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

[pdxindy]

They shouldn't ignore the old Massive strengths! The envelopes/LFOs are great in the old Massive. What I see they only developed the performers further but where is the morphing in the envelopes?! Come on NI!

The MX performers are mono, not poly

[Mushy Mushy]

When this was announced in September the development progress must have extended to this:


New synth = Massi...

[12deadpixels]

Anyway, if you bought Komplete 12, you also bought Massive X, no matter if you paid for it relatively low cosidering its individual price on the store. That's just how marketing works

See it however you want, but other people are going to see it differently and we don't need your amateur analysis to determine whether the delivered value meets our expectations given the bundled pricing. This has shit all to do with marketing, bundling valuation is completely in the purview of the consumer and is going to vary by individual consumer needs. At best you can argue that there we can model behavior in the aggregate and use that model to inform marketing, but that has shit all to do with any individual choice to value differently from your aggregate model.

For many of us, this was a required update because of our reliance on Kontakt and the timeliness of the sale. After that anchor product is evaluated for value we divide up the rest among the remaining products. How we assign that value is an individual proposition, however, it's very difficult to get to a more than about $10 per product with Komplete updates using a simple averaging model and, for many of us, we will use the value of other products that we would buy without the update at the price that we would pay to assign the cost. The fact is, with 23 new products in Komplete 12 over komplete 11, assuming that you have none of those otherwise, then that is less than $5 per product using simple averaging. That's not how any model shows that consumers value bundles though, look at the research yourself if you don't believe me. They first assign anchor products, e.g., Kontakt. If you think that the Kontakt update is worth, e.g., $50, then that means that the remaining products are on the order of a few bucks each.

The long and short of this, for many , is that they would have purchased the Komplete update on this sale without Massive X because waiting means potentially not having Kontakt 6 for up to another year, so they may view this more as a free preview than a paid product. Your humorous assertions of how marketing relate to this have absolutely no bearing on that mental model.

n. Yadav (1994) argues that buyers evaluate product bundles using an
anchoring and adjustment model. His research shows that consumers tend to anchor on the more important item in a bundle and adjust their evaluations by taking into account less important items. These two studies are consistent in that anchoring and adjusting is presumed to underlie many of the processing strategies and models reported by decision researchers,including an averaging model (Johnson and Puto, 1987; Hogarth and Einhorn, 1989).

Thanks for your detailed and informative reply Ghettosynth. Indeed, my comment was quite superficial and based simply on my point of view as a consumer of NI products.

It would be interested to read more updated research on the field, as your most recent reference is dated 1994. Probably the model you summarised still applies to the type of products we are discussing here (music software licences), though. Do you have any suggestions on further literature on the topic?

I did not know about the anchoring and adjusting model and thanks for providing this information. It seems that it applied perfectly on my case. I use Kontakt 5, but I did not need to update urgently to the new version and Massive X (and the 50% promo on the current update) was an important decisional factor for me.

Anyway, I take my comment back. It seems that you were upset by the tone of my comment, but I think the tone of yours was borderline offensive, and frankly, it was not needed to be so. If my impression is wrong, I apologise.

[zerocrossing]

So why is this named 'Massive'?

I thought the exact same thing. They really could have avoided a lot of questions if they just named it something else.

[chk071]

What should they have called it instead? "A synth which is similar to Massive"?

Seriously, this is extreme nitpicking. There are lots of similarities. Unless you look at the GUI alone.

[vurt]

So why is this named 'Massive'?

I thought the exact same thing. They really could have avoided a lot of questions if they just named it something else.

dave.

[McLilith]

What should they have called it instead? "A synth which is similar to Massive"?

Seriously, this is extreme nitpicking. There are lots of similarities. Unless you look at the GUI alone.

True, but extreme nitpicking is what internet forums do best.

[zerocrossing]

Do I notice aliasing in the oscillators? Yeah. I didn’t at first but with all the talk I checked out the sawtooth at the upper range of my 61 key controller. Yes, clearly audible aliasing. Do I care? Not a bit. If the rest of the synth was flaccid and weak, I’d probably be part of the contingent of whiners, but...

On a more objective note, this has been advertized as 'clean', 'advanced' and a notch or two above the current top wavetable synths - in every way. Very advanced technology, developed by a team of seasoned experts, etc.

Aliasing is an undesired effect and they've put a lot of effort in removing, reducing and so on dealing with it. The end result is that it is audible, you can hear the aliasing. Would anyone call this a success?

Besides, digital artifacts such as aliasing, lossy compression etc. can cause earache, headache, especially if you're demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce. Just like I did the other day for a few hours - on headphones, - got my ears burning, then came here and found out why.

Edit: 'demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce.' - that's the first thing I do when demoing a new synthesizer. Browsing through presets is not real demoing and not my thing at all.

I get the sense some compromises were made to appeal to the CPU whiners. I think an HQ mode with much more oversampling is not an unreasonable thing for this synth. It's really low on CPU for being "next-gen."

Right, which makes me think that all they needed to do to avoid this entire conversation was to introduce quality modes.

[zerocrossing]

As soon as I heard this synth, it became my go-to synth. Then I read posts about it aliasing and now I hate its guts.

Is that your opinion or that of your alias?

It’s the opinion of Mr. Robot.

[Hink]

So why is this named 'Massive'?

