Creating an Electro Song in NI Massive Part 4: Compression & Sequencing

In the last three installments of this series, we have seen how to make some different synth instruments and even how to use sidechain compression and sub bass to help produce a better mix. NI Massive is capable of producing every sound you need to produce a song, as we have seen in an even more in-depth 10 part series from OhmLab. This is always a cool subject to explore, using one synth to design all sounds in a song. And this has been yet another great series by Jonny Strinati, who always delivers clear and concise lessons that are easily understood regardless of experience level with synthesis. Let’s jump into this lesson and see how this series wraps up!

Before Jonny really get started with this one, he shares a couple of small modulation assignments for the lead synth that he has added since the first tutorial was posted. It’s a nice touch that adds some brightness and top end presence to the sound, so it’s well worth going back and making the adjustment.

We begin this lessons with looking at the lead synth where it as left after the last tutorial. First it is bounced from MIDI to audio and then the EQ that was set up on the original track is now added to the new audio track. Once the EQ has been set up, it’s time to compress the audio signal. This is also the perfect time to add some ducking via a sidechain compression technique triggered by the kick drum. Now the same basic process is applied to the bass synth, starting with the EQ then adding compression and finally making sure that the ducking automation is set up correctly via sidechain compression to allow for the kick drum to cut through the mix easily. Add a light touch of distortion/saturation and we can move onto the arpeggiated synth element yet to be made.

To get the arpeggiated synth set up an AdditiveOctaves wavetable is loaded into OSC1, running in Bend+ mode and with a pitch value of -12.00. Then a Roughmath II wavetable is loaded into OSC2, running in Bend-/+ mode and a pitch value of 7.00. This sound is routed through a Bandpass filter loaded into the Filter1 panel. A modulation envelope is set up with a slow attack and assigned to the Cutoff parameter of the Bandpass filter. And then a Stepper is set up and assigned to the Pitch parameters of both OSC1 and OSC2 to generate the arpeggiated sequence. We hope you have enjoyed this series!

Cheers,
OhmLab