Dubstep Growls & Pitch Mod Leads With NI MASSIVE Part 2 - Sequencing The Lead

In this week’s tutorial, Jonny shares how you can design a dubstep lead synth and then sequence it using the Stepper within NI Massive. First a Modern Talking wavetable is loaded into OSC1 with the pitch dropped one octave. Then, a Square-Saw I wavetable is loaded into OSC2, set to run in Formant mode with the pitch dropped one octave. And finally, a Square-Saw I wavetable is loaded into OSC3. All three main oscillators are routed directly to the Filter1 panel. A Bandpass filter is then loaded into the Filter1 panel.

Now that the core of our sound is made we can begin to shape it. A Modulation Envelope is set up and assigned to control the Cutoff parameter of the Bandpass filter we just set up. This will shape the delivery of the synth. Make sure you enable the Trigger Zero Reset button on the envelope you assign the the filter, as it will help ensure a consistent delivery every time a note is played by re-triggering the the envelope’s modulation.

A Reverb unit is loaded into the FX1 tab to give our sound more room to move around in. Then, a Synced Delay unit is loaded into the FX2 tab, which will extend our sound and add a great amount of depth. The EQ is activated and used to accentuate the high end of this sound. Some Vibrato is introduced via the OSC tab to provide our lead with some nice movement and more interest.

The next stop is the Voicing tab. Here the total number of Unison Voices is increased to two and the synth is set to run in Monophonic mode. These voices are then spread out across the stereo field using the Pan Position feature. This adds a lot more width to the sound. Now is also a good time to revisit the OSC2 panel, which we set to run in Formant mode earlier. Set up an LFO and assigning it to the Intensity parameter of this oscillator to create a unique modulation movement throughout the delivery of the sound. You can also assign the LFO to the Wt-position parameter of OSC1 to bring out some vocal elements to better fit the dubstep genre.

Now all that is left to do is create our sequence! For this particular example the OSC3 is selected to be used as the lead melody generator, as the other two oscillators are already moving in their own ways. First, you will need to set up a Stepper and assign it to modulate the Pitch parameter of OSC3. Now when you hold a note the sequence plays. What you do next with this patch is up to you. Try experimenting with bouncing it to audio and manipulating it in unexpected ways to really surprise your audience! Have fun with this one!

Cheers,
OhmLab