Opinions on MassiveX

[EvilDragon]

I have followed the communication of NI pretty closely and I'm pretty sure that was by design.

Actually no, it was not by design. Animations were intended to be there but there were more pressing issues to get it out of the door.

[SLiC]

I have followed the communication of NI pretty closely and I'm pretty sure that was by design.

Actually no, it was not by design. Animations were intended to be there but there were more pressing issues to get it out of the door.

Commercial issues?

[EvilDragon]

Not really, no. Simply development priorities. Say, if there was an audible glitch in one of FX that would take massive priority over visual eye-candy.

[Stefken]

Well, we know how people responded to that judgement call.

[guyana-disk]

Not really, no. Simply development priorities. Say, if there was an audible glitch in one of FX that would take massive priority over visual eye-candy.

By that we can surmise that it may come one day. And that's fine so long as it's stable. Gave a solid stab at Massive X recently and was really impressed for a new project I'm working on. The UI is straightforward and the routing section is super nice. I'm guessing NI is gradually going to only do maintenance updates for the original Massive so it makes sense to do new work in Massive X.

[JoeCat]

It's clear that a lot of the criticism came from Serum folks and it's like... do they even really care about synths? ...

I've only demoed MX since I picked up Reaktor and Razor in the sale and thought I'd give it a spin while I was at it, but this really sums up the MX reaction in general well for me. Serum is... I mean I do like it but holy shit it doesn't sound good and it becomes abysmal when you throw more complex wavetables at it. The original Massive's Carbon wavetable would just be a mess of zipper noise if you tried it in Serum...

I still love Reaktor's Carbon 2 and Photone, even when I feel I shouldn't be using them because of the improvements made by their successors (that's a weird thing, 'cause it doesn't matter, but psychologically it's there). As a matter of fact, I still love a lot of the older Reaktor kit from the Factory Library, and recently realized why:

Mike Dailot. The more experimental nature of the presets of these older synths (even the names - sometimes referencing German artists, etc.) that were not trying to please the EDM crowd but seemed to be designed more around love of sound means that when you fire them up you hear a different potential than in other synths. Listen to Carbon 2's default "Missing Man Formation" or Photone's default "Sand" and hit a few notes - may not be everyone's cup of tea (they are distinctly digital), but they're interesting in ways most presets are not. I scroll through and I always enjoy what I hear. Other synths like the sequenced Verring (another Dailot creation) are similar.

One defining characteristic of those presets was the use of oscillators tuned to odd intervals for mono chords (both of those default patches, interestingly, are mono). Many of Reaktor's older synths were even designed to take advantage of using rich harmonies out of the gate (Akkord, SubHarmonic, etc.). I do a lot of my old sound design so it's not the usefulness of the presets, it's more that I associate the synth with a wide range of interesting sonic work.

I like Massive X - shortfalls aside I think it sounds great and I'm mostly fine with the GUI, especially the clean look). Of course sonically it's a major improvement over the older Reaktor-based counterparts (and the newer Reaktor synths are top-notch for sound, IMO). But sometimes I'm still inspired by the older synths. I've thought of re-skinning in Reaktor but they'd lose the appeal.

When I'm working on production music, my band and other projects, I use the best tool for the job. But for creative enjoyment, inspiration, there's something about these older kit that appeals, probably because they are either the work of (or inspired by) one creative - like an auteur for audio.

The new synths are Marvel to me, the old Scorsese (not to fire up that debate, but I'm kinda on his side there)

[pdxindy]

I would like to point out that the LFO takes just as much space as ADSR, as they are interchangeable modules.

Don't think that stuffing maximum number of controls into limited area would be a better design choice. That's a nice balance between features and clarity.

Actually, that does explain the LFO, it had to take up as much space as the Env so someone came up with the eye candy concept of that wheel with a bunch of very similar shapes which takes up lots of space and is not actually a flexible LFO.

My suggestion was 2 knobs (which would be more functional)... not stuffing a lot of controls into a small space. There is plenty of space for a few additional parameters like a phase knob etc.

[mxbf]

It's pretty good. It's definitely heavy sounding and seems to be a great choice for a really solid, massive and centrally focused bass-ish sound. which is obvious.

[mxbf]

idk though for some reason i don't feel like using it that much to be perfectly honest

[pdxindy]

I will install it again in the future to see if it changed, but I too was kinda underwhelemed by Massive X. The magic of the original was gone and at least in my eyes it didn't bring anything new to the table on it's own.

I think Massive X does bring something new.

I’d say it has the best raw sound quality of the recent wave table synths... especially in the area of audio rate modulations and the flexible feedback and filter quality.

NI deserves credit for that, especially as it is not crushing the CPU.

In the sound area, my disappointment is that it cannot import user wavetables which is what I would want to do.

[DJ Warmonger]

I have followed the communication of NI pretty closely and I'm pretty sure that was by design.

Actually no, it was not by design. Animations were intended to be there but there were more pressing issues to get it out of the door.

Just checked, envelopes do work with latest upgrade.

There is plenty of space for a few additional parameters like a phase knob etc

There's a delay knob with somewhat similiar functionality. But I agree it's an odd choice.

You still have good old "phase" on regular and insert OSCs, and can route them any way you want. I guess they didn't want to duplicate this functionality.

All in all, quick look at the manual reveals the LFO has a plenty of modes that might be not immediately obvious, but should cover all sound design needs. It's not like someone rushed the design - take it as is or leave.

[pdxindy]

- take it as is or leave.

My choice is leave

[EvilDragon]

You're missing out on the good stuff about it.

[Shiek927]

I haven't made up my mind about it just yet, but there's no denying the raw sound is there. It's very organic and rich. It might not be to your precise liking, but you can't deny that it's great.

[pdxindy]

You're missing out on the good stuff about it.

For sure... the feedback sounds lovely... lots of enjoyable instability while also having sweet spots (and presets)

Too many hoops to jump through for using my preferred controllers though. If NI ever adds MPE support, or even just PolyAT, I’ll revisit MX... In the meanwhile, I have so much synthesis to explore elsewhere... and the Voltage Research Laboratory should arrive soon!

Cheers