Making an NI Massive Arp Synth for Modern Music

These higher pitched arpeggiated synths are becoming more and more popular in many styles of music right now, so it’s the perfect time to look at how to create them with Massive. This NI Massive arp synth is much like the one heard in the popular Dillon Francis & Kill The Noise song, Dill The Noise so you may recognize it. There are many ways to tweak this sound to make it your own. So after you are done replicating it, spend some time adding wavetables, filters and inserts to see what else you can come up with on your own!

We start this NI Massive arp synth off by loading a default Square-Saw I wavetable into the OSC1 panel and increasing the pitch value one octave. Adding a Classic Tube Amp, via the FX1 tab, provides a touch of distortion. Introducing some Reverb, via the FX2 tab, gives this sound more room to move around in. The EQ is activated and used to accent the high end frequencies a bit.

There is a small amount of Glide happening between the notes of the synth that he is recreating. So in Massive you need to first set the synth to run in Monophon mode on the Voicing tab to allow for this. On the OSC tab you can set the amount of Glide you want, in this case it is just a very small amount. This is also a good point to make a few small adjustments to the main Amp Envelope. Shorten the Attack parameter and increase the Decay Volume to maximum to get a quicker reacting NI Massive arp synth that is loud and clear.

From here, the tutorial focuses on making a new NI Massive arp synth based upon the recreated Dillon Francis & Kill The Noise song, Dill The Noise synth mentioned earlier. The steps that Jonny shares are all brilliant suggestions and he explains his reasoning and how the Stepper functions along the way. This should help you get started making your own version(s) right away.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
OhmLab