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

[Forgotten]

i didnt find any wow in MX, but there was a faint essence of meth

Yeah, that might explain a lot...

[McLilith]

You're probably hearing an errant wub album.

ah errant wub, whatever happened to them?

Was that the band that ate themselves, after their private plane crashed on a remote mountaintop?

I think the band Plane Crash Cannibals wrote a song about them?

[neodeavid]

Holy shit, KvR assholes really stinking the place up over the last twenty pages or so...

You guys are calling someone an idiot for not understanding 'exciter envelopes' on an unlabled, un-manualed synth that is a week old.

There is still no f**king manual, correct?

Nobody called him an idiot AFAIK. I called him a goof because he is making videos of features that he doesn't even understand AS IF he understood them. As a consequence, he is misleading his own audience. And the way he acted here is not any better.

But of course, we can all make dandy criticism of his behavior and yet, without pointing out how he could have done things correctly, we wouldn't really get far. So here's what he could have done: consulted NI about pretty much everything (very, very recommended especially when there is no manual yet!)

I can't guarantee on NI behalf that NI would have responded, but honestly I don't find it hard to believe that they would have happily explained pretty much everything. That would probably make an interesting video actually, even for someone like me who got to grips very quickly with MX. The path he chose instead led to a situation which to an outsider who doesn't know any better looks like as if there's some conspiracy and bunch of "NI shills" shilling the product and that they should be more distrustful of NI. This probably wasn't his intent, but this is the consequence. People really love the whole "truth exposed" narrative and it usually pans out into thinking that there's an actual conspiracy. I could get more into this but alas, I digress & this isn't hyde park.

And the reason I care about this isn't because I'm a NI shill or even really that much because I like MX a lot (though that is partial reason I'm sure). The main reason is because I think educational content creators such as him are doing very valuable work AND they should be held to a good standard. If he was just a pure reviewer, it would be easy to dismiss it as mere garbage, but he is supposedly educating people about tools that he himself doesn't know how to use.

Let's just for fun imagine a person who makes educational content about math in Youtube. Now imagine this person educating people about category theory without understanding how functors work. Can you imagine the fuzz that person would create even if his content on topics like topology and abstract algebra would be pinpoint accurate? Chances are that you can't, but I can guarantee you that it would be _a lot_ if same channel had 150k subs. Or history channel educating on causes for WW1 without knowing about Black Hand organization.

So why should we deem this any more acceptable? The only way I see how one can arrive at this conclusion is by thinking that educational content in YouTube doesn't matter enough to be held in such standards, even if we're talking about a channel with 150k subs. But then as a consequence one would also beg the question; why do they care about this whole thing then?

So to sum it all up: if you're going to make educational content, you better know what you're doing. And when you don't, take all possible steps to ensure that you do know what you're doing in order to avoid spreading misinformation. And the last thing you should do is talk about stuff you don't understand as if you were an expert on it. Inspecting signals through an oscilloscope and a frequency analyzer does not make you an expert, although it's a great way to appear as one even when you don't have the foggiest clue of what you're actually measuring. The fun thing about empirical research is that no matter what you measure and how you measure, you will always get a measurement, be it zero or anything else. You could be measuring the average weight of elephants by measuring average water densities of various cloud formations and you'll still get your damn measurement.

Take it easy man, don't be frustrated

[vurt]

You're probably hearing an errant wub album.

ah errant wub, whatever happened to them?

Was that the band that ate themselves, after their private plane crashed on a remote mountaintop?

I think the band Plane Crash Cannibals wrote a song about them?

[zerocrossing]

Hmmm, what video shows the aliasing issue?

I suspect that maybe the effect of harmonic distortion of detuned oscillators was confused for aliasing. Harmonic distortion of two or more oscillators can create harmonics below each oscillator's fundamental frequency.

