Designing an Epic Synth Riser in NI Massive

This NI Massive Tutorial will show you how to make a huge electro synth riser that is worthy of being used in a large production, and it only takes a few minutes to make!

So many people are making simple risers these days for their music. There is nothing wrong with a simple riser, and in fact I often preach less is more. But when it comes to an epic production, it may require a little more from your sound design skills. This lesson aims at showing you just one way you can quickly design a synth that will work as an epic riser that has a bit more interest and depth to it than the average.

This sound begins with using all three main oscillators. The default Square-Saw wavetable is used on OSC1and the pitch is dropped one octave. A Roughmath II wavetable is used on OSC2 and the pitch is dropped three octaves. A Polysaw II wavetable is used on OSC3 and raised up just shy of 17 semi-tones. Some phasing is introduced to OSC2 through the Modulation OSC panel.

This sound is then run through a Lowpass 2 filter loaded into the Filter1 panel, and a Daft filter loaded into the Filter2 panel.

The main Amp Envelope attack, decay and release are all adjusted to give a more pad-like delivery.

Now a new envelope is set up to modulate the Intensity knobs of both OSC1 and OSC2, as well as the Cutoff and Resonance knobs of both filter panels.

Next two LFOs are set up to modulate the Pitch values of all three main oscillators, and one is also assigned to modulate the Intensity knob of OSC3.

After this is done, we need to increase the Voices on the Voicing tab, turn on the Pitch Cutoff feature and offset it a small amount to give more phase character to the sound. While we are here, the Pan Position feature also needs to be turned on so the synth can be spread across the stereo field for a wider sound.

Two Sine Shapers are added to help get the most out of certain characteristics so it performs better as the sound develops over time.

Then some Reverb is added, as well as a Chorus effect. Some simple EQ tweaks finish this sound off. As you can hear in the audio example below, this sound is already big. It is now up to you how you end up processing it to make it fit your project.

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Cheers,
OhmLab