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

[BlitBit]

Although people are tired of supersaws by now [...]

Are people really tired of supersaws? To me they are in a way very similar to the sound of an overdriven distorted guitar amp. A rich, energetic sound that can get people pumped up. I'm not under the impression that people are tired of distorted guitar amps.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Been playing around with the knobs on MX. They are mouse speed sensitive. If you move them fast they react quickly, at normal speed more slowly. HTH

Great synth, love the UI, love the sound.

Oh your right! It seems speed sensitive. But it just feels completely wrong to me and makes me hating tweaking knobs via mouse. My hand literally is stressed after some hours with mx. Try to move the noise volume slider for example.

Thanks for responding... It's just different, so many times working with other controls, I often overshoot where I want to go. That is certainly not a problem in MX. It would be nice if there was a setting to control the response though.

OTOH when tweaking controls in MX just a little adjustment can make a huge difference to the sound, so although it's different, I've grown to like it.

I guess this is why it's impossible to use it on a touch screen. NI have settings in some of their effects for using a touch screen but nothing here. They are are so inconsistent with their products.

[JoeCat]

Some predictions for the Massive XI release in 2030:

"Only 3 filters? What modern synth doesn't have 8?"
"I'm surprised I still have to use my hand to turn a knob. Guess NI isn't into eye-tracking like everyone else."
"I love the UI."
"I hate the UI."
"Massive X had an iconic sound. This is too generic."
"It's using 50% CPU on a string pad, but I only have a 30-core I20 running at 30Ghz, so maybe time to upgrade?"
"It runs great on my MacBook Pro, though it's a little hard to use since Apple removed the keyboard and display.
"I'm on the fence, but I think I'm going to wait until Zebra 3."

[EvilDragon]

Actually, what's in MX right now is when you enable "touchscreen mode" in those other NI plugins that have it as an option.

EDIT: Sorry, it's the other way around. It's like when you disable touchscreen mode.


Would be good to have this as an option, for sure. And yes, I noticed that controls are acceleration sensitive. That's actually very handy.

[Reefius]

I'm not under the impression that people are tired of distorted guitar amps.

I am

[jeffb01]

Some predictions for the Massive XI release in 2030:

...
"I'm on the fence, but I think I'm going to wait until Zebra 3."

ha. Zebra 3 still hasn't been released.

[wagtunes]

So you might be ready to ask, "Why can't you make music with THIS synth?"

Well, I could. Absolutely. But, and this is where I finally stopped falling into this trap, when you take these synths with a sound that's bigger than life, and try to fit them into a track of music, well, you end up having to EQ the hell out of them so that they DO fit. Otherwise, they drown everything else out. All that low end on pads? You know that has to go, thinned out to almost nothing so that it doesn't drown out the vocals.

So I don't need another synth that sounds bigger than life to make music where I only end up destroying half the sound just to make it fit in the mix. I have plenty of them already. And my days of sitting and twiddling knobs and listening to the sound of a synth just for the sake of it are long gone.

Hmmm.. i don't understand this statement. You have to mix all tracks in a song what else? Sayin' the pads sound thin alone? Of course they do they are mixed but if you want to talk about why it's better not to use those "overdressed" factory presets in a track then that is a different story.

That's just my point. All these wonderful patches you hear in these demos? Almost none of them are suitable for actually making music. So you end up creating patches that you CAN use. Well, I've got enough synths to do that already so I don't need Massive X to do it.

Massive X is yet just another example of a synth that sounds great out there on its own but it absolutely useless within the context of making music where you can actually HEAR all the other instruments and vocals.

That's the trap I've stopped falling into.

To me that's a rather strange argument. What about those engineers that have to mix real recorded instruments? I don't think they would go: "Hey, you! Your electric guitar sounds too wide and takes up too much bandwidth on the spectrum. Could you please get yourself a guitar that sounds tinnier and also dial in some thin sound on your amp? I don't want to work that much..."

Again, you're missing the point. Yes, they have to EQ the hell out of all instruments, guitars, drums, horns, you name it. Nothing gets put into a track of music straight out of the box. We all understand that.

My point is, the appeal of Massive X is it's sound. The patches are all bigger than life. Sound as good as anything I have.