- U

Here’s my issue with that video (which I only just now watched). It’s as if he met a person and saw that there was a pimple on their chin and then spent twenty five minutes focused on that pimple with a magnifying glass... well, three magnifying glasses on that part of the chin. Looking at that pimple from every angle. Prodding and squeezing it, but then showing images of other chins that are perfectly clear with no blemishes. An actual good reviewer, say from a Nick Batt, would first play some patches in an artful way to show off the synth’s best side, then go though the entire oscillator section, mention the aliasing, point it out, maybe make a comment about a possible HQ mode getting added in the future, and then move on to the rest of the synth. Focusing on a single point of imperfection actually seems vindictive and spiteful. Also, he makes some mention of “issues when doing audio rate modulation” and then doesn’t actually go on to illustrate those “issues.” Why? Because it sounds great when doing audio rate modulation, that’s why.

Again, every synth isn’t going to be for every person, just like not every person is going to seem attractive to every other person despite the clarity of their skin, but when you’re describing that person to an audience, you seem like a jerk when you make a passing reference to what’s good and then proceed to focus on a flaw.

[Forgotten]

Was that the band that ate themselves

You're not thinking of Marilyn Manson are you...?

[Functional]

Hmmm, what video shows the aliasing issue?

I suspect that maybe the effect of harmonic distortion of detuned oscillators was confused for aliasing. Harmonic distortion of two or more oscillators can create harmonics below each oscillator's fundamental frequency.

- U

Here’s my issue with that video (which I only just now watched). It’s as if he met a person and saw that there was a pimple on their chin and then spent twenty five minutes focused on that pimple with a magnifying glass... well, three magnifying glasses on that part of the chin. Looking at that pimple from every angle. Prodding and squeezing it, but then showing images of other chins that are perfectly clear with no blemishes. An actual good reviewer, say from a Nick Batt, would first play some patches in an artful way to show off the synth’s best side, then go though the entire oscillator section, mention the aliasing, point it out, maybe make a comment about a possible HQ mode getting added in the future, and then move on to the rest of the synth. Focusing on a single point of imperfection actually seems vindictive and spiteful. Also, he makes some mention of “issues when doing audio rate modulation” and then doesn’t actually go on to illustrate those “issues.” Why? Because it sounds great when doing audio rate modulation, that’s why.

Again, every synth isn’t going to be for every person, just like not every person is going to seem attractive to every other person despite the clarity of their skin, but when you’re describing that person to an audience, you seem like a jerk when you make a passing reference to what’s good and then proceed to focus on a flaw.

And all this while supposedly being an educational content creator. That's really the sad part of it. 150k subs and getting things so glaringly wrong.

[pixel85]

Ya, and for some reason people are quicker to fault a random user for stumbling around trying to figure out wtf is going than the beloved NI for leaving us sitting with this mess.

What mess? It's more fun to tweak synths without manual. It's the best way to explore and learn synth or any other instrument. This way you can create a sound in a way that nobody else did before and most importantly it's so much fun to experiment with synths not knowing what to expect it's also good for brain to work this way.

[Forgotten]

And all this while supposedly being an educational content creator. That's really the sad part of it. 150k subs and getting things so glaringly wrong.

That combined with arguing endlessly until the evidence against was so strong that he just shut up and looked for a different (non-existent) fault.

[Vortifex]

Maybe it's time to move on from that video...

[chk071]

Ya, and for some reason people are quicker to fault a random user for stumbling around trying to figure out wtf is going than the beloved NI for leaving us sitting with this mess.

What mess? It's more fun to tweak synths without manual. It's the best way to explore and learn synth or any other instrument. This way you can create a sound in a way that nobody else did before and most importantly it's so much fun to experiment with synths not knowing what to expect it's also good for brain to work this way.

That's the difference. Positive attitude <---> negative attitude.

[DavidCarlyon]

Boris Johnson didn't get on with Massive-X at all. The police were called round at 2am.

[vurt]

Boris Johnson didn't get on with Massive-X at all. The police were called round at 2am.

could he not snort it?

[ians]

Boris Johnson didn't get on with Massive-X at all. The police were called round at 2am.

could he not snort it?

No, it was the aliasing that got him annoyed. And the fact that Jeremy Hunt (with a C) was on the beta team

[vurt]