Native Instruments Massive Synth User Reviews at zZounds

"Right up there with the best hardware synths" submitted January 20, 2009

By a customer from chartermi.net

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Musical Background: indie recording artist

Music Style: electronica/alternative/rock

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Sound: As I suspect many others have probably done, I mistakenly allowed the factory presets to color my initial perception of what Massive can and can’t do. For example, because there weren’t any synth basses of the kind I like to use in the presets, I assumed at first that it couldn’t do them. However, when I started from scratch and programmed it myself, I managed to dial in a tight, punchy, analog-style bass that was perfect for the track I was working on. Many of the presets are more on the edgy side, but you can get warmer and less biting textures out of it fairly easily if you spend a little time working with it. As far as patches go, I found that the Massive Expansion Volume 2 collection contained less “one-finger step sequencer” presets and more musically useful patches. On the whole, I think Massive’s sound quality is excellent (as it should be, since NI deliberately allowed Massive to be more CPU-hungry in pursuit of higher sonic fidelity). I’d rate it higher in that department than certain popular hardware VA/wave scanning synths, since Massive has a clearer, more defined top end and can actually play in the upper registers without any noticeable aliasing. Massive takes the classic PPG-type wave scanning oscillator concept and takes it light years beyond what the PPG Wave was capable of. If you can’t coax a broad variety of evocative textures out of it, don’t blame the synth. Feature: Massive has an extremely broad range of parameters for shaping and coloring the sound, not all of which are apparent just from a quick look at the GUI. Even the four envelopes, which you might mistake for simple ADSR types just from looking at a screen shot, are far more complex than that. The configurable LFO’s with their sequencer/performer modes are very powerful tools for putting all kinds of shifting motion into patches. It would be great if Massive had panning control over individual oscillators (in other words, a completely stereo signal path from start to finish), and there are one or two other areas where I think further development could take place, but it’s a very powerful synth as-is. Ease of Use: I honestly don’t know how Massive could be made much easier to use. The drag-and-drop modulation routing scheme is about the most direct and intuitive way of dealing with it that I’ve seen, and in tandem with the “rings of Saturn” displays around the knobs to indicate modulation ranges, it makes it much easier to visualize what’s going on with the routings than a mod matrix. There were a couple of things I had to look up in the manual to understand, but most of it I was able to figure out just by diving in. Programming patches isn’t quite as simple as on a basic subtractive analog synth, but that’s not a fault of Massive – scanning wavetable synths in general are a tad more complex than a Nord Lead, and if you want to get the best out of them, you have to invest a little time in wrapping your head around how they work. Value: It was well worth $199 to me, given that it has become one of my main go-to synths and I consider its sound quality to equal or exceed that of hardware synths costing 10X as much (I’ve owned a Virus TI and Waldorfs, so I do have some frame of reference). Whether it will hold the same value for you is obviously dependent on whether you like its sound – but don’t rely solely on the factory presets to make that judgment, because they don’t tell the whole story. Overall: I don’t really have to worry about replacing Massive or having it stolen – the nice thing about software is that it doesn’t wear out or have to go in for service, and if your gigging laptop get stolen, you just replace the laptop, re-download all your software and you’re back in business. For those who say things in reviews like “I’d pound anybody who stole my such-and-such,” that’s what musicians insurance is for – why spend so much money on gear and then not protect it?

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"If you know your synths this is for you, if not you may have a hard time getting the fat sounds you are after" submitted April 20, 2008

By a customer from msn.com

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Musical Background: active musician

Music Style: dnb

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Sound: The sound quality on massive is exceptional and has rich dynamic content. the sounds have a hard edge but massive is also good for softer sounds. Feature: The features included with massive left me not very impressed. If you are not familiar with the components of a synthesiser in terms of modulation matrix and how synth routing works you may have problems. There are almost no tutorials for massive and native instruments are yet to release a proper tutorial. Ease of Use: The presets included with massive have a lot of effects and it dosent contain many raw sounds you can use. If you want fat saw synths or other larger than life sounds used in electronica, you will have to make them yourself. Quality: The innovative aspect of the synth is very good and I like the way you can make one parameter modulate another dragging and dropping an envelope for example onto a filter. Manufacturer Support: No problems here. The Wow Factor: In terms of innovativeness, it is well designed. I am considering getting the access virus software as I have a powercore, i would recommend massive as worthwhile if you have a lot of time on your hands.

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"Dismal price/performance ratio = Massive" submitted September 26, 2007

By a customer from verizon.net

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Musical Background: hobbyist

Music Style: anything

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Sound: I really wasn't impressed with the sound this thing offers...(especially for the price). $300 dollars demands absolutely liquid sounding filters and glittering clean top end clarity with super smooth envelope adjustments and presets that are totally inspiring. What I found was a very average product that, when played, did not lend itself toward being very helpful to the creative process. The presets are probably the best they could do but in no way blew me out of the water, the filters are just way to precise and digital sounding, the general fatness of the synth (which it's being advertised as the incredibly 'phat' synth to end all 'phat' synths) kinda had me scratching my head. I was expecting it to really blow me away (like a screaming lead version of spectrasonics trilogy...) but it simply purred now and then and behaved more like a butler than a bulldog. Feature: It's really got a decent amount of features but some of the envelope pages are downright confusing. I sat there trying to figure out why they just didn't include some sort of point and tension drawing system that didn't require a certificate to navigate. Is it too much to ask that simple set of clickable pencil and eraser tools be stuck right above the envelope scheme rather than me trying to figure out if I need to hold down alt+F4 while rotating the scroll wheel 3 clicks down as I use voice recognition software to recite the Pledge of Allegiance just to add a point to the envelope. I mean really people...it's not like you've been designing the synths for years or anything. Beside a few quips like this, there are plenty of features and more completely UN'phat' oscillator waveforms to chose from than you can shake a stick at. Ease of Use: It's a little steep learning curve wise...but that's what you get with a "massive" synth like this. Don't expect to have user patches dripping out your ears unless you are Tim Conrady... Quality: It's fine. Didn't solve any personal problems or do my laundry. It also didn't make me want to buy it. I'd never buy this thing for the street price. It's ridiculous. Value: I'd trade my alesis multimix 8usb for it but I'd have trouble getting myself to buy it if it were a hundred dollars... Manufacturer Support: I've tried to install a couple of other demo's on my computer only to have it barf. Native Instruments sometimes doesn't play well with friends. Don't know about the support. The Wow Factor: Um... this is where the product fails. It's not exactly going to compete in any contests for utter coolness. Overall: Technically, it sounds really pretty good - but a lot of things sound really pretty good for half the price and a quarter of the price. Algomusic's Nebula M42 for example, $50 and the thing absolutely sings. Now that's worth it. And that's not even a quarter of the price...that's like, a sixth of the price. Ouch. If it wins any awards, it truly means that hype has gotten out of hand. It certainly doesn't deserve any awards (maybe worst price/performance ratio).

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Rating And Reviews: NI Massive Synth

"Right up there with the best hardware synths" submitted January 20, 2009

"If you know your synths this is for you, if not you may have a hard time getting the fat sounds you are after" submitted April 20, 2008

"Dismal price/performance ratio = Massive" submitted September 26, 2007

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