Title link takes you to a post by Carbon111 on Synthwire that features a very nice shot of the Moog Little Phatty on top of a DSI PolyEvolver Keyboard. I was about to put that shot up, when I scrolled down and found the following on Massive:"Its a 3-oscillator wavetable synthesizer with one of the broadest palletes of sound I have ever heard. I know I've only come to softsynths lately but, right now, I would have to say its my favorite synth ever! Previously the MicrowaveXT held that honor...don't fret though, I'll never get rid of my beautiful orange beastie but for a realtime scanning-wavetable synth, nothing else can touch Massive right now. The interpolation between waves is smooth as silk. It can be brutal or caress your ear like a butterfly's wing."
Now I know this probably isn't that big of a deal to anyone out there, but, a few of you know how much Carbon111 loves his XT. Crazy. Carbon111 knows his synths. He's gone through quite a few including a Yamaha CS60 he recently parted with and he has a Serge Modular. Nothing has dethroned the XT until now. Crazy... Apologies for any images the title might infer. Apologies Carbon111. : )
Sounds cool... but no way am I paying $400 for a soft synth!
ReplyDeleteI thought Carbon111 recently sold off bunches of gear to nab a Polyevolver? Brilliant move, I say - am thinking of doing the same. Time to pare down and get an instant classic in return. Would at least abate those P5 dreams that haunt me.
ReplyDeleteBut anonymous#1 is right. $400 for a soft synth is rrrough.
I'm re-doing my studio again.
ReplyDeleteI am gonna by Komplete and Kore and get Massive for free.
Maybe by owning all of NI's stuff I'll actually be motivated to try using some of it again.
The Korg Oasys looks like a good master keyboard too.
I am selling:
- Juno 60 (350)
- Kawai K5000w additive (375)
- Yamaha AN1x (350)
Possibly also Andromedia (1750), and Korg Karma w/moss + vintage keys + beat rom (1300).
Oh, I'm doubling the size of my modcan modular and building a mastering suite.
It's a high price tag, but if Massive's sound lives up to what you want,it can be well WORTH the admission, especially if you imagine the cost of a hardware counterpart that offers same features with same sound quality.
ReplyDeleteI'm normally a hardware only dude, when it comes to synths, but as an exeption i happily paid eg the 349 bucks for the Plug In version of the Virus for my Powercore card.
the total recall features/host integration of softsynth is a feature i enjoy very much and i don't compare soft vs hardsynth anymore as they are just musical instruments at their own rites that can sound fantastic ... and best part is you can get many of them for free at eg Kvr.
NI charges that much simply because they can. Granted, for the huge range of sounds, $400 is a bargain. With a good computer and good monitors a high-end softsynth can sound great, but it's never as fun as hardware, specifically analog, specifically modular ;)
ReplyDeleteexcept zebra 2. that's loads of fun, and only $200
Well, here is the reason why I think $400 is steep.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people who have studios chocked full of 20+ year old hardware. No one, other than maybe Vince Clark who is rich enough to pay the developer of the old software for custom upgrades to his favorite CV sequencer software, is using 20+ old software.
Realisticly, that software plugin is going to last less than 5 years, until that format is abandoned for another superior format, or OS changes make the plugin useless. It has a limited shelf life.
$2000, for a synth that can last 20 years or more, is CHEAPER than a $400 soft-synth that will last until my next PC upgrade.
I paid nowhere near $400 for MASSIVE. Thats MSRP I'm sure...
ReplyDelete^_^
I've gotten more than ten years out of the computer that was dedicated to my Nord Modular...This one should last at least as long. Plus, its not like i don't have any hardware synths left...
MASSIVE is similar to a Waldorf Q in architexture but with more mod routings and a flexible signal routing scheme...along with proper wavetable oscillators. It can be silky smooth or an absolute screaming gutteral monster. Huge leads, basses and long, evolving pads are all easy with it...
Yeah. $400 must be MSRP.
ReplyDelete(It's $249 at Novamusik, for example.)
This is the article where matrixsynth has jumped the shark. Carbon goes all software? Come on. I'd rather have the youtube assault back.
ReplyDeleteUp until recently, I wouldn't have touched a softsynth with a ten foot Kurzweil. They sounded like crap for so long...some still do.
ReplyDeleteAnd having a softsynth beat out my fave synth - well, that even suprised me! 0_0
You will come back to the light side Carbon111. Time and patience have, we must. Hmm.. or would Yoda say Have time and patience, we must?
ReplyDeleteMan comes to softsynths really really really late... hmmm
ReplyDeleteLOL!
ReplyDeleteAs recently as two years ago, the majority of softsynths still sounded like utter crap to me. A few of the ones people swear by today sound like ASS...
So its not so much me coming to softsynths late, more like it taking ten or so years for moore's law to make them sound good ;)