NI Massive vs. FM8: Dirty Metallic Wobble Synth Tutorial

This should be a very interesting series, and I hope that it is as much fun for all of you to follow along with as it is for me to make them! We also hope that you will be taking part in our ongoing conversation about these great synths, different approaches to sound design and synthesis, new ideas in music and audio production, and general good ol’ fashioned banter about synths. We have recently launched a new synth tutorials forum, which is where we will be. So after you have finished this tutorial, check out the one on our sister site FM8Tutorials.com to see how this same sound was made using FM8 and then meet us in the forums! And without further ado, let’s get started on this wobble synth tutorial!

This wobble synth tutorial starts off with loading a Polysaw III wavetable into OSC1, setting it to run in Bend-/+ mode and raising the pitch one octave. Then a Scream wavetable is loaded into OSC2 and the pitch is again raised one octave. And an Escalation II wavetable is loaded into OSC3, setting it to run in Bend-/+ mode and raising the pitch one octave.

Now we need to set up a few controllers. First a simple LFO is added and set aside. This will be used to modulate several paramters later. Next, the main Amp Envelope is tweaked a bit to ensure the right delivery for our sound. And we will also set up a secondary envelope that will be used as a modulator later on.

Now the LFO is assigned to modulate the Wt-position parameter of all three main oscillators, as well as the Intensity knob of OSC3.

The Modulation OSC panel is set up next, and the pitch value is lowered one octave. Here a Ring Mod is assigned to OSC2, some Phasing is added to OSC3 and Positon modulation is also added to OSC3.

Now a Lowpass4 filter is added to the Filter1 panel and a Scream filter is added to the Filter2 panel. The same LFO we used before is also assigned to modulate the Cutoff knobs of both these filters, as well as the Resonance knob of Filter1.

At this point in our wobble synth tutorial, some Hi-Metallic noise and Feedback are added.

A Hardclipper and a Sine Shaper are inserted, and the secondary envelope we set up earlier is used to modulate the Dry/Wet and Drive knobs of the Sine Shaper unit. This adds some grit and edge to our sound.

The next step in our wobble synth tutorial is to set up the Voicing tab. Here the total number of Unisono Voices is increased to three. This allows us to use the Pitch Cutoff feature to introduce more phasing, and the Pan Position feature which adds more width. The synth is also set to run in Monorotate mode with a Legato Triller trigger, so the gilde feature can be used. (You can adjust the Glide parameter to your liking on the OSC tab.)

And the last big step in this wobble synth tutorial is to set up the FX and EQ tabs. A Brauner Tube Amp is added for drive and distortion, while a Dimension Expander is added to bring more width and depth to the sound. And the EQ is used to finish shaping the sound. That wraps up this special wobble synth tutorial, and we hope that you hurry on over to check out the same sound being made in FM8 as soon as you are finished here!

As you will hear in the audio sample below, the synth turned out pretty good. You will need to follow the link to our FM8 tutorial to see how that version compares to this original one. (It should be noted that the differences between FM Synthesis and Subtractive Synthesis, as well as differences in feature sets and their configurations, mean that truly identical sounds are very difficult to come by when using two very different synths like this. These two sounds are pretty darn close for the time we had to work with.) And once you’ve finished over there, we hope to see you in our new forums!

Remember to shoot us a message before you leave if you have a tutorial request, or would like to share one of your own with the community.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
OhmLab