Monster sounds in Massive

[DannyMirage]

I want to make some monster screams, screeches, growls, and all that good stuff. I don't really care about copying Skrillex's or Boregore's bass, It's not necessarily a music thing I'm looking for.

in a way it's more sound design, I think Massive would be capable of making some pretty awesome Monster noises. but after googling it all I saw was how to make Skrillex's "Scary monsters" bass.

So far I think my Reaper noise sounds really close to Mass Effect's reapers, but that's the only thing I've accomplished, except some geth noises but for them I just used fruity Loops sampler and stretched the time on a snare.
I really want to get a more "organic" sound than the reapers and geth though.

any help/advise?

[natsukashi]

Use the Scream filter and Envelope Modulate "Scream" and "Resonance" :3

[DannyMirage]

I've tried that though :/

I want to make a "scream" that has a "growl" behind it. and something more organic sounding...

[Freewave]

Might want to check out paulstretch or programs that slow music down. It's a cool way to get scary sounds. There are some amazing ways to get really cool sounds out of unlikely places just by playing around with sound. OR play around with real recordings and effects. Likely you're looking to combine 2 different sounds into one. Don't be afraid to tinker around.

[Navron]

Layering, layering, and more layering.

[Whitetail]

Lots of resampling and post processing, generally most things in massive are going to be rather weak on their own and you'll have to work with getting something more presentable out of them.

Though some things that do help:
-Modulation Osc - turn it to phase on one of your oscillators, modulate the RM and the pitch
-Sine and Parabolic Shaper - xKore uses these a lot, just play around and you'll figure out how it changes the sound
-Lunacy and Cicada wavetables - modulate the wavetable position and it'll get you some nice moving sounds
-Performer - you'll want rather abstract shapes for your modulations if you want weird monsters sounds, just do things that look/sound weird and you'll see results

Things outside of massive:
-Detuning/Manual Phase/Unison - resampling the bass lines gives you a lot of options, but to help fatten up the sound play with layering multiple samples of the same line. Detune them all a few cents from each other to get a nice unison effect, pan them around a little and it'll give you a nice wide stereo field and a fat sound. Try playing with offsetting the samples a few millisconds from each other to expand on this fattening of the sound. One thing I've found that works nicely is to have the normal sample in the center and then 2 other versions of the sample hardpanned to opposite sides, slightly detuned and a little quieter.

A lot of this is basically doing stereo expanding and unison effects yourself but it gives you more control over the sound, which is key for monster basses.

-Experiment with synth choice: there's more to life than just massive, mess with other odd synths you wouldn't think to. NI Skanner works great for weird monster sounds, I made this doodle with it a while back

http://soundcloud.com/whitetail-music/graaaarg

-Vocoder - try it, you'll find you can get some nice weird sounds by sampling random things with it.

-If you have melodyne or other pitch shifting software, utilize them too. Seriously, some professionals literally just sample EVERYTHING and play around with it with post processing until you get the weird alien sounds you get in the final track.

All in all, experimentation is the key to odd sounds, just play around with your stuff and see what you can get.


Also focus on cleanliness of the sound, don't go overboard with distortion or overdrive since it'll just make the sound messy.

[natsukashi]

It's possible to create unisono inside Massive as well under the Voices tab. >_>

[Whitetail]

Yeah but you have more control over it if you do it yourself

Heck, unison it in the synth and then unison it again with resampling.

[Versilaryan]

Modulate EVERYTHING. Make it sound wonderful and wobbly before you even start with the filter, and you'll get a much more dynamic sound. If you want a more organic sound, make use of the little macro controls in the lower-right to control everything. If you have different things moving at different times, or change how the synth sounds while it's wobbling, you'll get a much more organic sound.

Also, look into Ohmicide (or TriDirt, if you don't have the money). It's a multiband distortion, so you can distort the parts of the sound that really matter. Experiment with cranking the bass or the lower mids to eleven. Easiest way to get a lot of growl into your sound.

Not enough growl after you make the sound and distort it? Distort it more. Distort it more. Running out of CPU power? Resample it, then distort it more. The key to getting a pleasant-sounding but incredibly dirty growl is not cranking up the distortion, but by using a metric shit ton of distortion plugins.