Understanding the Routing Tab and Bypass Module - Part 1

This is a two part tutorial focused on understanding and intelligently using the Routing table inside NI Massive. Originally created by Steve Foulds, this tutorial has been pulled from our vault of original member tutorials. In Part 1, we look at the bypass feature and it’s purpose in Natives Instruments Massive Synth.

The Routing tab remains a mystery to a lot of Massive users. Even those who have used it for many years can be a bit baffled by it. Though it may seem daunting, even a basic understanding of the Routing tab can do wonders for a sound designers skill set. Gaining knowledge of this great feature only adds another weapon to the NI Massive arsenal!

Bypass

There are many ways you can get creative with this module – but for the purposes of this tutorial I’m going to use it for bass. Hopefully by the end of this tutorial you will understand it’s function a bit better and it will give you some ideas on how to use it in your own productions!

Let’s imagine you want to create a sound in Massive that contains a lot of reverb or delay, or perhaps you have sculpted a sound with a hi pass filter. The sound you’ve made is great, but it’s missing a low end. When you add a new OSC for your low end the bass is cut out by that hi pass filter, you want something a bit more subby under it or it’s also effected by the effects you’ve set up on the synth – reverb or the delay for example. Not so good if you want a clean sub or perhaps you have a bass tone you don’t want delay or reverb on…

This is where Bypass comes into play. It means you can simply bypass one of the OSCs (or the noise module) past the filters, past the effects and out the other end.

Routing Tab

As you can see above, there is a small B next to each OSC and the Noise module. By clicking on one of them you are now choosing this OSC to bypass the filters. If you follow the yellow line coming from the B you will see there are 3 arrows at the end – one at FX1, one at FX2 and one at EQ. By clicking on an arrow you are choosing at which point in the signal flow the OSC will be reintroduced.

Click the one under EQ. This means that OSC 3 will now not be affected by the filters, nor the effects but will come out at the EQ – which means you can shape the sound as a whole.

Now turn up the bypass slider like so

This slider let’s you control the volume of the bypassed OSC – also note that there is a little 4 in a box called bypass mod – this means that the bypassed sound is being shaped by env 4. You cn make this another one of the envelopes and shape the sound accordingly – handy if you want a sub bass stab under a synth for example.

Let’s try it for real

I want you to set up Massive exactly like this example (and make sure on the routing tab you make OSC 3 the bypassed OSC straight to the EQ)

Start hitting some keys. It’s a very basic sound for sure, but i want you to now play with the cutoff on filter 1 whilst you hit the keys. You’ll notice that the ‘synth’ sound is filtered but the low end remains the same!

Now on EFX2, try making this a delay. Again – only the ‘synth’ sound is affected, whilst the low end stays the same.

Things to try

This should start opening up some doors to your sound design. Try changing the envelope on the Bypass so the low end has a completely different shape – perhaps you want the bass to have a slow attack so it fades in under the ‘synth’ noise as that fades out? You don’t have to make the bypassed OSC come out at the EQ either… you could let it come out at EFX2 and make that tube or chorus to glue it back to the main sound! As always – the key is experimenting!

Check back next week for part 2!