City of Lost Noises
Poor Massive, such a soulful and gentle instrument but so muscled up that everyone just wants to start fights with it. It reminds me of Ron Perlman’s character in City of Lost Children – “Whale Hunter as Strong as a Horse”. Calling the software Massive was great marketing but leads the audience to ignore it as only good for Duckstep or whatever cheesy marketing term it is this week. Sensible Review explains all the details.
It’s actually more akin to the Blofeld, being a wavetable synthesiser set out in a traditional subtractive format. But the people that would wrap themselves around anything PPG would never think to embrace it, because it’s been saddled with making Wobblebat or Moombits or DropBear or whatever kiddy noise is in this week. The layout is semi modular, the patching is extensive, fluid and easy to do. A session with Massive is all about delicacy. What is the sweetest sound I can make with this? How delicate a use of the wavetables can I make? How can I place modulation to give slight but crucial variation over the sounds? Be amazed at what happens when you treat a big man kindly. A visual guide to the wave tables in Massive.
It illustrates the curious nature of synthesis that the more expansive the ability of a device the more the audience will mentally cordon it off – go here, not there, do not fall off the edge of the map. True, Massive is essentially a virtual analogue, but there are obvious places where it exceeds that definition. In fact the Massive wavetables are now out in the wild in Serum format, so there are sounds out there which defy the original interface narrative.
Massive was probably the point where NI achieved their everything and they have since needed to curtain off the possible. There is very little than cannot be done with it, and there is very little which is done with it. As always the answer is to delete all the presets, and let your own mind explore the map.
Massive X Since this was written there has been a new version released called Massive X. The implication is that Massive was in some ways lacking. But from all accounts the new version is even more lacking. Back to back the lack of lack is such that I can’t be bothered upgrading. I think I have enough DuckStep for now.