User reviews: Native Instruments Massive

03/22/13

JoeW1's review

Massive from Native Instruments is compatible with different browsing platforms like Xp , Vista , 7 or MAC.

The manual that is included with the software is more than enough to obtain the necessary knowledge of how the synth works.

The setup doesn't require a lot of time or tweaking , it's very fast and easy to follow.

Suitability/Performance

The software is well balanced in his factory configuration.

The program made my Native Instruments has a high level of stability as you would expect from such a top ranked company.

I'm getting very good performances while using this product that combines different types of synths in just one pack.

Overall Opinion

Probably the most powerful tool that Massive has , are the 3 types of oscillators that generate different type of sounds , both analog based and digital.

Another feature to mention , is the pattern sequencer that has 17 channels with different type of curves and effects.

The design is extremely useful because you get all the modulation effects connected in a simple way , it's visual content gives a certain objective direction to the user.

What I also like about Massive , is the freq range response , you can create or module different music elements like bass , leads , pads etc.

My opinion about the value for the price is good , this is a very powerful musical tool , however the price range goes beyond the usual digital synth price.

If money is not your concern , get this product , you can use it in any genre you want , dubstep , pop , rock , hip-hop , jazz , the sky is the limit.

I've tried several types of synth , some that were cheaper , other way more expensive , but there's something different about massive , the depth of sound , the interface , the frequency range , that big fat sound is very distinct and useful.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

02/25/13

Azuma's review

Getting Started

There weren't any kind of compatibility issues , the program works on any platform either Windows XP, Windows Seven or MAC OS.

The manual provided with the program was pretty quite good, well detailed , however this is quite an advanced synth so you must some effort into understanding it , however all the information that was relevant to the product itself was well explained there.

General configuration doesn't take long , and setup is pretty easy to understand and have the program set the right way.

Suitability/Performance

The software works very good , I hadn't had any problems or errors while using it.

The gear is extremely stable and everything works smooth and great.

I'm getting very distinct performances while using it , I did create some odd wobbles which I really like.

Overall Opinion

What I probably like the most about Native Instruments Massive is how big and rich the sound is , either if you're creating a warm pad , the 3 osc that work together very well create a very big sound in terms of frequency response.

I also like how this synth combines with the electronic music , mostly dubstep , this product is used by Skrillex and many others dubstep makers in their work.

The lfo present in this product is very powerful as well , the pattern selector , attack and release options are very complex and fun to play with.

My opinion about the value of price is good , this is one of the most complex synth out there and its well worth every penny.

This product takes your sounds to a whole new level without a doubt.

I've tried several models of different type of synths , I must say that Sylenth1 and Massive are probably my favorite and their use is music wide.

I like how you can create your own very distinct sounds in this program and get amazing results quite fast once you get used to the program.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

12/28/12

tarrtime's review "Industry Standard Synth"

Getting Started

Massive is a software application and plug-in that can be used as a stand-alone software instrument, or as a plug-in inside a DAW. It is a software synthesizer with internal sound generators and effects processing. There are many different waveform generators to choose from, and all the typical effects are available (filters, distortion, reverb, delay, etc). There is also a pattern sequencer to automate some of the effect internally.

The software can be purchased on its own, however I received it as part of the Native Instruments Komplete Bundle. It can be downloaded off the NI website and installed. Authorization is completed using the NI Service Center application.

Suitability/Performance

Getting started with Massive is easy. There are tons and tons of included presets. I have pretty much used the presets with Massive exclusively since I purchased it in 2008. There are plenty of ways to create your own synth sounds from scratch if you want, however I have never really taken the time to really figure the software out. There are tons of videos on YouTube if you want to learn how to create your own synths in Massive. However, if you are like me, I just want to find usable sounds fast, with minimal tweaking and get on to making music. Therefore, the library of presets is one of the most valuable aspects of Massive to me.

Overall Opinion

Software synthesizers are a dime-a-dozen at this point. There are so many to choose from, its hard to know which one is best. They all have many of the same exact features, but are also slightly different. Massive has been around along time (and might benefit from an update soon), but remains a favorite to many synth geeks despite many other synths that have come along since Massive was released.

The GUI really needs to be updated. It looks almost 'prehistoric' in comparison to many software applications that have been released recently. Native Instruments has some of the best looking interfaces in the music market, but they also have some of the most outdated interfaces because some of their products have been around for a really long time without update.

Massive was just included with the latest update to Maschine. Hopefully this means NI will be moving forward with Massive and not cutting off support for the software anytime soon.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

07/30/12

BeyondR's review "It's complex and provides a great sound."

Getting Started

Native Instruments Massive is a great popular synth mostly used for electronic productions.

It provides a very deep quality sounds with a lot of options to tweak the sound to get something unique.

The general configuration is great,everything works fast and the interface provides a nice touch of the incoming voltage that builds the sounds.

