An open letter to Native Instruments about Massive X. (Petition included!)

[pdxindy]

Funny, I sort of thought this about Pigments when I first got it. Fun, kind of a “light” sounding synth, but lacking beef. Then they came out with the version that had the MS20 filter in it and I was impressed, but it was at a busy time and I was into something else. Today I thought, “let’s dive back in and see what all the naysayers are talking about.”

You’re nuts. Pigments is as good as anything. I mean, really good. If you can’t get a good sound out of it, it’s your fault. It can be digital and airy or pure corn fed beef. I made a bass sound that was really great. I seriously have to give it a lot more attention. Even the filter FM sounded pretty good to me. If you’ve not used Pigments for a few versions, you don’t know it. They’ve made a lot of improvements.

Yeah, they have been steadily improving Pigments. The granular is top notch. My only complaint about it is that it's a bit heavy on the CPU.

[Tj Shredder]

92% in the poll own it. Those who are busy creating music with it don‘t waist so much time on KVR. Most users like the sound etc. I am sure they get enough feature request also without that „open“ letter. NI is fine with the sales…
I own it, but never dived deep in, because I have other more inspiring tools. Its just the question if I want to invest time learning it. If not, its still a good sounding synth with lots of tweakable presets…

[Geomystery]

Actually, I just uninstalled MX because of that GUI lag. Pigments has way more responsive and well laid GUI and sounds very good to my ears. For 99€ it was instabuy. Bye bye MX.

 

i got rid of pigments; great UI, fun to play with, but... the sound just didn't work for me (i couldn't fit it into my projects). i use MX a lot (despite a browser that worked better before), and it's less-friendly UI... because of it's sound.

just saying, it's all subjective (but makes for great arguments I MEAN discussions...)

I needed something to get going nicely along ANA2, Phase Plant and RePro. Both Pigments and MX sounds nothing like these three. Nice transparent, airy sound. Couldn't get that from ANA2 which is very thick and dense sounding synth. From that perspective I don't care if it's MX or Pigments and Pigments have much nicer UI. Mind you I am not sound designer but mostly composer so I am not trained to hear all that nuances you guys can. My message is that good UI can be for many of us much more important than core sound.

[perpetual3]

Same here! Always ready to dump her, but she sings so beautifully.

I feel like it’s that genius child who could really do anything but instead hangs out and smokes a lot of pot all day. I see the solutions to every single issue that’s been brought up. I don’t know what it takes to do something like support polyphonic aftertouch, but I do design UI for software, so I know that world, and I see the solutions. A lot of them are pretty obvious.

I totally agree. It's odd to have a synth that absolutely nails all the difficult things (FM algorithms, routing, beautifully harmonic distortion and breakup across all frequencies, nice and diverse morphing) and then simple things like preset browsing or envelope dragging are so poor! Still, I'm just glad it exists. It's obviously half-finished (all that empty space in the voicing tab) but they got the right half done at least. I'm sure there will be another update of minor bug fixes and at best something like scroll wheel support, but I'd bet a lot of money nothing like importing wavetables or a new effect is ever going to happen.

And just to repeat myself, I think MX sounds better than any other synth and that it's not even close. I was ready to give it up for Pigments after spending time with all the lovely QOL stuff there (undos, comprehensive midi mapping, the additive engine, etc) but then I tried MX one last time and simply playing while sweeping through the default sin-saw table with the default filter sounded so much nicer than any other synth I tried that I decided I'm happy to live with all its idiosyncrasies. Still, I agree with what you're saying with this thread, it is a bit of a shame they probably won't ever build on the many things it did right.

[zerocrossing]

Funny, I sort of thought this about Pigments when I first got it. Fun, kind of a “light” sounding synth, but lacking beef. Then they came out with the version that had the MS20 filter in it and I was impressed, but it was at a busy time and I was into something else. Today I thought, “let’s dive back in and see what all the naysayers are talking about.”

