Opinions on MassiveX

[EvilDragon]

I don't think MPE is the hill you should die on, but oh well

[pdxindy]

I don't think MPE is the hill you should die on, but oh well

It’s the hill I live on... and it’s a beautiful place!

[EvilDragon]

By all means I don't disagree on MPE usefulness. But to me at least (and I do have a Rise 49 and Osmose on the way, as you might know) MX sounds splendid on its own and is modulatable enough that I don't feel MPE is really necessary with it. I mean sure, it wouldn't hurt to have it, but even if it's not there, sound quality and what it can do far outweighs missing MPE for me personally. I understand it's not gonna be the same for everyone.

[pdxindy]

By all means I don't disagree on MPE usefulness. But to me at least (and I do have a Rise 49 and Osmose on the way, as you might know) MX sounds splendid on its own and is modulatable enough that I don't feel MPE is really necessary with it. I mean sure, it wouldn't hurt to have it, but even if it's not there, sound quality and what it can do far outweighs missing MPE for me personally. I understand it's not gonna be the same for everyone.

Yeah... different interests and priorities.

I just watched the Sonic State video on the Osmose. So beautifully expressive! It has 2 pedal inputs which I regularly use. I also have the TEC breath controller.

None of that can be used with Massive X as it doesn’t support Expression Pedal, Breath Controller or Poly AT...

To me it is not a useful investment of my time to learn a complex synth when it is not capable of doing stuff I want from it.

Zebra doesn’t do full MPE but it responds to Poly AT, Expression and Breath controls and so it will be satisfying to control it from the Osmose. Bazille does too and also does the MPE part. Bazille will be amazing played by the Osmose.

The upcoming Icarus 2 will be MPE capable and at that point every synth I regularly use will be MPE capable. Only Zebra remains, but Zebra 3 will be MPE for sure, so I can depend on it getting there.

I have no confidence whatsoever that 5 years from now NI will have added MPE support or even Poly AT to MX. Their vision and mine do not coincide much at all.

If MX were the only synth I had at my disposal, then of course I would use it. But I have lots of excellent synths. In hardware, I have UDO’s Super 6 on order (MPE capable). I have Black Corporations Xerxes on order (also MPE capable). All my hardware synths support expression pedal.

MX is an outlier. It is less capable than everything else I use in terms of midi control. And then it does not support Midi Learn and cannot directly automate parameters so it is hard to bypass its limitations and I cannot set it up to be used with a midi controller. Midi wise, MX is like the stone age

If it suits you great... somebody should make use of it...

[rezoneight]

I always love these types of posts. "wow MX sucks but if it suits *you* well then great". The first sentence would have been sufficient but I guess this is the internet.

[Hexfix93]

If they add midi learn right click, this will be my main synth, until then dune 3 is actually better to program sounds on, also when you show the gui of massive x it eats an extra 5 to 7 % cpu, once you close the gui and play it goes down by 5 to 7%. weird.

DF

[BBFG#]

Never got along with with the Massive sound, so I'm more than pleasantly surprised by how much I like the Massive X sound.

Just not sure if it's enough for NI to regain my confidence in them overall though.

No MPE?
IDC. It's trendy but not full market stream yet. I'll revisit that when it is.

But if you want it and your boards don't have it, maybe look at this:
https://www.enhancia.co/

[JJ_Jettflow]

MX is an outlier. It is less capable than everything else I use in terms of midi control. And then it does not support Midi Learn and cannot directly automate parameters so it is hard to bypass its limitations and I cannot set it up to be used with a midi controller. Midi wise, MX is like the stone age

Midi learn is not a problem here but then I use a KK s61 MKII. All parameters are accessible through Komplete Kontrol and that can be used with any controller.

If it suits you great... somebody should make use of it...

It does and I am, thank you. The tonal quality is outstanding and for me that matters quite a lot.

[pdxindy]

MX is an outlier. It is less capable than everything else I use in terms of midi control. And then it does not support Midi Learn and cannot directly automate parameters so it is hard to bypass its limitations and I cannot set it up to be used with a midi controller. Midi wise, MX is like the stone age

Midi learn is not a problem here but then I use a KK s61 MKII. All parameters are accessible through Komplete Kontrol and that can be used with any controller.

That’s one thing that I find a turn-off with NI. They ‘encourage’ people to function inside their techno- system. I’m not going to use Komplete Kontrol nor am I going to use one of their controllers...

So MX is incomplete because it’s depending on other tools to fulfill the missing functions. Maybe they have no intention of ever putting a full browser into MX or adding midi learn because they are expecting users to be integrated into their whole system.

Hmmm... good conversation... I think it makes sense for me to sell Komplete and be done. NI’s vision of things is not mine. They’ve got some damn good dsp... but I never really use their stuff much.

