Each of them can be switched on or off using a button at the upper-left corner of the oscillator subpanel. MASSIVE uses three wavetable oscillators, a modulation oscillator, plus an additional noise source. Once it has been activated, it can be used offline. An online connection is required for download and activation. It’s available in VST, AU, AAX and Standalone (64-bit only). For the Mac, you’ll need OS X 10.11 (or higher) and at least an i5 CPU. It is available in VST, AAX and Standalone 32/64-bit.

For the PC, you’ll need Windows 7 (or higher), at least an Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2 CPU. After you login to your Native Access account, you can add a new product such as MASSIVE by clicking “Add a serial” in the upper-left. It lets you view all previously installed Native Instruments products you have purchased, and the free downloads you may have acquired from them. Installation of MASSIVE requires Native Access. Plus, the amount of third-party sound content is truly … ahem … massive. MASSIVE also includes easy routing options, over 1,300 presets and several built-in effects. There are over 80 wavetables from which to select for each oscillator, two filters with a choice twelve different filter types, and a high-quality sound which can be modulated in many different ways. So what is MASSIVE? It is a three oscillator virtual analog synth plugin that uses wave scanning algorithms to produce its sound. Note that we are following Native Instruments’ own convention of writing the name entirely in upper case, even though most writers only capitalize the first letter of the name. There’s a reason for that, as you will soon find out in this review. This is a plugin that really stands up to the test of time. It has a huge following, and when some other new wavetable synth plugin comes along, most people end up comparing it MASSIVE. The “goodie” side of it mainly has to do with the impact it has had on the synth plugin world. It definitely is an “oldie” as it was first released over 10 years ago.

For this month’s issue I thought we should take at a look at yet another classic synth plugin MASSIVE by Native Instruments. Some of these include the M1 by Korg, FM8 by Native Instruments, and Sylenth1 by Lennar Digital.

In many of the past issues of SoundBytes Magazine, our Oldies but Goodies column has featured synth plugins that have become very popular over the years. If ever there was a virtual synth that deserved the designation Oldie but Goodie, it would be Massive, the legendary synth plugin that has been the talk of the town for many years.

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