Learning to create my own sounds in Massive.

P

parsons19

Active Member
VIP Junglist
Joined
May 15, 2011
Location
UK
Hey everyone,

Since I have started using Massive it has been very beneficial to my tunes :) However, the sounds I have been using are mainly presets that I made a few small tweaks to or just other sounds I made following tutorials.

I want to learn how to create my own sounds within this VST and how to make what I want! All the tutorials I find around the internet seem to tell you how to make a preset that sounds like another artist but I can find no such thing which actually explains what each bit of Massive does and how I might go about making my own decent presets!

Any help would be awesome :)

Jordan
 
You need to be a bit more informative......What sort of sounds are you trying to make? Heavy warping basslines? pads? lead synths? sub bass? jump up bass?

I'll try and help you if I can, but without an idea of what you want.....it's difficult to find a starting point.
 
Thanks for the reply man, I am just interested in finding out what tweaking each little bit will do to my sound. If that makes any sense?

However I was looking to start out making some pads and lead synths ;)
 
Well 1st of all you need to learn some basic synthesis. Like, what is a saw and why is it different from a sine? What is a bandfilter and why does it work different from a low pass filter etc etc.

Once you work out the 'ins' and 'outs' of some basic synthesis you will be well on the way.

For a pad: Think about it logically. They start off slow, gradually build up. Also sound quite airy and smoooooth. (for one example)

So you would need something like a square wave, going through a low pass filter. You can play with the cut off to get some nice pulsing/movement going on. Then you can add an ADSR with a slow attack and maybe a long release. This will make your note come in slowly and fade out slow.
once you have these bits sounding nice, you can add some reverb and prehaps some chorus. The reverb will add that 'airy' sound and the chorus will give it some colour.

obviously.. there is a lot more to it, but that is a quick example on how to make some noises!
 
Thought I'd make a quick sum up of the basics you might use:

NAME#PLACE#FUNCTION

OSC's # Upper left in main windows # These are the basic sound generators. Different soundwaves can be selected from each drop down menu on top of the OSC section. The intensity knob controls the sharpness(mostly louder) or softness (mostly less loud) of the soundwave.

FILTERS# Upper Middle # The sound from the OSC's passes through here, you can select the filter setting from the drop down menu. The filter names basically explain themselves. Lowpass will make only low frequencies pas when the knob value is lowered....

LFO's# The green rectangle's in the middle of the VST # These are used to automate buttons for you. they folow the path of the wave you load into them with a certain speed that can be set with the rate or (if sync is on) the ratio. LFO's can be assigned to the squares under a knob. You can then click on the squares and drag the mouse up to select the area the LFO can cover.

NOISE# Bottom Left# Like an OSC but only for noise. Can be very usefull in certain basslines or pads.

FX#Right ,under master#This section can add effects to your sound like reverb or delay. Distortion is also really handy especially for DnB&dubstep but the option is only available on FX1.

ENVELOPES # ENV1 ENV2.... the blue rectangles in the middle# Can be applied just like LFO's but they are line shaped. You can apply them to a knob to add effects like attack, Which will make the sound 'rise'. 4ENV will by default control the master envelope.

MODULATION OSC # Above the noise thingy # This will add effects to the OSC selected with the 1/2/3 buttons. The phase filter is imo the most interesting, can be really cool if you had an LFO to it.

The OSC tab # Middle section # Just wanted to point out that the 'vibrato' function is here.

INSERT 1&2 # Again , extra filters to be added, for drum and bass and dubstep, bitcrushers are kinda usefull in the right situation. There are a lot of other options but you'll just have to test them all and see what they do ;D

Basically if you got the basics of asigning lfo's and stuff, you can just start experimenting by enabling and disabling stuff and see what it does (that's how I learned it) =D
I hope everything I wrote is right, if anyone else sees mistakes please correct me, I'm not a pro at Massive ;D & I hope this helps you a little
 
Back
Top Bottom