Hello, harp feedback!

I love my job. I get to watch as Peter Dines, contributor on our Kore/Komplete site for NI, constantly cooks up brilliant ideas for sound design. His latest screencast plumbs the depths of Native Instruments’ Massive synth, which he uses in conjunction with Kore. We’ve already seen Peter make song arrangements out of morphing sequenced patches. Now, he focuses on preset design – and gives away some free presets for you to enjoy.

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

Feedback, Routing and Modulation in Massive, with Free Patch Downloads [Kore@CDM]

Part of why playing with routing and modulation is such fun in Massive is that it has this semi-modular, drag-and-drop architecture. That’s something I’m gratified to say has been improving in soft synths in general; rather than simply emulating the interface of hardware synths, we’ve really seen some interesting ideas in how to design interfaces as software. I’d also include in this category instruments like Future Audio Workshop’s Circle, which I hope to look at a little more this month. Circle, in fact, was compared to Massive, but while they both have drag-and-drop, color-coded routings, the actual implementation is very different, they’re philosophically different, and sonically different.

Have a look, and let us know if you have your own thoughts on Massive, tips, questions, or anything else.