les Paul." and then you dont even address the points made in that paragraph as you merely just say without support:

But that does not refute or even come close to challenging what I said in that paragraph. You merely just make an unsupported claim that I am not reading what you said and yet I just demonstrated a response to exactly what you said. What exactly in that response did I not effectively refute regarding your clear example where you said you can get an RG to sound like the Les Paul and not the other way around? Again here is the evidence of you doing it:

Why not? Answer the question. Don't evade it.
If tone is mainly in ones hands and not in the gear as you would like me to believe then why can't you get that Les Paul with PAFs to sound like the RG? Why can you only get the RG to sound like the Les Paul with PAFs? These are questions that you cannot avoid if you wish to remain afloat. But you evade it because you cannot remain afloat in the tone discussion.

Oh dont worry, I am not bored at all.

Because i tried it enough times and realized that minor position changes in the room can be the only main tonal difference - the rest of the difference is only technique, smoothness, velocity, articulation, etc - which many wrongly label as tonal elements. And then they falsely spread that total quackery into making others think its different tone. The instruments tone cannot change, neither than the gear's unless tubes are played for a while or if there is some temperature or other physical change to the gear, and then they could start to sound different and btw - different volumes will make amps sound different. If you are a professional amp tech then you would know this.

Oh really? Am I the one assuming the only way to use a solid state amp is with a solid state power section here?

Well first off - because I have started to realize that I do not like the tone nor the character of Massive - plaiun and simple, and second - because I only adjust sounds in a minor way. I am not a sound designer. And you said it, I am only a tweaker.

Just like the fact that I do not build the distortion characteristics that come from my own amp, I have an expert do it and he gives shapes the waveforms that I want to come out of the amp, I only tweak. I don't engineer sounds. Just like how 99% of pro piano players are not the ones who constructed their piano.

How does an envelope alone have any influence on tone? How does the difference between velocity 126 and 127 have any notable influence on the base tone of the instrument to call it a fundamentally different tone? Again, please explain these pseudo-scientific claims you are making.

You believe that technique is the MAIN influence on the instruments tone, but thats impossible - technique only influences minor subtle stuff like articulation, velocity, etc. But once different players are past a certain level of skill, then the tone will not change.

Your question irrelevant. I did not just take the bait, I researched his claim and found corroborating evidence and tried the unit out myself to corroborate it even more.

James Murphy also likes them so do tons of other virtuoso soloists in particular.

What do I care about what the advertising says? Its totally 100% irrelevant, because I already discovered - as have many others that the pre amp activity is very defined and refined. That characteristic about the amp speaks for itself.

On the contrary, my amp repair tech as well as the builders of randalls that have preamp tube sections/ solid state power sections (V2 for example - can be a very thick amp, and can sound transistory as well if you want - which is not a bad thing if values are adjusted properly) - what about them? These geniuses can alter the preamp stage alone so that it can generate more varieties of gain of many different characteristics without the need for any power tube distortion. But it also depends on genre. For blues powertube distortion is nice - for metal there is no room for it as it would be pure farting. But pre-amp alone can also generate great gain too - is all about the order of gain stage types, their values, and using the right components and always the highest end components.

I do not care about what they claimed.

My opinion that you made the assumption that I do not use power tubes and only preamp tubes? Thats not an opinion, I am just sharing what you assumed - you assumed I used a Solid state power section where I am telling you that often I do not. I mostly use tube based circuitry for my power section only for the tonal of KT88s - but never for any gain whatsoever because that would screw up the tightness of the sound I am going after.

 

Well if it's really white noise, you probably having a problem with your audio configuration. Can you upload a recording of your problem, as well as a comparable sounds from the virus?
But I rather guess that you aren't getting along well with the higher bandwith of the synth, mistaken the higher harmonics with noise, but bandwith can be reduced with the help of the wavetable functions of the synth.

 

Hey guys,

I have an offer on just now for my synth banks

http://www.massivesynth.com/patches/synth-bank-bundle-native-instruments-massive/

* Waveforms Volume 1 (40 patches) – On it’s own $24
* Dub Techno Synth bank (10 patches) – On it’s own $5
* Deep & Dark bank (15 patches) – On it’s own $5

* All for only $25 (saving you $9 and in effect getting the dub tech and Deep & Dark packs for 50c each) !

Offer is on until Sunday 26th September - you can hear the patches on the link above.

 

I'll give you $4.50 for the entire collection. That's my final offer.

 

and this is the comment of a "professional musician"?

I wish you good luck generating any sales for your recordings

 

Because you're hearing things?

Seriously, you need your ears checked.

