Ocean Swift Big Up the Massive X – Sounds and Presets
Native Instruments Massive X gets some big love from Ocean Swift with two new banks, plus sounds for Dune 3 and Hive 2, too!
Sounds and Presets
2 New Massive X Banks by Ocean Swift
I’ve found myself saying this quite a lot recently, but I’m finding that more and more software synths seem to be taking, at the very least, their design cues from a certain flagship synthesizer by a popular French brand whose name begins with A and ends in rturia!
That was certainly my first thought when seeing Massive X for the first time, and don’t get me wrong, that comparison is no bad thing. However, Massive X is very much its own synth and is capable of some amazing sounds via its wavetable and sampling engines, both of which have been used well here by Ocean Swift.
Way Finder is described as ‘Cinematic Ambient’, and when you check out the demo, you will see and hear why. Taking inspiration from Nordic landscapes and folklore, there is a definite chill to the sounds and textures featured in this Massive X bank. That said, there’s plenty of scope and variety here that will find a home in all sorts of compositions.
Massive in Psy, on the other hand, has its inspiration set firmly in the world of trance and psy trance, genres where Massive X is frequently found in the toolkits of artists and producers alike. Leads, basslines, pads, gated sounds and more can be found within the 90 Massive X presets.
Both banks are fully NKS compatible, meaning you can benefit from features such as audio previews when hosted in the likes of Maschine and Komplete Kontrol. Both Way Finder and Massive in Psy are on sale for an introductory price of just €14.99 now!
Nostalgic Flow for Synapse Audio Dune 3 by Anton Anru
Nostalgic Flow for Synapse Audio’s Dune 3 is the first of two Dune 3 sound banks we have for you this week, with this one coming from the Anton Anru stable of sound design. This bank is specifically an arpeggio bank, featuring 50 such presets.
Anton wanted to explore the broad capabilities of Dune 3, looking particularly at its filter modes and FX, as well as the multiple oscillator types. He made extensive use of the tempo-synced LFOs and multi-stage envelope generators.
The result is some incredibly complex arpeggios covering a wide range of potential uses within multiple genres and styles, something that can easily be garnered by watching the demo video. As well as adding interesting embellishments to your songs, this bank can also serve as a jumping-off point, with many of the patches delivering excellent song ideas.
You can pick Nostalgic Flow up for $19.95 from the Anton Anru store now.
Dreams for Synapse Audio Dune 3 by Otto K. Schwarz
Dune 3 is getting all the love this week, and this second bank of sounds for it comes from Otto K. Schwarz via the LFO.store. Dreams collects together 50 new presets from Otto that, as the bank’s name suggests, consist of dreamy, cinematic, ambient tones.
Unlike Nostalgic Flow, Dreams contains a number of sequences as well as pads, atmospheres, plucks, leads, bells and a few arpeggios thrown in for good measure! All patches make good use of performance tools such as aftertouch, velocity and the mod wheel.
As you can hear in the demo, there are some truly inspiring sounds in here, many of which will work perfectly well with each other, as well as playing nicely with your other sounds and instruments. Dreams for Dune 3 is available now for just €16.
Subterra Patterns for U-He Hive 2 by skendi
Our final bank of sounds this week is for U-He’s excellent Hive 2 instrument, a plugin I have only recently discovered for myself as part of Expressive E’s Expressive Suite for it. Whilst these presets aren’t instantly MPE compatible, I’m sure the clever ones among you can tweak them to be so!
Hive 2 brought a new look to the user interface, making it more “modular” in appearance, using a very easy to use drag and drop modulation routing. Underneath it all is a powerful virtual analogue and wavetable set of engines.
Subterra Patterns is a collection of 50 presets and sequences for Hive 2, which focus on the darker side of things, described by the sound designer as dark techno and noise ambient. There are, however, more melodic tones contained therein, but the emphasis leans towards the dirtier frequencies.
As always, Otto makes proper use of the mod wheel to brighten up the sounds when needed, so if you are fond of creating industrial, IDM, techno-style tunes, this bank is almost certainly right up your street. You can buy it now from the Anton Anru store for $19.95.
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