You’re nuts. Pigments is as good as anything. I mean, really good. If you can’t get a good sound out of it, it’s your fault. It can be digital and airy or pure corn fed beef. I made a bass sound that was really great. I seriously have to give it a lot more attention. Even the filter FM sounded pretty good to me. If you’ve not used Pigments for a few versions, you don’t know it. They’ve made a lot of improvements.

Yeah, they have been steadily improving Pigments. The granular is top notch. My only complaint about it is that it's a bit heavy on the CPU.

I think they improved the audio-rate modulation quality, which is never a free ride, but I’m willing to accept that. It’s not like I use a lot of those types of sounds per track.

[zerocrossing]

92% in the poll own it. Those who are busy creating music with it don‘t waist so much time on KVR. Most users like the sound etc. I am sure they get enough feature request also without that „open“ letter. NI is fine with the sales…
I own it, but never dived deep in, because I have other more inspiring tools. Its just the question if I want to invest time learning it. If not, its still a good sounding synth with lots of tweakable presets…

I bet you of all people would be really appreciative of MPE support. Feature requests don’t let potential customers know that they’re likely to have the thing they buy get abandoned or released in a partially finished (in comparison to the competition) state.

[Milkman]

I'm pretty sure I just got a marketing email from NI that.... Introduces "Light mode" for native access, and announces this like it's a big win.

'Dark mode' has been the hot topic across UI/UX/web for 10ish years, and everyone knows this. Majority of things were coded in white/light tones, then later dark mode is added and in many cases users react very positively to this option. This exists in games, music, productivity and word processing, etc.

But today, and there is a "developer chat" being offered about it, NI is introducing...

Drum roll...

LIGHT MODE.

I rest my case.

[zerocrossing]

I'm pretty sure I just got a marketing email from NI that.... Introduces "Light mode" for native access, and announces this like it's a big win.

'Dark mode' has been the hot topic across UI/UX/web for 10ish years, and everyone knows this. Majority of things were coded in white/light tones, then later dark mode is added and in many cases users react very positively to this option. This exists in games, music, productivity and word processing, etc.

But today, and there is a "developer chat" being offered about it, NI is introducing...

Drum roll...

LIGHT MODE.

I rest my case.

Oh, so MPE support should be right around the corner, then.

[Milkman]

Im not even joking. This is in my inbox right now.

NI_Wtf.PNG

[elassi]

My Access Version had light mode from the beginning - and there's nothing to choose from (i.e. a dark mode).

They probably talk about a 'lightweight' mode?

[Milkman]

My Access Version had light mode from the beginning - and there's nothing to choose from (i.e. a dark mode).

They probably talk about a 'lightweight' mode?

Dunno. The screenshot shows a normal version of NA in light coloring, so nothing is missing from the UI.

[idoru97214]

Im not even joking. This is in my inbox right now.

NI_Wtf.PNG

Thanks for sharing this. I can't imagine why I didn't get this email. Often times, I am using NA at night, and therefore can't see it. Because it's dark. Game changer.

[swilow11]

This is literally my first post on KVR after nosily browsing for ages. Anyway, I'm just going to say- MX is a fantastic synth. Lush sound, numerous modulation options, great FX, modular, easy to understand. Could there be some improvements? Sure. But the problems I see folks worrying over generally don't relate to the synths ability to create brilliant, unique sounds and so I'm thinking NI are generally doing really well here.

The poll options aren't great, what about users who are happy? The options are leading to one outcome only and as such, isn't exactly useful.

I'm actually newish to NI, purchased Komplete 14 a few months back, and really love it. I've come from using Reason for years though, so maybe I'm just used to frustrating technical impediments to creativity, but I've really not noticed many when it comes to NI. Komplete and Cubase tick every box I could even think of.

[fisherKing]

Im not even joking. This is in my inbox right now.

NI_Wtf.PNG

this is about 'native access', the app that manages plugins on your computer. still, you're ignoring the more-important part (for some reason)....

Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 2.06.15 PM.png

[Dirtgrain]

this is about 'native access', the app that manages plugins on your computer. still, you're ignoring the more-important part (for some reason)....

He said this a few posts before it:

I'm pretty sure I just got a marketing email from NI that.... Introduces "Light mode" for native access, and announces this like it's a big win.