I began writing this post to discuss Kore 2’s performance preset system. If you’re not familiar with this, the quick lowdown is: you can store banks of settings and change between them, or automate changing between them, in a master performance. I touched on this in my last post about Reaktor.

A funny thing happened on the way to the blog. I discovered that, when using a given synth and trying to store different patches in performance presets, not all the parameters were stored and changed with the preset. On the other hand, storing patches as Koresounds does save all the parameter settings. I’m thinking this difference is because the performance presets save on the basis of host automation of the controls, so non-automatable controls won’t have their state saved. (will have to doublecheck with the NI programmers on this to be 100% sure!)

Of course I started looking for workarounds. I loaded up Massive (my go-to synth for mad fun these days) and started trying to save different Massive sounds in the sound variation grid.

In retrospect this was a dumb move, because the sound variation grid is meant to hold variations in a sound, not multiple sounds. So like the performance preset, not all parameters save. Wrong level of abstraction. What I ended up with is a single sound with unusual, in some cases meaningless, parameter settings for that sound in eight variations. You might think this would be undesirable, but my goodness, I’ve never heard anything quite like this:

Unwholesome Sound Design from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

A sound such as this can only be called Quacking Robomultiverse, and I have named it accordingly. Notice the tuning settings of the oscillators on the left - they’re morphing in between settings that made sense in their original sound, but in this mutant superposition of sounds, things have become singularly Lovecraftian; abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Incidentally, I’m using the Kore knobs to morph between sound variations here, but a mouse is fine too.

Download kore performance and massive sound

Last time we looked at Massive on Noisepages I covered how you can use Kore 2’s hardware controllers to get your hands on Massive’s parameters and morph song arrangements from sequenced patches.

In this video I load up Massive in Kore again for hands-on control and take a look at some creative signal routing and modulation possibilities in Massive. Feedback is something people primarily associate with rock, heaviness and sludge, but there’s something here for the meditator as well as the rockist. How about some harp feedback? Eat your heart out, Joanna Newsom.

Feedback, Routing and Modulation in Massive from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

Download the patches used in this screencast

Previously:
Mutating Sequences Live with Massive in Kore
Video: Wobbly Bass Tutorial in Massive

We’re deep in production on some new tutorials and reference material for Kore, Reaktor, and more. But one of the wonderful things about the Web communities flourishing now is that there are lots of people sharing the way they work and making their own tutorial videos and the like. I find it especially refreshing in music software, because different people take such a different approach to the tools. Here’s a video by The Synthesist walking through a “wobbly” Dubstep bass sound. It’s also an excellent way to dip your toes into modulation in Massive, so this certainly could apply to very different sounds.

The Synthesist website includes patch downloads and other info.

Found via the Native Instruments page on Facebook (I now have a new Facebook artist page, myself)

That page also links to more Massive “Dubstep-style” tutorials from our friends at Computer Music

Got favorite video finds of your own? Share them in comments.

More details, via YouTube:

www.myspace.com/thesynthesist

This is the first tutorial from The Synthesist, covering the process behind making a Dubstep wobble bass sound.

This video shows the use of Native Instruments’ MASSIVE synthesizer, which shifted the paradigm for software synthesis development in late 2006. MASSIVE’s fat, analog sound is unique to the soft-synth world, offering a wide scope of sound design possibilities.

But underneath all that, is an extremely simple-to-use, great sounding engine, that can provide some of the baddest bass tones you’ve ever heard.

Notes on the patches:

Wobble 1- This is a basic demonstration of the ideas seen in the video. One oscillator, one filter, one LFO. very basic.

Wobble 2- This is the patch that was created in the video. You have a the dual-oscillator setup, using the same wavetable and settings, one is simply pitched an octave down. Try putting an LFO on the pitch of one of the oscillators, but only modulate the pitch by .10 or .15 of a half step. This will give a thicker and different feel to the sound.

Wobble 3- This is an example that has been used in one of The Synthesist’s tracks previously. Its an example of experimentation with the LFO, applied to the Ring Modulator in addition to the Filter’s Frequency Cutoff. Try applying an LFO to the Phase knob in the Modulation Oscillator. Also, the Performer function is displayed, rather than a simple LFO, so that you can write in your own modulating patterns.

The biggest rule of creating a fat bass sound from scratch is START SIMPLE. Bass tones get muddied very easily, so very minor changes can have a dramatic effect on your sound.

The Massive synth fits into Kore 2 and the Kore controller like a hand in a glove. Well, maybe more like a fist in a glove. It’s a combination of sound quality and tactile control that, in my humble opinion, moves plugin synthesis out of the shadows of hardware VAs and into the limelight.

One of the most instantly gratifying things you can do with this combo is to control sequenced Massive patches, manipulating the macro controls in the Massive synth. This can create entire song arrangements on the fly - dropping elements in and out and crossfading rhythms. There are a few tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of this dynamic duo and that’s what I cover in this screencast. Ed.: And as I will cover later today, you can control those macro knobs easily not only with the Kore controller but, as of 2.0.4 and later of the Kore software, any MIDI controller. -PK

Sequenced NI Massive patches in Kore 2 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

Here’s the Koresound I used in the screencast, with the Kore 2 controllers mapped to Massive’s macro controls.

Ugo Audio has released a set of 15 free presets for Massive. There are a couple of very nice physically modeled bowed and plucked sounds in there making use of Massive’s comb filters, and two representative examples of the atmospheric and sequenced patches that Massive excels at:

I’ll be posting some more material on Massive shortly. Stay tuned!

If you’re planning to pick up Kore 2 and don’t have a copy of Komplete, you may want to act in the next few days. Through 5/31, NI is throwing in their Massive instrument and Massive Expansion Vol. 1 soundpack for free when you purchase Kore. When you activate Kore between April 1 and May 31, you automatically get a download coupon to take advantage of the offer. (This is the full version only, not the upgrade.)

Massive is my favorite synth in the Komplete suite (well, unless you count Reaktor), so it’s quite a nice offer. See NI’s site for the offer details. Got a copy of Massive? We’re planning more on the instrument on this site, so it’d be great to know if a) you own it and b) if so, what you’d like to learn more about!