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Is there a synth like Massive?
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| Richard Butler |
So I want to add another synth for DnB bassline duty.
Massive does not appeal to me as I've never got my head around the whole dongle thing. I just want to buy, download, done, no having to get a dongle and waiting days for it to be delivered.
Is there a synth that lends itself well to those Massive style basses? I can imagine some saying you can make those sounds on any synth (a standard narrative these days), but this is bull, for example my Gladiator synth has a very different tone all round to say Sylenth.
So any suggestions?
I just signed a dnb track and want to make the most of the moment. |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
Massive does not appeal to me as I've never got my head around the whole dongle thing. |
Massive doesn't require a dongle. It uses NI's proprietary Service Center/serial number authorization. It's pretty slick and non-intrusive, tells you when updates are available, etc. |
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| Andy28 |
| Id wait a bit though, ni always have sales on, i picked up my copy of massive for £80 which is less than half price. |
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| tehlord |
Yup, no dongle.
I would personally favour Serum though. Same kind of thing but much nicer sounding imo and a MUCH better UI. |
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| Richard Butler |
| quote: | Originally posted by tehlord
Yup, no dongle.
I would personally favour Serum though. Same kind of thing but much nicer sounding imo and a MUCH better UI. |
Good call, I was just browsing it before I saw your post. It's those sustained evolving hooverish basses I'm after making. |
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| tehlord |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
Good call, I was just browsing it before I saw your post. It's those sustained evolving hooverish basses I'm after making. |
7 skies has released a free wavetable set sampled straight out of his Juno, so ideal.
http://www.standalone-music.com/fre...les-by-7-skies/
You can't import into Massive like you can with Serum. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
not really sure what sort of sound you are talking about but massive is not really the one used for that reese noisia sound.
those hoover reeves are just post processing. Automated notch Eqing , distortion and and resampling. |
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| Dj Dizzy |
damn, i just posted a long and informative post but my browser screwed up and it was lost. i'll try to re-type it.
you can get much more dramatic and powerful results from resampling as Looney mentioned. if you want reeses that have alot of movement and changes in the sound then resampling is the way to go. most DNB producers use NI Kontakt as the software sampler of choice. you sample the bass you create from whatever synth you use and use Kontakt to modulate whatever parameters you want, IE: EQ, distortion and most importantly the filters. alot of bandpass filter modulation. then you resample and repeat to get the movement a little more dramatic, continue repeating the resampling technique until you're happy with the result.
i always had a hard time getting results i was happy with out of resampling, i just never wrapped my head around what i should be doing differently with each time i resampled it. so i stuck with doing all my modulation within the synth instead. i've made tons and tons of different kinds of reeses but i just end up saving the presets and haven't ever used them in a song. i use a Virus TI because it has so many modulation capabilities. however, wavetable synths such as Xfer Serum and NI Massive are very capable.
you want to make reeses that have harmonics you're happy with, so you're happy with the actual sound itself. then you'll want to start modulating different parameters such as distortion, EQ, oscillator wavetable index(es), filters. NI Massive is a good one but IMO every waveform from Massive has been rinsed to death. i agree with tehlord on recommending Xfer Serum. another softsynth that makes great sounding reeses is NI FM8, but the downside to FM8 is that FM Synthesis is a beast to learn. i spent alot of time learning basic FM Synthesis and the results from FM8 are amazing, the harmonics and general sound is just wow. but i rarely use FM8 simply because it's way more fun to experiment with wavetable synths.
but again, most of the amazing reeses you hear are created through resampling many times through a sampler. however you can get great results from any synth that has alot of modulation possibilities and multiple filters, as a start - you'll want to modulate bandpass+bandpass or bandpass+bandstop filters to get movement. |
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| Richard Butler |
Read all the posts with interest, thanks.
I think Serum is the way I'm going to go. The specific quality I'm after has to do with the way the distortion sounds, getting it just right so as to really bring DnB basslines to life and does not sound 'wrong'. Basically I've never found the perfect software distortion yet. I tried Saturn which people here recommended but found it tbh. |
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| Richard Butler |
Delicious!
Do you find Serum difficult to use?
Even importing a wave is a slight worry for me, these things are sometimes not straight forwards. Can you browse waves on the sly before importing them by scrolling through them once you press an import tab? I don't want to get into ing around with having to get a sample editor etc, as ever I have a pathological dislike of clutter on my drives, weird I know but it's just how my strange brain works. |
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| DjStephenWiley |
Serum is a beaut. Surprised it hasn't taken the community by storm. Maybe it just needs to be on the market a little longer? Massive and Sylenth1 were pretty overlooked when they first came out too.
Don't sleep on this one folks! It's as close to a Virus TI (and more) than anything else out there. For those who love wavetable synthesis, you need not look any further. I love my TI2 and not considering selling it but Serum does make it feel a bit redundant at times. |
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| DjStephenWiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Richard Butler
Delicious!
Do you find Serum difficult to use?
Even importing a wave is a slight worry for me, these things are sometimes not straight forwards. Can you browse waves on the sly before importing them by scrolling through them once you press an import tab? I don't want to get into ing around with having to get a sample editor etc, as ever I have a pathological dislike of clutter on my drives, weird I know but it's just how my strange brain works. |
It's really easy to import waves. There's literally a drop down menu that you just scroll through to select whatever wave you want to use. It's as easy as scrolling for a preset. It's a super straight forward synth that is remarkably easy to use despite it's depth. |
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