What an utter nonsense... *shakes head*

 

When I fist listen, its not apparent. Just like when i first bought it, i was like "mehh... not bad.... whatever... nothing special". But when A/Bing to something like either Omnisphere, the Virus TI in VC mode, thats when you notice the very minor noise on massive - you need to A/B it to hear the noticeable noise. In this case the saying "you get what you pay for is accurate and Massive is worth the price tag - but the patches for sale are simply not - considering the price of the synth - all refills should be no more than $5 - and at the very highest - absolutely not greater than $10 for a pack like Massive expansions or massive threat.

 

@FarBeyond

Are you running Massive in "Ultra-Quality"-Mode, do you hear any changes when switching between the modes?

 

Repeating nonsense doesn't make it any more true. If Massive or its expansions aren't for you, then just accept that you've made a mistake and move on.

Massive and Omnisphere sound different because they produce slightly different waveforms - as simple as that. If you look at the spectrum of a saw, you'll notice that there's more high frequency content in the Massive saw. The Omni one is either stronger band-limited or EQ'd. Nothing to do with noise in Massive at all.

Obviously not only do you not have the foggiest notion of what you're talking about in "technical" terms (or should I say bullsh!t-babble?), you also don't know what you're hearing and making stuff up to "explain" what you don't understand.

As for "(almost) no one supports ew's POV": has it ever crossed your mind that most people reading your diatribes simply won't bother to respond to such obvious nonsense? Plus, you're insulting peoples intelligence if you think you can impress them with your strawmen and shifting-goal-posts tactics. Maybe your own attention span doesn't exceed one or two posts - but don't assume that's the same for other readers. Anyone can go back and read and realise that there's no substance in your claims and "arguments".

werner

 

*larger facepalm than last time*

Ah no- I was the one who said that your TI's D/A converters could be what you're hearing. I never attributed that to you- once again, don't put words into my mouth. And, as far as your noise goes, have you done what Klaus suggested and check the quality?

OK- where you pick has an influence on your tone. The angle of your pick, the force, etc.- they all have dramatic effects on the tone.

You've more than likely had this happen- you think you have your tone nailed. You come back the next day- nothing's changed as far as settings go, but all of a sudden, it just doesn't sound the same to you. Guess what- it's not the same. Your playing's not quite the same, and your tone shows it. That's why the true hallmark of a pro is consistency.

The section I quoted was me saying hardware does have some impact on your tone, but it's not as big of an influence as you claim. This allows for tonal variations between guitars, etc. does it not? What part of that don't you understand?

But- all those things you mention directly impact your tone. Your hands are shaping what harmonics of the fundamental appear and when they fade out, for a very minor example.

?

A solid state amp does have a solid state power amp- isn't that why it's called solid state?

Programming a synth is no different from tweaking an amp and effects- you're sculpting the sound.

*facepalm again*

Envelopes alone don't do anything. Envelopes used to modulate such things in Massive as filter cutoff, waveform, intensity, etc. do. Your hands are the guitar equivalent of an envelope. And, while small velocity variations may not have much impact (though I program a lot of patches on some synths with stuff that comes in only at extreme velocities), larger variations definitely do, if you're routing velocity to cutoff, etc.

The last sentence is not quite true, but close. By the way, you do realize that with your last sentence, you just agreed with what I've been stressing over and over again, don't you?

No- it's completely relevant. There's lots of other options that he had to be aware of.

Their choice and opinion. Everybody's entitled to their own. As Tom Waite once said, "But, I like vomit on my shoe"...

Ah-no. It's completely relevant. I told you what I didn't like about them- that's my opinion. I told you why- that's also my opinion. Any other interpretation is strictly your own.

Their choice and opinion, no? And, you're wrong- power amp distortion also works in a metal situation if you balance your preamp and power amp distortion. While a lot of metal players like a more linear power amp approach, there's still a lot who don't.

Then you shouldn't mind me calling them out on it either, which is all I did.

Ah, no- show me where I said that. And, a KT88/6550 isn't the tube I'd use for power amp distortion either; they only break up when pushed extremely hard, and are rather cold sounding when they do. EL34s are the way to go if you're looking for letting the power amp have more effect on the amp's sound.

ew

 

..the point is, he cannot accept, that the 2000,- Virus has no higher quality, than 200,- Massive. (And what a pain to discover, that 1,500 of the price was for presets.)

----
BTW, you all screwed the whole fun, with telling of the HQ-button...

 

(sigghhh part 1)

Not quite. I already told you it is not going through no converters in VC plug-in as it flows the data stream through the hardware. What don't you understand about that? So don't make wrong assumptions that I am using its converters when I am not. Jeez...

