Hey what’s good fam, hope all is well.
Back with another review for ya.
Today I’m checking out a custom urban patch library for MASSIVE by Brian Lee of Xenos Soundworks.
He’s done sound design for most of your favorite synths, so let’s check it out!
What is Straight Up Hip Hop?
To keep it pretty simple, it’s a collection of 64 new patches for NI MASSIVE geared towards hip hop, dirty south, rnb, etc.
You know I’m usually a little skeptical when someone says it’s an “urban” instrument library.
But these patches aren’t cheezy or cliche at all.
It’s basically just a nice collection of new sounds useful in various types of urban or electronic music.
Quick specs
- content: 64 patches
- format: NI MASSIVE (nmsv and ksd) format
- price: $5.95
How does it sound?
This is a nice collection of really usable sounds in my opinion.
I was definitely a little skeptical, I’ve known of Brian Lee for a while through various other plugin libraries and expansions he has done.
Those were usually more geared towards electronic/techno type sounds so I wondered what these would sound like.
What you get are a nice diverse collection of synths, basses, leads, pads and even some keys and fx.
The keys were probably the most surprising, I’d like to see a volume dedicated specifically to these types of sounds. Some of the synth presets could pass as keyboard sounds as well, but they were really melodic and smooth to play.
There were of course some deep basses and raw leads, a few pads as well, would like to see more there too.
He even threw in a nice sounding synth horn patch.
I also love the everything is mapped to the macro knobs so you can quickly tweak the sounds to you liking without much effort.
The velocity responsiveness makes the patches playable and not just static sounding and the use of delay adds some nice character to the sounds.
The other macro parameters you’ll find like filter and “shrink” really let you dig into the character of the sounds.
Oh…and some of those FX are really nice too.
So what’s the bottom line?
Well honestly I’m surprised you’re still reading, at this price it really makes no sense not to just go and get the dang thing.
Seriously, the sounds are well designed, and lots of thought went into the automatable parameters so that you can get some diverse sounds just from tweaking the macro knobs.
I give this patch collection 4.5 out of 5 subs, I didn’t know what to expect but that’s a good thing, as I was definitely impressed with the quality and tweakability of the sounds.
I’m looking forward to seeing what else is hiding over there at xenossoundworks.
Go check it out for yourself, matter of fact, if you own MASSIVE, just go buy it: http://xenossoundworks.com/massive.html
Leave a comment below, let me know what you think
i think these sound pretty good, and the price is great….this guy makes some good stuff; I’m liking the sound of the “videogame mania” library for $9.99
Yep, he’s quite awesome at designing sounds for sure
Lot’s of great sounds. I am headed to GearFest at Sweetwater. Hopefully I can win a few goodies.
Thanks Brian for your great work!
awesome man, wish I was going 🙂
Yeah Saint Joe, you should go to SweetWaters FB page and view the video clip on Thomas Dolby’s live performance. The guy is a legend.
how has the event been so far?
Well I heard several say it beats NAMM, at least 8 huge gear tents and a flea market. They had ongoing seminars in the performance theater, conference hall, music academy, amphitheater, retail store, studio A and B. I learned how to master and mix a live band. (Fab Dupont and Mike Wells) It’s free to attend. Needless to say I hang out at Sweetwater all the time.
nice man, I’m gonna have to go next year
Nice stuff…you can only get this if you have massive..
yep, MASSIVE is required
I was on the fence listening to the video… my initial thought was, there is nothing in there that I cant live without… but for six bucks!!!!!! Im gonna cop this right now!!! If for nothing else to learn a little something more about programming Massive its definitely worth! Good find man!!
Exactly, sure you could live without it, like a lot of stuff, but such a small developer making quality sounds at this price deserves support lol. Plus, you can definitely learn sound programming from studying his stuff, he’s done patches for so many plugins even stuff for hardware like the Virus TI. Definitely support this guy.
No brainer. Nuff said.
Yeah fam, and he’s got stuff for a lot of other plugins, I’ll be digging through the site man. I love finding smaller companies like this, like showing stuff for all budgets man.
How do I get my bank to show up in Massive like yours SJ
go into massive options and add it under sound library locations
Never Mind Sj figured it out. Already got a track goin wit it. And for 6 dollars you couldnt cop this. Good look Bra Bra. lol
cool fam!
I can breathe new air into Massive for the price of lunch?! Can the church say Amen?! Good look’n out on this one. I’ve been feeling like a fiend waiting for N-I’s usual summer clearance sale so that I can get that K8 Ultimate upgd., this should calm the gear lust shakes for awhile. The palette of sounds paired with Massive’s other sculpting tools is a welcomed addition for one such as myself that can get lazy when it comes to sound design.
I feel ya there man, straight up LOL
SJ: Another great video review. The sounds are good & will satisfy those who want to add some “FX” to their track. Thanks again for covering this one…
yes indeed bro, thanks for the comment
Perfect for club, r&b, urban, dub, trap, trance, electronica, etc. For 64 presets, this library has core song instuments that stand out really nice.
Thanks for demo-ing the Straight up Hip Hop sounds. My kinda stuff!
yeah fam, they are really nice, this is a steal
Perfect timing.glade i checked.
indeed fam indeed
how do i down load it to massive and use with maschine
open massive and add it’s folder as one of your user folders