But NONE of them are usable as is. They all have to be tweaked. Some a ton. Suddenly, all that "big sound" is gone so that you can fit it in the mix.

If that's the case, I don't need Massive X's big sound just to make it small, just to fit it into a mix when I already have HUNDREDS OF SYNTHS THAT CAN DO THAT.

I'm no longer impressed, nor do I care about synths that sound great out of the box because I know that if I want to use them for a song, they won't sound ANYTHING like that when the track is done. That's the trap I'm not getting myself into anymore. I already have more than enough synths to make music. I don't need Massive X to make music.

I can't make it any clearer than that.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Actually, what's in MX right now is when you enable "touch mode" in those other NI plugins that have it as an option.

Ok well that's worse. It's already accounted for and terrible anyways? So it's purely the response of the controls.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Actually, what's in MX right now is when you enable "touchscreen mode" in those other NI plugins that have it as an option.

EDIT: Sorry, it's the other way around. It's like when you disable touchscreen mode.


Would be good to have this as an option, for sure. And yes, I noticed that controls are acceleration sensitive. That's actually very handy.

Ok this makes more sense after the edit. I hope they fix it. Do they not look at things they needed to do for previous products and think they should probably do it for new products as well?

[midi_transmission]

Been playing around with the knobs on MX. They are mouse speed sensitive. If you move them fast they react quickly, at normal speed more slowly. HTH

Great synth, love the UI, love the sound.

Oh your right! It seems speed sensitive. But it just feels completely wrong to me and makes me hating tweaking knobs via mouse. My hand literally is stressed after some hours with mx. Try to move the noise volume slider for example.

Thanks for responding... It's just different, so many times working with other controls, I often overshoot where I want to go. That is certainly not a problem in MX. It would be nice if there was a setting to control the response though.

OTOH when tweaking controls in MX just a little adjustment can make a huge difference to the sound, so although it's different, I've grown to like it.

yes, I'm not completely against the idea. but people have different mouse speed preferences and OS handles mices & trackpads differently too. all I can say that it's really an issue here, while I have zero issues in any other plugin. i'm a big mouse knob tweaker and like the mouse for that usually. there must be some control over this to be able to archive a standard feel more like other plugins and daws.

I also don't enjoy acceleration in general. There are also encoder with acceleration (hello brc2000) that never worked for me. It feels quickly like chewing gum and sluggish.

switching between mx and other parts in the daw feels also not nice because of this inconsistency between the knob speed in mx and other areas.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Yeah I hate acceleration like this. Hopefully a settings to remove it will be given.

[Stefken]

am impressed so far; i abandoned the original massive some years ago (it had been my first 3rd-party plugin). just got tired of it.

but MX sounds really good; dense, modern (i don't think that's a bad word), and will undoubtedly buy it (if, for nothing else, the joy of having a million NI files scattered all over my mac)

fwiw, do developers live in caves? all my newer plugins have wobble basses.. does anyone still use those anymore?

Hey Fisherking,

You probably know this. But just in case.
Massive X is included in the Komplete update and your best bet to get it cheap. This deal ends in 2 days.

[midi_transmission]

Yeah I hate acceleration like this. Hopefully a settings to remove it will be given.

Or at least a setting to control the amount. But I also prefer just to use a modifier key when I need slower speed aka high resolution, like all daws and a lot of plugins have implemented.

[Motion]

Echoes in the Attic

From the videos I've watched it sounds great. Very good presets it seems. Unfortunately there are no presets when I go into the browser though. I've hit rescan presets in the settings and it does seem to scan through presets but there is nothing there in the preset browser except for some init patches. Anyone know what's going on here?

Hello...go back into Native Access if using, there should be a separate Massive X factory preset download pack (it's required (not entirely obvious) as I think the content itself isn't really embedded in MX, I think it's just linked meta data for the associated factory patches pack thats in MX that its looking to correlate with), once installed, start MX it should find them on load and auto re scan them for real and they'll be there.

[vurt]

Yeah I hate acceleration like this. Hopefully a settings to remove it will be given.

was cleaning my glasses as i scrolled, really thought you said "i hate accordions..."