Native Instruments Massive X Synth - Sequel to Massive (Out Now!)

[noiseboyuk]

My Kontakt performance improved once I excluded Kontakt.exe and my DAW .exe files from virus scans by Windows. (in addition to excluding .wav and Kontakt audio file types).

(we're waaaaay off topic, but yes this is very important. Also CD drives have been known to cause issues with Kontakt sometimes, crazy as it sounds if you have one put a disc in or if there's already one there take it out).

[Ah_Dziz]

I have this problem in a very hit or miss way. The new MSB library hangs for up to 2 minutes before patches load. Realivox Blue hangs but not quite as long. Some random cinesamples patches will hang the system for upwards of a minute as well sometimes. Those are all “large ish” patches, but it doesn’t seem directly tied to size in any way. When I upgraded Cinewinds (core and pro) to the player editions they went from insane hanging between loading ( this all happens before the “loading window” pops up) to loading almost instantly. Cinestrings solo and the Tina Cello are both player libraries and they have this odd hanging behavior too. I’ve never gotten a good answer about it. I had NI tell me it was related to the database, but it didn’t help to update that.

The only stuff that all loads extremely fast without fail and no exceptions on my system, are player libraries that NI sold themselves. That includes all the NKS ready libraries they have put on special in recent years. It isn’t a very big issue though. I have my composing template loaded up at all times (and it only eats half of my total ram), so I only really have to add a little piece here or there a couple times a day.

[starla*]

So whats the sound quality of this plugin? Is it like repro-5 that takes a lot of CPU hit or is this just another boring vst with a lot of functions?

[DrGonzo]

So whats the sound quality of this plugin? Is it like repro-5 that takes a lot of CPU hit or is this just another boring vst with a lot of functions?

I don't think nobody outside NI really knows. Massive have never been a crazy CPU hog - but who knows about the upcoming version. Maybe they pushed the boundaries further this time and did some crazy things.

Never been a big Massive fan but I'm really looking forward to this release.

/C

[EvilDragon]

MacPro 5.1, 2009; AVX instructions, 2013
You got to blame somebody! damn

AVX was first introduced/proposed in 2008 but actually implemented on Sandy Bridge in 2011.

[EvilDragon]

My Kontakt performance improved once I excluded Kontakt.exe and my DAW .exe files from virus scans by Windows. (in addition to excluding .wav and Kontakt audio file types).

You'd also need to exclude Kontakt's .dlls, exe isn't used by your DAW

[LeVzi]

Kontakt can be buggy with some libraries and it drives me up the wall, like libraries that take forever to load

That's not a bug when there IS a lot to load in the library, though?

No, it is a bug and I'll tell you why. I have a lot of huge libraries. Most of them load in under 30 seconds. But I have one library by Realitone that takes a good 2 and a half minutes to load. The reason is because Kontakt, for whatever reason, sees it as a fragmented library even though it is not. I have to keep doing that thing where it finds all the files so that they load faster? And it does but only for that session. Next time I open up my DAW, same problem, over and over and over.

This should not happen when I have libraries twice the size of this one that load in under 30 seconds.

That's a bug. Nobody can tell me it's not. But I live with it because this Realitone library is the only one that does this particular thing. Oh, my libraries are on SSD drives so they should load super fast.

And that's just one example of Kontakt being buggy.

There are plenty more.

That was Kontakt 5 for me full stop. It took ages to load as a standalone and / or plugin and I only have a couple of Libraries, but they took ages to load, one was a minute and a half or more. It wasn't the libraries as they work and load fine now since I updated to Kontakt 6. Kontakt 4 was fine with them too, so I blamed a buggy K5 , but tbh I only used it sporadically during its V5 incarnations.

V6 , so far, loads fast, works faster. Only other change i've really made, gone to Win 10.

[EvilDragon]

True K5 was buggier than usual early on (up until 5.2.1 or so), however none of the bugs were loading time related. 5.5.2 is one of the most stable Kontakt versions ever, along with 5.6.8 and the latest 5.8.1, from my experience.

Methinks you had virus scanning happening on K5 executable but not others. That's the most often cause of slow loads.

[jancivil]

MacPro 5.1, 2009; AVX instructions, 2013
You got to blame somebody! damn

AVX was first introduced/proposed in 2008 but actually implemented on Sandy Bridge in 2011.

I thought this Massive X required AVX 2.

I'm wrong also about the release date of 5,1: 2010, and there was a version released in 2012.
Did Apple not add that in 2012?

[EvilDragon]

Nope, requires just AVX, not AVX2.

5,1 Mac Pro is all just Westmere based CPUs, so no AVX on those at all.

[Forgotten]

It's not just whether or not the processor has the instruction set either - the operating system also has to recognize the instruction set, so you need a minimum of Windows 7 SP1 or MacOS 10.6.8 or greater.

[dblock]

That picture of MassiveX on the NI website "Coming in June" the meter shows cpu @ 33%!!!
For one synth? No synth of mine is going to be using that much unless It's the only synth in which case it would have to be multitimbal like Omnisphere where I could compose the whole song on it. Unless somebody convinces me otherwise,I have a feeling I'll be passing on this one.

[chk071]

That picture of MassiveX on the NI website "Coming in June" the meter shows cpu @ 33%!!!

Which doesn't tell anything, without knowing the computer the screenshot was shot on, the amount of voices played, the preset etc. etc.

Seriously, passing because of a screenshot? What would you have done if NI showed a screenshot with 1% CPU usage? Fall to your knees, and pray to the benevolent god of DSP?

[dblock]

That picture of MassiveX on the NI website "Coming in June" the meter shows cpu @ 33%!!!

Which doesn't tell anything, without knowing the computer the screenshot was shot on, the amount of voices played, the preset etc. etc.

Seriously, passing because of a screenshot? What would you have done if NI showed a screenshot with 1% CPU usage? Fall to your knees, and pray to the benevolent god of DSP?

Cute, and maybe you're right, but to me, it doesn't make a bit of sense, to show a new product gobbling up resources as a first impression if it's not even capable of doing so. I tend to believe that what they're showing me is exactly what they hope to sell me. It's not rocket science. So no, I'm not buying the idea that the screenshot was done on a piece of crap, no power computer sitting on a workbench in the back of the shop somewhere but just maybe it was. Maybe they're just being honest that yeah, this may use a fair amount of resources because of what it can do without making silly excuses for it like what kind of no good computer they took the shot on. I'm just saying that for me and my setup it doesn't matter what preset it is,or how many layers, if it results in using 33% of my cpu it "could potentially" be a deal breaker for me. And no, I wouldn't fall on my knees if the screenshot showed 1% but I'd feel better about it and better means I might buy it. It was just my first impression not necessarily my last one and first impressions matter. Most people have their own set criteria that doesn't necessarily have to work for you. Cpu usage happens to be a concern for me because of the setup I have and the plugins I use some of which are already fairly cpu intensive. I may still buy it,or not. It's just not an instant buy.

[chk071]

So many words, and thoughts. When you could just demo the thing when it comes out.