Suitability/Performance

The software works great without using a lot of cpu resources and it provides some nice stability.

The gear doesn't have any programming errors,so it works very stable.

I'm getting very good low basses sounds from the synth, also some high-pitched leads do work great as well.

Overall Opinion

The thing that I like most about massive is the unique sounds that it provides that can be induced into a more trance song, a lot of producers use it for basses and leads in their dubstep songs.

Other great thing about this synth is the great design and easy to follow, so that way you can really get into oscillators and complex modulation possibilities and also the filters do provide some great touch to the sound to build something great from scratch.

Also it has 600 patches build-in that you can use them in your mix and there are available some nice expansions. So on a level of usuability massive really goes all the way.

It really deserves it's price because of all the rich and unique sounds that you can create from scratch, so native instruments did a really great job regarding the balance between money and quality.

I've tried many synths, but there are very few on the market that could complete with the Native Instruments Massive, all the knobs, effects, build-in sounds, the great design that allows an easy understanding of the sounds.

Without a doubt a must-have synth in your library that could take your songs on a complete different level and can make a much better music producers and assure you a spot on the main musical stage.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

06/22/12

Adyssey Beats's review "Very Capable Program."

Getting Started

Getting Native Instrument's Massive set up in my DAW, Ableton Live 8, was fairly easy. However following the installation, like some comments have touched on, the sudden exposure to a complicated set of options and parameters that are NI Massive was confusing and intimidating. With the learning curve being so steep, I resorted to looking through some of the enormous library of presets provided and studying how each aspect of the synthesizer affected the signal. Although what I know today didn't come overnight, I found the process of teaching myself the ropes fun and inspiring. Just playing with Massive for a few minutes you can create something totally unique that you have never heard before. Although I had a few years of exposure to sound design before getting into massive, I firmly believe that anyone who dedicates an hour or two every day to the venture no matter what their skill in music production will yield great sounds and a better understanding of what contributes to their development.

Suitability/Performance

The sounds that are produced in Massive are incredible. If you possess the skills you can create whatever you want, and map it to a midi controller very easily for live performances. As far as the stability goes, the VST certainly puts more CPU strain on my DAW, but it is nothing that my system has even been overwhelmed by. As with most other things in the world of electronic music, Massive takes time and effort to master, but the rewards are well worth it.

Overall Opinion

In my experiences with Massive, what I have appreciated the most is the community of artists who create and share their unique sounds with one another. This was extremely helpful to me in getting to learn about the program and unlocking its capabilities for use in my own sound creation and music production. Although it is not useful in every genre, overall I find it to be an essential element to my home studio and an inspiration to my music. Certainly well worth the money, but as a bonus, Native Instruments is running a 50% off sale on Massive right now. I'm sure it won't last long so if you feel the need to implement this in your set, get after it.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

06/13/12

JeffTadashi's review "A powerful, visually appealing synth"

Getting Started

Native Instrument's Massive is one of the companies best standalone synthesizers, and it is truly very massive , very powerful, and very flexible. It is all synthesis-based, with no samples used (other than basic waveforms). It supports VST, Audio Units, RTAS (for Pro Tools), CoreAudio, WASAPI, and it comes in a standalone form. What's great about Native Instrument's plugins is that they are very compatible with both Mac systems and PC systems, so they are great for users that use both (like me).

Massive has an impressively large library, that is well organized, so it's easy to get some great sounds right away, and there is little need to make your own sounds from scratch (although it is completely customizable to do so). I generally find the whole routing and overlay of the sound synthesis a bit confusing to make a sound form scratch, but I am knowledgable to make changes to the basic sound properties, such as fx levels, filters, polyphony, lfo's, and so on. The massive synth truly is massive, but it does take some tutorials and learning to figure out how it all routes and works. This is a bit unlike other synths such as Omnisphere, where the interface and routing is very easy to follow.

Suitability/Performance

One of the greatest features of Massive is the macro controls; there are 8 of them, and they can be assigned to any hardware knob, and can control almost any parameter on the Massive synth. This allows for incredible flexibility for live control, and you can make some amazing sound morphs with them. This is one of the trademarks of the Massive synth, and if live knob controls are your thing, this is the perfect solution.

Overall Opinion

Overall, Massive is a powerful synth that may be a bit over some people's heads, but that doesn't stop us from using it with great success. Be sure to try this one out!

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

06/03/12

AlanForPresident's review "a must have"

Getting Started

Native Instruments Massive is awesome! I use it so much I don’t think I could really go without having it in my vst collection. I cant remember how much I paid for it either, or it may have come with my program but I have been using it since around 08 and it has never let me down. I havent touched the manual and I can still figure things out. It wasn’t easy though because there are just so many options that you have when editing the sounds. I never use the presets as they are but I always build off of the presets to create my own unit sounds and they always come out the way that I want them. Then I can save them as my own preset! Also, online there are a community of Massive users and we all sort of trade presets and build all of our collections together!