[JJ_Jettflow]

MX is an outlier. It is less capable than everything else I use in terms of midi control. And then it does not support Midi Learn and cannot directly automate parameters so it is hard to bypass its limitations and I cannot set it up to be used with a midi controller. Midi wise, MX is like the stone age

Midi learn is not a problem here but then I use a KK s61 MKII. All parameters are accessible through Komplete Kontrol and that can be used with any controller.

That’s one thing that I find a turn-off with NI. They ‘encourage’ people to function inside their techno- system. I’m not going to use Komplete Kontrol nor am I going to use one of their controllers...

So MX is incomplete because it’s depending on other tools to fulfill the missing functions. Maybe they have no intention of ever putting a full browser into MX or adding midi learn because they are expecting users to be integrated into their whole system.

Hmmm... good conversation... I think it makes sense for me to sell Komplete and be done. NI’s vision of things is not mine. They’ve got some damn good dsp... but I never really use their stuff much.

Even without "other tools" MX is quite complete and I do not find it to have any missing functions. As well, most DAWs can midi learn so I do not see that as the issue you are trying to make it appear to be.

And if I am being forced into NI integration, I am not putting up much of a fight. The S61 is a solidly built controller and has one of the best feeling boards I have felt in my 40+ years of playing and I have been using Komplete since K3 so it is a big part of my rig.

As for selling Komplete, I would never dream of it but in your case, it might make sense because I think that the perceived issues you have with MX are really from an overall dissatisfaction of NI the company and not just one product.

[pdxindy]

Even without "other tools" MX is quite complete and I do not find it to have any missing functions. As well, most DAWs can midi learn so I do not see that as the issue you are trying to make it appear to be.

DAW’s midi learn by using automation... MX cannot directly automate parameters.

So for example, in Bitwig, I cannot make remote control pages for MX.

I’m not trying to make it appear someway... I’m describing my experience with it.

[pdxindy]

As for selling Komplete, I would never dream of it but in your case, it might make sense because I think that the perceived issues you have with MX are really from an overall dissatisfaction of NI the company and not just one product.

The things I’ve mentioned are not ‘perceived issues’. It is a fact that MX does not support PolyAT or have Midi learn etc.

For one person that may not matter to them and another it does... there’s no problem here.

Oh.. and my opinion on MX is based only on MX and my experience using it. I would like it if it fulfilled my interests. I have plenty of other synths to use... both software and hardware so again, there is no problem here. We are just having some friendly conversation!

[Functional]

"Be more like Serum, or else get poor reviews by people who don't even tweak their presets"

That's nonsense.
I don't like the sound of Serum at all but as for the GUI, there is a reason it's holding up so well.

The original gui of MX was so bad I could pretty much write a book about it. The idiocy of eating up screen real estate with a static! diagram of the envelope was very indicative of this poor design.
So it became somewhat a symbol of poor design. More so than the fact that there was no dynamic representation of the envelope.

They cleaned up some of the biggest ui problems in the update. It's better now but it won't win any UI prizes.

Again, non-sensical complaints about a synth. I'm sorry, but to be quite frank, I'll never take anyone seriously who tries to rationalize their distaste for a particular synth only due to GUI as if their distaste was somehow objective - especially in a case where the GUI is extremely good.

You can be as ignorant as you want for all I care, but most synths do not give visual feedback about their envelopes. Dune 3 does not do that (3 already, and still doesn't do that!), none of the u-he synths do that, Sylenth1 doesn't do that. And guess why people don't care? Because Serum kiddies don't care about them, that's why. Serum kiddies wanted to care about Massive X probably due to original Massive as I'd imagine many transitioned from original to Serum. But it turns out that Massive X doesn't offer all that much beyond Serum for people who primarily just make hundreds of variations of the same thing, more or less, so they're stuck with Serum and vocally complain about Massive X GUI as if that's the real reason.

Furthermore, the static picture doesn't eat any screen estate because if you actually knew how it worked, it was in a tab and other alternatives in that tab (LFO in particular) would eat that amount anyway. The size of that space was decided by the LFO tab, not by the envelope tabs. Even if there was no graphic, it would still take the same amount of space except with a lot of empty space. You could make the knobs bigger, sure, but they're already quite big.

All of this proves quite nicely how ignorant and clueless people can be. The point about tabs for example, I've explained it to you already but you conveniently have ignored it and still continue with your nonsense.

[Functional]

As for selling Komplete, I would never dream of it but in your case, it might make sense because I think that the perceived issues you have with MX are really from an overall dissatisfaction of NI the company and not just one product.

The things I’ve mentioned are not ‘perceived issues’. It is a fact that MX does not support PolyAT or have Midi learn etc.

Yeah there's a clear lack of various midi-related features (MPE in general, which ties into lack of PolyAT). I'm kind of hoping that NI isn't going to roll down before it implements them because the current trajectory is not good. These aren't the worst kind of issues necessarily but Massive X would benefit a LOT if it could be properly hooked up to a Seaboard or Continuum for example

[pdxindy]

Yeah... I think sonically MX would be a great MPE synth!