There are many, many different types and styles of synths used in ambient music. This particular NI Massive ambient synth is designed to be used in a very broad range of projects. Though as it stands in this tutorial, it will have limited functionality compared to when you will see it next after it has been finished and added to the upcoming release. So you will be able to take this humble beginning and transform it into something unique to your own projects and then have some fun comparing it to what I end up with in my finished version. Let’s jump into the lesson and see how it’s made.

This NI Massive ambient synth starts out with a Magyr wavetable loaded into OSC1 and the pitch value set to 5.00. Then, a Drive II wavetable is loaded into OSC2. And a Groan I wavetable is loaded into OSC3 and the pitch value is set to 7.00. If you want to give a slight phased character to this synth right from the beginning, you ca offset the pitch values a few cents on each oscillator.

This sound is then routed through a Daft filter loaded into the Filter1 panel and a Lowpass4 filter loaded into the Filter2 panel. The filters are set to run in a partial serial/parallel mode, which is one of the unique things about this NI Massive ambient synth.

Some Tape Hiss noise and Feedback are introduced in our NI Massive ambient synth.

The total number of Unisono Voices is increased to two on the Voicing tab. The Wavetable Position feature is used to a slight harmonic to this NI Massive ambient synth, and the Pan Position feature is used to spread the sound out a bit.

A Dimension Expander is used to add more width and depth, while Rever is added to provide more space for this synth to move around in. If you feel it needs it, you can also turn on the EQ feature at this point and further shape this NI Massive ambient synth. We will be leaving it off here, and hope that you have some fun taking it in your own direction. And you can see what we ended up with in the final version once it is released in a few days.

Below is a short audio sample of the synth in action alongside some drums to give you an idea of what it sounds like in a mix.

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OhmLab

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