How to Make an NI Massive Deep House Chord Synth

Everyone spends time learning their basic in the music world, Some more than others. In fact, I myself plan on spending my entire life learning more about music and applying that knowledge to my own productions and the tutorials I share with the world. If you are just starting out, or perhaps have simply been too confused by music theory to really learn the fundamentals of chords and progressions in different styles of music, there is still hope. You can still create great music with your ideas without having to beat your head against a wall trying to find the right notes to make those ideas come to life. Of course, in the long-run, it’s best to get a handle on these things. But in the meantime you can learn how to design instruments like this NI Massive deep house chord synth to make life a little easier.

This sound starts out with the default Square-Saw I wavetable loaded into OSC1 with a slight pitch offset of just 0.07. Then another instance of the default Square-Saw I wavetable is loaded into OSC2, with the pitch value of this oscillator offset to 3.00. A Polysaw I wavetable is loaded into OSC3 and its pitch value is set at 2.99. The variations in Pitch are enough to create a small amount of movement and is the essential piece of creating a chorded synth. This is the core of the NI Massive deep house sound we are making. Take notice of the Wt-position, Intensity and Amp settings of each oscillator, as well as the routing of all three to only Filter1.

Speaking of Filter1, let’s set that up real quick. We need to load a Lowpass 4 filter into it and make sure that the output mix is set to only Filter1, as we are not using Filter2 for this lesson.

A quick stop at the main Amp Envelope (4Env) to turn up the Decay Volume to ensure a consistent level of sound when the notes are sustained.

Now a new envelope is set up, with a classic deep house curve. This is then assigned to each of the pitch values of the three main oscillators, as well as the Cutoff parameter of Filter1.

There are few things to tweak on the OSC tab which are critical to the overall delivery of this NI Massive deep house synth. First, the Glide parameter needs to be in line with your project’s sound and feel. Next, some Vibrato is needed to give the synth a more soulful feel. And the Internal envelope is set up assigned to modulate the Depth knob of the Vibrato to ensure a natural sense of movement.

The real chord effect and width of the sound come primarily from the programming on the Voicing tab. Here, there total number of Unisono voices is increased to three, and the synth is set to run in a Monophon mode with a Legato Triller trigger. These voices are then spread out to mimic a chord via the Pitch Cutoff feature. Some extra width is provided by the use of the Pan Position feature.

The last step is to set up the FX and EQ tabs. First, a Dimension Expander is loaded into FX1 to give more depth to the sound. Then Reverb is loaded into FX2 to provide a little more space for the sound to move around in. And the EQ is used to accentuate the frequencies needed to give this NI Massive deep house synth is full character.

Below is a small audio sample of this NI Massive deep house chord synth in action along sied some drums to give you an idea of how it can work in a mix. Only single notes are being played and no processing has taken place outside of Massive.

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Cheers,
OhmLab