What do you think of Native Instruments' Massive?

J

Jonah White

New member
I'm beginning to use Native Instrument's 'Massive' a heck of a lot and I'm really coming to love it.
What do you all think of this plugin? Any thoughts? Pros and Cons?
 
Overrated in my opinion, but it still have some powerful routing and modulation features.
Not saying it's bad, but I'm surprised by all the hype about it.
 
I agree with steffeh until some extent. It's a very capable synthesizer, it's easy to program but nothing really proprietary about it. The only pro I can find about it is the unbelievable amount of presets made, particularly by 3rd parties, for it. Con, a wavetable synthesizer that doesn't allow you to import your own wavetables. It seriously cripples this otherwise great synthesizer.

With all that said, I still use it quite a lot. It can make some real nice timbres but it certainly has its own kind of sound to it, which could be good or bad depending on who you ask.
 
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All my productions are based on Massive. I like how it's easy to route everything to everything. But I don't see why people keep trying to "judge" these things: they're tools for you to achieve what you want with your music.

Lately I've been using some other synths as well, like Sytrus, Poizone (yeah, quite old but has some "analog" feel to it) and I'm still learning how to mess around with Serum.
 
Wallengard said:
Con, a wavetable synthesizer that doesn't allow you to import your own wavetables. It seriously cripples this otherwise great synthesizer.
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This!! They should introduce a hybrid of resampling and wavetable synthesis or something.

Anyway, I must confess I swear by Massive in 2 occassions: when I make pluck sounds (since it's so easy to maneuver the envelopes in it), and supersaws (partly because of all the overdrive options).
But that's because I don't own any other synths that have similar features to those mentioned (though there's a bunch of synths out there that are similar in such way).
 
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steffeeh said:
This!! They should introduce a hybrid of resampling and wavetable synthesis or something.

Anyway, I must confess I swear by Massive in 2 occassions: when I make pluck sounds (since it's so easy to maneuver the envelopes in it), and supersaws (partly because of all the overdrive options).
But that's because I don't own any other synths that have similar features to those mentioned (though there's a bunch of synths out there that are similar in such way).
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And a swing option for the step sequencer built into it! I could've used it so much more of it did, and sampling the sequence and apply the swing just isn't the same.

Side note; steffeh would like SynthMaster2.
 
Overrated, overhyped and overused IMO. Don't get me wrong, it's decent but it's not the be all and end all of soft synths. I do love the scream filter! I wish I knew how to recreate it in Serum.
 
Massive is more flexible that subtraktor but thor mops it. zebra mops it. omni mops it



Synths I've tried so far:
Thor[fav]
Zebra[fav]
massive[above average versatility]
Nexus[least favorite]
Omnisphere[better than nexus as a rompler but doesn't compare to zebra/thor's synth engines]
Sytrus[Least favorite besides nexus but can do what zebra does]
Reaktor[Needs a vst exporting option, was very fun but ruined it with no vst export]
 
It's one of the most popular synths, and therefore it gets attacked a lot for being more popular than a lot of other good synths.

Don't let this put you off: it's still powerful, easy to use and flexible.
 
I was gonna say very overrated and difficult to understand...not worth it IMO...dont buy it.
 
steffeeh said:
This!! They should introduce a hybrid of resampling and wavetable synthesis or something.

Anyway, I must confess I swear by Massive in 2 occassions: when I make pluck sounds (since it's so easy to maneuver the envelopes in it), and supersaws (partly because of all the overdrive options).
But that's because I don't own any other synths that have similar features to those mentioned (though there's a bunch of synths out there that are similar in such way).
Click to expand...

Sounds like you'd love Serum. You might already have it, but in my eyes it's nearly better in every aspect over Massive. The only thing I can say about Massive is that it has the Performer and Stepper, the Mod O/c, and the Noise Osc. Serum has more noises, but Massive just does better rises and stuff with it. And Serum has really bad pitch modulation when you use a macro. I put a macro on the pitch and it completely changes the note.
 
Quiet Storm 2.0 said:
I was gonna say very overrated and difficult to understand...not worth it IMO...dont buy it.
Click to expand...

I agree with the overrated (even though I use it all the time :P), but it is easy to understand. It has lots of knobs and buttons, but it doesn't take more than 30 minutes to grasp a basic understanding of what each thing does.
 
I use Serum for mostly everything now. I think it does a much better job with supersaws than Massive and being able to see the waveform as you manipulate it is great.
 
Since you can individually detune multiple voices on one oscillator, you can have one osc detuned and the other straight tone and it sounds really good. Also, having polyphonic portamento isn't bad either ;D
 
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