Massive

Massive is "modern hybrid" synth in many respects. It features a huge number of waveforms, filters and modulators, and it encompases various forms of synthesis, within a brilliantly elegant interface.

Massive is a synth people often associate with Dubstep and Jungle, but while it does a great job at making those sort of sounds, it also excels with beautiful evolving textures, delicate sequences, clangorous bells, gripping bass, and all sorts of alien tambres and weird special effects. The sheer power and complexity of this synthesizer makes for a huge amount of sonic potential. The view that it is a "harsh" synth or a "dubstep machine" is simply a myth. It is too "massive" to be a one trick pony.

When Massive was first released, a lot of people slated it for being CPU intensive, but more modern machines are better equipped to handle it, and even my modest 3ghz Core2Duo iMac handles it well enough that I can use a number of instances in any project.

It features a unique patch browser, and comes with a number of presets. While the presets don't do it justice, it is fun to browse patches, and easy to create, categorize and save your own.

Massive has become my most used synth because it allows me to turn the sound in my head into a working patch in a matter of minutes. Not only that but patch making is so much fun with Massive, I've built up my own library of patches, and I can access them very quickly with the built in browser.

I've used a lot of synths over the years, both hardware and software, and Massive is up on the top of my list, with the likes of Zebra 2, Sylenth, and Ableton Operator nipping at its heels.

Zebra 2 has many similar sonic features, but doesn't come close for spontanious patch-making, and sheer fun. Sylenth is quick and easy to program, but doesn't have anywhere near the amount of sonic potential. Powerful, simple, fun... Massive ticks all the boxes without making many compromises.

To sum up, Massive is a synth enthusiasts dream come true: It's quick and easy to adjust parameters and modulations, it's hugely versitile and capable of a very wide range of tambres, it has lots of advanced features which allow one to create highly expressive, dynamic patches. It's fun to explore, and it sounds absolutely stunning.