Native Instruments Massive X Synth - Sequel to Massive (Out Now!)

[jsp1979]

Is the use of "Bend" and "Over" as controls for the Gorilla oscillator intentional or a bad coincidence?

[4damind]

Why the heck this takes 1,6 GB to install while there's still separate preset library

EDIT: I think there's wrong info in Native Access, the synth + files take 74 MB, while presets another 60 MB.

Divide it by 2
Even if you can choose for PC or Mac, you get an ISO image with both installers included. Massive X setup is about 800 MB.

[karrikuh]

None of the wavetables or noise tables are available in my demo, is this a bug or is that how the demo is?

no. You're having a problem with the additional stuff. Rescan Presets again - just do it. when that's done, close Massive X and reopen it.

Already did that twice and nothing happened, did it a third time and it worked. Ah well, temporary gremlin.

I'm having the very same issue, unfortunately rescan didn't help in my case. tried it at least a dozen times, including uninstalling/reinstalling MX. My setup: Massive X Demo, Win10, REAPER.

I verified that the content is located in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Native Instruments\Massive X
(it contains Wavetables, Noistables etc. folders)

A registry entry ContentDir is present in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Native Instruments\Massive X
and points to this directory.

Anybody else experiencing this?

[ChamomileShark]

well this is weird..I was looking at Phaseplant and then wondered if there were further video teasers for X on the NI site having not looked for months and then noticed there was a demo. So I fired up NI access and there it is.

I must be physic or something...

[cursor]

I find the GUI quite irritating, it's not exactly a tactile experience.
I much prefer Pigments (and I bought both).

[Functional]

Right, so @ all the people who are complaining how Massive X is like Pigments... have you actually tried these two synths out with their features? Because no, Massive X is not like Pigments. I agree that Massive X layout isn't necessarily as pretty, but when it comes to the sound engine... they have some significant differences. Massive X routing options are much more advanced, Massive X has a ringmod (significance of it is that it exists internally and can be used polyphonically, this is what VST ringmods aren't sadly capable of, although waveform can't be changed sadly).

The oscillator modes in Massive X do not exist in Pigments. Random & Jitter in particular are extremely unique and I will see a lot of use in them. I personally always am looking for ways to "break up" sounds and these modes are really well suited for that thing, in addition to the polyphonic ringmod. There's also few others but they don't seem to be really super unique compared to these two babies. They are usable though and probably these also aren't easy to replicate in Pigments, they just don't sound super unique imho and seem to be oriented towards stuff that I'm personally less interested in.

The voice engine also is nothing like in Pigments, which is actually limited to unison and drift depending on whenever it's wavetable or analog. With that being said, pitch drift doesn't really exist here so you'd probably have to emulate it with an LFO and an envelope. The filters also sound much, much better here.

However, I'm not too excited about having only 2 oscs instead of 3. The insert oscs aren't so robust and they take space from the very valuable inserts. If the other inserts were bad, then whatever, but they're good: I want to use the others. Honestly this thing should have had two pages that were connected with the routing. Although Pigments doesn't fare that much better: only 1 wavetable osc per page, but if you're content with using analog, you'd have 3 of those per page.

Then there's noise oscs. Noise module in Massive X is far more robust than it is in Pigments. Faaar more robust. You could achieve that with Pigments but you'd have to sacrifice a page per noise. Here you don't have to sacrifice anything since they're their own module.

Like I get it if you're offput by the GUI and lack of animated elements and generally some nice-to-have visuals such as the ADSR. I really do. But claiming that Pigments (or even crazier, original Massive!) does this and then some; they don't, unless you don't actually use the features that Massive X provides.

[Functional]

Is the use of "Bend" and "Over" as controls for the Gorilla oscillator intentional or a bad coincidence?

[EvilDragon]

Is the use of "Bend" and "Over" as controls for the Gorilla oscillator intentional or a bad coincidence?

Mike Daliot has a specific sense of humor, true.

For example, there's the Gorilla mode, and then there's a wavetable that's just a single waveform, that's called Banana. You feed the gorilla with the banana.

And then there are three gorillas, King, Kang and Kong.

And then, there are Monster wavetables Gorilla Alpha-Male, Gorilla Beta-Male, Gorilla Female (in beta this one was named Gorilla Fe Male, which was even funnier)

[SLiC]

Digging deeper in to Massive X - after initially being pretty underwhelmed I have spent the last could of hours starting from a blank patch. There is A LOT in this synths once you start clicking all the 'underlined' parts...its a bit hidden in many cases and in my opinion not very intuitive, seems to take 2-3 clicks to do anything, but there is a ton of stuff to play with, and it all sounds pretty good.

I am still pretty disappointed that after all this time we don't have basic a lot of real graphical representation as to what's going on (movement, like Pigments- I like to see the lfo's move etc) and even the envelopes graphics are static - just pictures to show you what an ADSR is! Surely as you adjust the parameters you should see a graphical representation of what you have? maybe they were working to a deadline and 1.1 will add a little more visual feedback as to what's going on...some of us need it!

[BDeep]

FWIW... most of that 800MB is for the wavetables and noise samples. For those interested.

Furthermore, I agree with Functional here. The comparisons with Hive, Dune etc are (to me) a bit out of whack. For instance, you can set any LFO to OSC rate and track it to the note value and basically drown your patches in audio rate modulation. M X is much more about that sort of stuff than the aforementioned synths.

EDIT: Also, I don't know if it has been mentioned, but you can put the LFO's in the audio path by assigning them to the MOD1 and 2 boxes in the routing page...

[EvilDragon]

None of the wavetables or noise tables are available in my demo, is this a bug or is that how the demo is?

no. You're having a problem with the additional stuff. Rescan Presets again - just do it. when that's done, close Massive X and reopen it.

Already did that twice and nothing happened, did it a third time and it worked. Ah well, temporary gremlin.

I'm having the very same issue, unfortunately rescan didn't help in my case. tried it at least a dozen times, including uninstalling/reinstalling MX. My setup: Massive X Demo, Win10, REAPER.

I verified that the content is located in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Native Instruments\Massive X
(it contains Wavetables, Noistables etc. folders)

A registry entry ContentDir is present in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Native Instruments\Massive X
and points to this directory.

Anybody else experiencing this?

Content directory doesn't contain factory presets. Have you installed the MX factory library? It's a separate download.

[c1c2]

First impressions: Sound as expected impressive massive. Gui at first glance not uber intuitive, but watching a short tutorial really helps. Final conclusion: Fun!

[Vortifex]

Probably a dumb question, but... how do I pan the oscillators?

[McLilith]

Probably a dumb question, but... how do I pan the oscillators?

Have you tried saying bad things about them?

[zerocrossing]

Is the use of "Bend" and "Over" as controls for the Gorilla oscillator intentional or a bad coincidence?

At least it’s flexible.