Opinions on MassiveX

[BONES]

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.

Exactly. People get obsessed with MPE but who is going to use it in 90% of parts in an arrangement? e.g. You're not going to use it on your basslines or your plucks, are you? Realistically, you only need one synth with MPE for your lead work and that's it. If you have several, it's really just a bonus but MPE compatibility is of absolutely no consequence to me at all, for the simple reason that I have Equator.

[BONES]

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

Really? Never noticed. Their stuff worked as well as anything else in Orion and seems to work well enough inside Cubase. I don't have any use for MIDI learn, I'd much rather use a mouse, but AFAIK automation works as well as with any other synth I have. To be fair, I do bugger-all automation but still, when I've needed it, it has worked.

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...

I don't use either but I don't feel my experience is incomplete with NI products. On the contrary, I prefer using them inside Cubase than Cubase's own equivalents - I use Battery over Groove Agent and Kontakt over HALion.

[Functional]

I don't have any use for MIDI learn, I'd much rather use a mouse, but AFAIK automation works as well as with any other synth I have.

This isn't exactly true. Massive X does not communicate any other except the 16 macro parameters with your DAW. You can automate any given parameter as much as you want but you will achieve nothing unless they are assigned to one of the 16 parameters directly (1:1). If they are not assigned in the 1:1 fashion, then moving a parameter does not have any effect on whatever macro parameter you assigned it to.

I say this because you might have this false impression for the same reasons I did: I moved the filter parameter and it worked in automation. But when you look at the macro parameters, the filter parameter is assigned in the 1:1 mode with one of the macro parameters by default. As you move the filter parameter, it moves the macro parameter which in turn is registered by the DAW.

[EvilDragon]

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.

We'll see about that

NI is in the MIDI 2.0 committee, so let's see what happens.

[Functional]

tbh the midi 2.0 standard offers nothing for musicians as far as I understand - it seems to be more about the quantity aspect of midi protocol to become more oriented towards audiovisual installations in particular, no?

[EvilDragon]

Not really, no. Bidirectional communication is a big one, increased resolution across the board as well, greater number of MIDI CCs and MIDI channels... All very beneficial for instruments.

[the-machine]

[quote=pdxindy post_id=7595016 time=1575398808 user_id=56776]
[quote=FarleyCZ post_id=7594689 time=1575382621 user_id=183643]

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.
[/quote]

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.
[/quote]

Talking about the CPU, Massive X is incredibly well optimised. It may do not seem so at first because of how heavy it feels and how slow it opens (i guess its due to the GUI), but once you start playing and check the whole project performance, its actually uses not alot of CPU, when playing big pads it uses less CPU then Sylenth1 most of the times. I guess its due to AVX support which grately reduces CPU usage as we have seen with The Legend.

[Functional]

Not really, no. Bidirectional communication is a big one, increased resolution across the board as well, greater number of MIDI CCs and MIDI channels... All very beneficial for instruments.

Increased resolution, CC & midi channels, that's all meh in my eyes. the current 0-127 resolution is honestly more than plenty in any case I can imagine, same with the amount of channels (these in particular I've thought to be more useful for AV installations where the amount of channels can actually get ridiculous to surpass the 1.0 standard)

But bidirectional communication? I have no idea what kind of use that could have. Got any examples in mind? I could imagine that it could provide information to give visual feedback perhaps?

[EvilDragon]

0-127 for sure is not enough for adjusting filter cutoff or oscillator tunings, or say precise delay times... It's far from enough in a lot of cases, actually.

More MIDI channels are going to be a treat for orchestral composers.

Bidirectional communication yeah for visual feedback to your MIDI controller, similar to how DAW host automation works. Except you wouldn't need a host to do it, necessarily. Imagine you MIDI learn your plugin and when you change a patch in it, you can see where the parameter values are actually (say your MIDI controller has encoders with LED rings) not requiring you to catch to the parameter value but just keep on tweaking...

[DJ Warmonger]

MX cannot directly automate parameters.

Massive X has 16 macro knobs intended for automation.
It's still better than LuSh-101, which has entire additional window for that.

It was intended to enforce standard macro controls for all instruments, as it is in Komplete line.

I just see people here keep saying "Massive X doesn't do exactly as my other synth, so it's a piece of junk". Well, it was not supposed to be any other synth. You already have your other synth. It was supposed to be a new one, with refined and bold design.

[noiseboyuk]

0-127 for sure is not enough for adjusting filter cutoff or oscillator tunings, or say precise delay times... It's far from enough in a lot of cases, actually.

More MIDI channels are going to be a treat for orchestral composers.

Bidirectional communication yeah for visual feedback to your MIDI controller, similar to how DAW host automation works. Except you wouldn't need a host to do it, necessarily. Imagine you MIDI learn your plugin and when you change a patch in it, you can see where the parameter values are actually (say your MIDI controller has encoders with LED rings) not requiring you to catch to the parameter value but just keep on tweaking...

Not to mention the Holy Grail for composers - Look Ahead. A DAW could intelligently switch articulations based on what note(s) are coming next, making much note musical and realistic choices (if developers and DAW manufacturers got their heads together).

Sorry for being off topic. Again.

[trance_lucent]

I am pondering on purchasing MX. Could someone please tell how copy protection works there? I heard that it requires to be online. Online when? When registering? Or when using this synth?

[recursive one]

I am pondering on purchasing MX. Could someone please tell how copy protection works there? I heard that it requires to be online. Online when? When registering? Or when using this synth?

Only when registering. You need to download and install their Native Access app which shows all your purchased NI stuff and lets you isntall and update it. After that you may go offline.

[Stefken]

"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.

Blablabla.
Show me your gui work or shut up.

[recursive one]

I just see people here keep saying "Massive X doesn't do exactly as my other synth, so it's a piece of junk". Well, it was not supposed to be any other synth. You already have your other synth. It was supposed to be a new one, with refined and bold design.

I think people expected something more like "Massive 2" but Serum already was that "Massive 2". So NI had to make a whole new synth and it think they did it well.

Probably they shouldn't have called it Massive.