Designing a Better NI Massive Bass Synth

I think I appreciate the approach Evan take in his lessons because it is so similar to mine. Keep things simple in the beginning and you can do so much more with your sounds in the long run. This particular NI Massive bass synth sound design tutorial is focused on using a basic sawtooth based instrument that is then processed perfectly with tools within Massive and takes advantage of the simple modulation capabilities.

To kick things off, he chooses to use the default Square-Saw I wavetable loaded into OSC1. This is then run through a Lowpass 4 filter. An envelope is set up and assigned to modulate the Cutoff parameter of the filter to control how the sound is delivered. It adds instant character and movement to this NI Massive bass synth and gets the creative juices flowing.

The next step in this lesson is to add a Hardclipper insert to the mix. A Sine Shaper is also inserted at this time. Since there is only one filter in play, the routing for the 2nd insert needs to be changed (the default position in the signal flow is directly after Filter 2) so that it processes the sound right after the first insert does its thing. These insert effects add a certain flavor of grit and distortion to this NI Massive bass synth, while also adding a touch of harmonics. An LFO is set up and assigned to modulate the Drive parameter of the Sine Shaper to generate a wobble.

A new envelope is set up and assigned to modulate the pitch parameter of OSC1 in order to create a more punchy delivery. This is a great little pro tip and it’s actually used by a lot of artists that excel in sound design. It is one more way to help an instrument of this kind cut through the mix and really stand out.

He tosses out some cool ideas of how a well programmed Macro control can be used to change the sound up at this point, too. The last step in this lesson is to set up the Voicing tab. Setting the synth to run in Monophon mode allows for gliding between notes (which can be adjusted on the OSC tab). And if you increase the total number of voices you can use the other features on this window, like Pitch Cutoff which introduces phasing and width (through detuning) to this NI Massive bass synth.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
OhmLab