And again, where is your evidence for equating Massive with Virus TI? Where is your DSP programming and algorithm-related info about the Virus to make your comparison? You cannot just present the specs on one instrument to have any validity in your argument. You need to have your faces abou the Virus TI programming, DSP architecture, and algorithm-specific info in order to have some real numbers to compare massive to. I repeat - why did you use only partial inclusions of only Massive's specs regarding the two products. I will ask, and I will ask again - as you have evaded the question.

Its a very slight difference. I was always on ultra and switching around. The difference is no more great then switching guitar rig to HQ mode. A very ideal comparision existing between that and the Axe FX by the way - when it comes to Massive vs. Virus Control Total integration.

Not when the string actually rings. Only the initial speed or slope of the attack envelope. But not at all in any way shape - or form tone related.

If that were true then all their albums would have the same tone - which is clearly not the case - unless they use the same gear and same settings/conditions/etc. for a nother album - then the tone will match up - but when pros have albums with ttoally different guitar tone - then how do you explain that? Different magic settings in their hands? Sorry you have not accounted for this problem with your reasoning in this - and hence more quackery on your behalf. But in reality - pros who like to make gear changes on subsequent albums do so with tons invested in various different pieces of gear - for more tonal variety of the fundamental tone.

The fact that the hands do not have the primary influence on these changes in an artists tone as per different recordings as you believe - these tonal changes are primarily in the gear. So the question must more appropriately asked to you: what part of THAT do you not understand?

Oh I see, so now you want us to believe that ones hands generate the mid frequency content and create the distortion waveform on an amp? (ive never heard larger baloney than this since its merely the velocity which causes the amount of distortion - but not type of distortion. ) Do you want people to also believe for similar reasons that the hands generate the synthesis waveforms of the synth (when in reality all they do it press the value on/off at a certain velocity on a keyboard) - nothing to do with tone, only the activation of it, or envelope shaping of the sound. Nothing to do with being the source of the tone, only activating its on or off state. Otherwise, what you are saying would amount to ones pressing of a button on a remote is the cause of the picture you see on the tv screen when in reality it is caused by the mechanism and electronics in the TV.

It seems you have not been informed on how to bypass or disable the solid state power section and chain to a tube amp power section.

Programming a preset from scratch on a synth is like editing the internals of an amp. Shaping the EQ, effects, on that synth etc is like tweaking the tone and EQ knobs on an amp.

I am already aware of how to assign a modulation source and a modulation destination. You do not have to share that with me please.

To a more finer and much more subtle degree with the pick attack style, angle - etc... but you address nothing but merely just how the envelope of that tone sounds through... but its still the same tone ringing through, regardless if the attack is fast or slow. So once again you prove nothing about hands influencing tonal characteristic in no way whatsoever.

Mute points. If a filter envelope is set one way, and an amplifier envelope is set to one setting... then varying these alone can have drastic influences of different sorts on each other... but only if you program velocity to the mod matrix to interact with these or other modules in the synth can velocity have any influence on tone- but you cannot get that same sound or tone in that exact way if you have totally different modulation settings abnd routings in your synthesizer, even if you play the keyboard in the exact same way - so again thanks for granting my point - that in this case its PROGRAMMMING that is what is the main influence on your tone in a synth.

And in a guitar amp its the engineering - and in digital/virtual modeling amps it also the programming or engineering (as availavle on Revalver to edit the resister and cap values inside the virtual amp to give you huige changes in tone - and not to mention changing speakers, cab sizes - all these are the main influence on your tone and have very little to do with the hands rather than your belief that the hands are the main influence. Not at all, and i just showed you why - so hands cannot be the exact source of the tone. Hands just activate the gear but the gear is what generates the tone.

Why not quite true? Please explain.

How so?

I have in no possible way agreed with any notion that the hands are in any way the main generator of tone of an instrument. Never have never will. I have always remained consistent with the view that hands only activate the instrument - and the instrument creates the tone.

Irrelevant because i tried many different options recommended by many different salesmen and other types of keyboard pros. This was merely just a new recommendation -and the first of which hit the spot dead on out of a series of many recommendations by many others - recommendations of which I demoed all of. I finally demoed something I agreed was for me and my style. You have failed to show anything invalid about this.

 

Uhh can't help but point out the fact that this Tom Waite example is an invalid analogy - I would instead use an example where an extremely fine individual would say "I like shoe polish on my shoe".