I thought the exact same thing. They really could have avoided a lot of questions if they just named it something else.

dave.

who?

[zerocrossing]

The lack of MIDI learn is a deal-breaker. They'd better implement this, and soon!

damn right! or im writing a stern letter to the king of the world

Vote me for king of the world and I’ll make sure it gets done! Also, no leaf blowers!

Down with the leaf blowers! However, my vote for you mainly depends on your position with regards to accordions.

I’m vehemently against accordions.

[vurt]

So why is this named 'Massive'?

I thought the exact same thing. They really could have avoided a lot of questions if they just named it something else.

dave.

who?

[perfumer]

Do I notice aliasing in the oscillators? Yeah. I didn’t at first but with all the talk I checked out the sawtooth at the upper range of my 61 key controller. Yes, clearly audible aliasing. Do I care? Not a bit. If the rest of the synth was flaccid and weak, I’d probably be part of the contingent of whiners, but...

On a more objective note, this has been advertized as 'clean', 'advanced' and a notch or two above the current top wavetable synths - in every way. Very advanced technology, developed by a team of seasoned experts, etc.

Aliasing is an undesired effect and they've put a lot of effort in removing, reducing and so on dealing with it. The end result is that it is audible, you can hear the aliasing. Would anyone call this a success?

Besides, digital artifacts such as aliasing, lossy compression etc. can cause earache, headache, especially if you're demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce. Just like I did the other day for a few hours - on headphones, - got my ears burning, then came here and found out why.

Edit: 'demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce.' - that's the first thing I do when demoing a new synthesizer. Browsing through presets is not real demoing and not my thing at all.

I get the sense some compromises were made to appeal to the CPU whiners. I think an HQ mode with much more oversampling is not an unreasonable thing for this synth. It's really low on CPU for being "next-gen."

Right, which makes me think that all they needed to do to avoid this entire conversation was to introduce quality modes.

You think it's that simple? Apply internal oversampling - which is some pre-cooked code that gets pasted somewhere - and be done with it? Why did they NOT do it, then?

And, what about about third party wavetables, if and when this is implemented? I'm sure their wavetables have been made as perfect as possible, but throw a user made wavetable at it, and oversampling is magically going to solve its issues? Aliasing is not the only digital artifact that occurs when you tweak a wavetable. So they have to take that into account too.

Advancing the science is hard work, you can not just oversample it.

[sinemotor]

Question for MX users :

When I use the "?" shape (in the LFO Switcher) with the minimum LFO Rate value, is it similar to using the Voice Randomizer modulator ?

Without manual and without value display it's difficult to have a precise idea.


My idea is to use an LFO that behaves the same way as a Voice Randomizer. Meaning that each time you trigger a new note the value of the parameter changes. But unlike a standard LFO, the value doesn't change as long as the note is triggered. If that makes sense...

[ghettosynth]

Do I notice aliasing in the oscillators? Yeah. I didn’t at first but with all the talk I checked out the sawtooth at the upper range of my 61 key controller. Yes, clearly audible aliasing. Do I care? Not a bit. If the rest of the synth was flaccid and weak, I’d probably be part of the contingent of whiners, but...

On a more objective note, this has been advertized as 'clean', 'advanced' and a notch or two above the current top wavetable synths - in every way. Very advanced technology, developed by a team of seasoned experts, etc.

Aliasing is an undesired effect and they've put a lot of effort in removing, reducing and so on dealing with it. The end result is that it is audible, you can hear the aliasing. Would anyone call this a success?

Besides, digital artifacts such as aliasing, lossy compression etc. can cause earache, headache, especially if you're demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce. Just like I did the other day for a few hours - on headphones, - got my ears burning, then came here and found out why.

Edit: 'demoing raw oscillators and looking specifically at the high frequencies they produce.' - that's the first thing I do when demoing a new synthesizer. Browsing through presets is not real demoing and not my thing at all.

I get the sense some compromises were made to appeal to the CPU whiners. I think an HQ mode with much more oversampling is not an unreasonable thing for this synth. It's really low on CPU for being "next-gen."

Right, which makes me think that all they needed to do to avoid this entire conversation was to introduce quality modes.

You think it's that simple? Apply internal oversampling - which is some pre-cooked code that gets pasted somewhere - and be done with it? Why did they NOT do it, then?

We don't know what has and what hasn't been done. My point is that if they're pushing for next gen, this isn't pushing very hard. Hence, my suspicion is that there is some effort there, it's in some of the modules, but that having it in all modules or full time drained CPU and switching it may not be finished.

Frankly, it is relatively easy to oversample the filters. Just look at the Reaktor filters over the last decade or so.

And, what about about third party wavetables, if and when this is implemented? I'm sure their wavetables have been made as perfect as possible, but throw a user made wavetable at it, and oversampling is magically going to solve its issues? Aliasing is not the only digital artifact that occurs when you tweak a wavetable. So they have to take that into account too.

Huh? There are no user wavetables yet so that's not relevant.

Advancing the science is hard work, you can not just oversample it.

Well, often you can.

It sounds like you're confounding your own agenda with my comment. My point was simple, for all the talk about being next-gen, this isn't as clean as the current state of the art, which does use oversampling and loads user wavetables,and it (MX) doesn't use much CPU. Ergo, I think that there's room to do better here. If oversampling does clean things up, then it should be there because there's plenty of power in reasonably priced modern machines to accommodate that.