Suitability/Performance

Massive is really stable , I havent had a problem with it and it was super easy to get installed. After I had it in the VST folder, FL Studio did a quick scan and found it in about 3 seconds and loaded right up. Even loading the presets (depending which ones) are quick. If you have ASIO 4 All on yoru system then you wont have to worry about Massive hogging all of your cpu.

Overall Opinion

You will need to get this in your vst collection if you are serious about coming up with new sounds. If you even need help figuring out how to really dig deep into molding your own sounds than you can join the message boards or contact me , we are all here to help. I am not sure if there are other versions of massive, this is the only one that I have every tried and owned. There really isn’t anything bad for me to say about Massive.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

08/11/11

yoTrakkz's review "For Advanced Musicians Only.."

Getting Started

Massive has some ok presets, but I am not impressed with them though. They are very airy and weird/techno like. But if you are into techno music this is for you. But unfortunately it doesn’t have very many presets that are useful (to me at least). They are not big full sounding presets/instruments. They are very thin and have a lot of reverb and phase on them.

The base and low end sounds don’t seem to be very big either, still very light thin sounds. If you want to edit any of these presets you will definitely need to understand the basics of sounds design. This program could leave you overwhelmed when looking at the interface.

Suitability/Performance

If you don’t understand sound design do not get this program, because this is one for the sound designers. You cannot get the sounds the way you want unless you truly understand sound creation. Stay away from this program if you are a beginner. The manual that I have with this program is ok, but its still doesn’t help with sound design. And this is obviously a program for designers that have been doing it for years and know how to build and manipulate a sound.

Overall Opinion

I used this as a vst with fl studio. Works great and never gave me a crash running with windows vista. After all this is a very powerful but just not for the beginner or the rookie music producer. It doesn’t have a lot of presets and everything is pretty much all techno, once you want to get away from the presets you will be stuck. This program is too confusing for the beginners. Price is ok, not the best and not the worst. Could be worth a try for you if you want to be a sound designer.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

08/04/11

James...'s review "Good if you know what you're doing"

Getting Started

The name massive is very spot on. This is a huge synth with a huge amount of options. Were it not for the presets, most users would be lost on their first Massive run through. Setup is easy enough though. It's basically plug and play. I use it with cubase and an axiom 25 most of the time. NI assumes that many users will be confused at first by the massive layout, so they provide a nice interface for navigating into desired sounds.

Suitability/Performance

Like NI suggests, I use Massive for weird leads and bass. It's also good for spacey sound effects and ambient stuff too. It does really well in this environment. There's a lot of versitility to be had just from scrolling through presets. Eventually though the presets get kind of old and the novelty wears off. At this point either two things happen depending what kind of user you are. You read the manual and learn how to use it to make your own sounds fairly quickly, or you get lost in the endless options and parameters and give up on Massive. Typically, if you haven't had a lot of experience with these style synths, you will end up shelving the vst. It took me a while, but I learned it in a few weeks. I have some gripes though. The sequencing functions are not very good compared to other synths I've used. In my experience massive is only good for flat bass and ambient sounds. Sequenced leads fall flat.

Overall Opinion

Unless you are confident in your know how of soft synths, you might want to skip Massive. It can be complicated once you run out of presets to keep you afloat. It's not for beginners. For the value it's pretty good. Not phenomenal. I still use it these days, but not as often as my first few months with it. I find it's easier to get usable sounds with other programs.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

03/22/11

BadApple's review "Best vst in the world."

Getting Started

With native instruments massive you sometimes have a bit of trouble installing it.

I however did not have this trouble but some people using digital audio workstations such as cubase and logic have a problem with it crashing when installing.

Everything on this synth is very easy to work out.

Everything just seems to be in the right place in terms of the vst, all the envelopes are located near each other and the oscillators are all under each other.

I found it relatively easy to set up but that is just me.

Suitability/Performance

With my configuration as a laptop with 4gb memory and a 1.8GHz processor makes everything work as it should.

I will admit though that running a lot of massives all at once with a lot of delay will make your program lag a little, not enough to totally put you off but just a little that it can be annoying at times.

The performance is great, it even has extra settings on the vst such as eco, pro and ultra for how good performance you want.

Sometimes this vst will crash but it is an easy fix but can get irritating if you are half way through a track or something like that.

Overall Opinion

This vst in my eyes has to be the best vst no doubt about it.

Everything is amazing on it, simple layout lots of features envelopes lfos effects eq make this vst stand out from the rest.

I would like more envelopes personally to make even crazier sounds but I am happy with what is on it at the moment.

Sound quality is brilliant.

Value for price is great. I would like it to be cheaper but we all would want things cheaper anyway.

I would definitely make the same choice if I was needing to buy it again.

Perfect vst in my eyes.

Did you find this review helpful?yes no

Native Instruments Massive

Native Instruments Massive user reviews ( 8/10) - 25 user reviews