I am not alone in that interpretation. I took the words "aural majesty" to describe the fine valvestate sound from a completely different person who wrote exactly that wording to describe the valvestate amps in post#12 on this forum http://www.musicradar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32161&page=2

In addition, out of 96 reviews of the valvestate 8100 head on Harmony central - the average is an 8.3 for sound quality. So clearly I am not alone in my opinion.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+Amp/product/Marshall/Valvestate+8100/10/1

You just do not like the Valvestate because it has a transistory type sound - out of all amps with that transistory sounding distortion - the valvestate is ideal for that type of sound because the distortion on it is very defined and high tech sounding. It is not a bad amp. It is a good amp and the first generation MGs sounded nice too - those were tight sounding amps man - and their sweet spot is at around 4.5... so i never said they were powerful - but that sweetspot sounds good! It is just the second generation MGs which started sounding muddy.

Irrelevant to the fact that the Valvestate series had fine preamp gain (which was not exactly inexpensive btw)

I have no reason to mind. You have not shown how that claim even addressed my claim about the Valvestate amp series and its fine preamp gain.

I do not use it for power amp distortion, only for the clear brilliant tone. I keep them as clean sounding as possible.

But they are very brilliant sounding when they don't. I do not do power amp break-up. I avoid that - hence the reason why i use KT88s - as you can push the amp harder without the power section breaking up. I can get fat enough tones from pre-amp distortion alone.

Gain wise yes, tone wise KT88s are great for resonant mids and brilliant highs.
---

Which nonsense. And then please explain why you believe it is nonsense using evidence from the record of this forum.

I am asking NI for my money back. Then I will move on.

Never said this had anything to do with the reasons for the noise. The entire engineering of the Massive DSP is just simply not as clear sounding.

Please explain why you think I have no idea what I am talking about and please support those claims.

Which part of those thoughts are nonsense? Why are they nonsense? Demonstrate, with reasons why you think they are nonsense, otherwise you are merely just making unsupported claims.

Please provide evidence of where I used any strawmen tactics. And please provide evidence of where I relied on any shifting goal post tactics. Otherwise you have made nothing but more meaningless entries to the discussion.

Demonstrate why you believe this is the case. Show examples.

Where can you demonstrate that I have made any substance-less claims and "arguments"?

Once again you have made a claim lacking any evidence and you fail to make any referral to any post where I might have done any of the things you claimed I did in this entry of yours.
---

I have no reason to accept things which have not been shown in any way to me to be true. The fairness of the price difference would be an understatement. The price i paid for the Virus TI was a steal and it is worth far more than what I paid for it.

The only thing I will not accept is the price of the Massive Expansion packs on the NI website considering this difference in quality I hear. And therefore am very upset with this when compared to the free Virus TI packs on the Access page, which I also believe are as a result of better programming too. But the proprietary sound character of the Virus is what floats my boat, not the programming.

that price was mainly for the unique and proprietary signature sound and tonal character of the Virus TI which any industry professional will tell you is quite different than all other synths. And within which the presets also are programmed ideally as well.

I have been aware of such features since the beginning since I like to read manuals. I was aware of the HQ button on Guitar Rig since day 1, and through the same instant process i was aware of this similar function with 3 different settings on Massive since day 1 - thereby invalidating another claim on here that my attention span is limited to a couple items.

 

So you don't hear the noise from Massive until you listen to something else? When you listen to something else it becomes 'noticeable'?

Let me get this right. You listen to Massive and there is no noise. But then you listen to something else and there is noise? (Sorry if I'm repeating myself - I've taken a lesson for you).

So if the noise is not noticeable until you listen to something else, might I humbly suggest you stop listening to whatever is causing the noise?

But no. Of course. You were like "mehh... not bad.... whatever... nothing special" so you probably won't bother. If it really IS "mehh... not bad.... whatever... nothing special" I wonder why you're making such a perishing fuss.

 

FarBeyond:

You constantly ask members to provide examples of the rubbish you spout in order to satisfy your rather strange need for attention. Given this thread is now 7 pages long, it would be easier to quote examples of where your posts have not been rubbish, so, here goes..... oops can't find anything that fits the criteria

 

Oh i see, so your response to my question to find and explain the reasons for why you believe it is rubbish - is to not answer the question and introduce a red herring argument to avoid the burden of actually finding this rubbish you can't seem to locate, and therefore avoid having to explain the reasons as to why it is rubbish. Nice dirtiness you have going there.
---

Nah... i always notice, and especially notice when comparing.

Where did I say that?

No, the A/B-ing of products help as a good contrast.

Never was impressed with the sound of it from the start. I always noticed that Massive was not too clean.

Because it is unfair to be paying for the NI - generated Massive expansions. As for others selling them, I wish them the greatest of luck in their sales.

 

Because of this thread...I've decided to start using Massive a lot more!