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[Ask Me Anything] Meet the team behind Massive XL and ask them anything

Kaiwan_NI

Massive XL ask me anything on the native instruments online community

Hi everyone,

Today we've released Massive XL, a synth with a rich legacy that takes you deeper into sound. The original Massive is behind so many of my favourite tracks (and probably a few of yours) so you can imagine how excited I am about this one. To help you get to know our new flagship wavetable synth better, I've invited two people from the product team to answer your questions.

https://www.native-instruments.com/products/massive-xl

AMA with the Massive XL creators

From now until November 3, 2026, Simon Fichtner and Jan Ola Korte will be hanging out in this thread. Between them, they helped shape Massive XL's deeper control and faster route to your sound. They also had a hand in writing the user manual, so this one's for everyone who loves to RTFM. I do too.

Meet the team

Simon Fichtner
Senior Product Designer

What I did: I was the lead product designer on Massive XL, shaping its features, workflows, and interface from concept through release.

Current favourite track: No fav bass track, but I prob listened to this 400 times while pushing MX pixels.

https://soundcloud.com/ryanlottmusic/code-race-extended?si=2391a33ec5584f54abaebf290c0ba8cb&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Jan Ola Korte
Senior Manager, Content Strategy

What I did: I've been working on the Massive XL context help and user guide, and have contributed to the product design. Plus, I've had a great time creating sounds while testing the new features and workflows!

Current favourite track:

https://on.soundcloud.com/nYJySsf3PxfsLUu8qL

How it works

Post your questions in the comments below. Simon and Jan will reply throughout the AMA, which runs until November 3, 2026.

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Comments

Kymeia

Congrats on the release, this really brings a lot of things people always wanted for Massive X

I’m particularly pleased about poly aftertouch support finally, but it really does beg the question, why does your own flagship performance host, Maschine, still not support even channel aftertouch? It means no one using this in Maschine is really able to tap into its full potential (or that of your own keyboards for that matter)?

Also it would be great to see some support for micro tuning (eg MTS-ESP), this is a sound design dream but many of us like to go beyond standard tonalities

Jan.Ola_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271038#Comment_271038

Hi @Kymeia, thank you!

I think Massive XL would be amazing with dedicated micro tuning support, so I totally see your point. I have not used them in this way, but I think to a certain degree the Trackers actually let you implement micro tuning manually already:

Assign a Tracker to the main pitch, set the modulation amount to 24 semitones, then use Offset mode in the Tracker to draw in pitch offsets per MIDI note across the keyboard.

By right-click + dragging the offsets you can adjust in 10 cents increments. I suppose if you map the whole 24 step range of the Tracker to a lesser modulation amount, you can achieve even smaller increments.

The Trackers are super powerful for implementing all sorts of custom control schemes by mapping MIDI data onto modulation.

Here's the section about Trackers in the user guide: https://docs.native-instruments.com/online-guides/massive-xl-user-guide/en/trackers

Also thanks for your feedback re: Maschine poly AT support, I'll forward it! :)

chk071

Hey,

thanks for the nice update. It's better in almost every regard now. 🙂

One question about the wavetable import function: Does Massive XL normalize the wavetables, like Serum does, for instance? I want to sample some wavetables from other synths, and use them in Massive XL.

Skijumptoes

Congrats on the release, and thanks for the AMA. I think right now the biggest question we all have as creatives is regarding AI generative music and how many of us feel undermined by the tools being produced. I'd imagine that developers of software also feel this way with their jobs also, watching the sea of vibe coded plugins and instruments come flooding out must be worrying.

So, what i'd like to ask is: In a world where someone can vibe code an instrument to a great standard and give it out for free, what are you doing to ensure that paid for instruments such as Massive XL remain premium products that customers actively want to buy?

As an end customer, and long-time user of NI products I like to see established brands remain strong. Mainly as I have attachment, trust and romance/nostalgia towards them.

So, i'm really curious whether longterm support is of a much higher priority when developing an instrument like this in today's environment. Or perhaps you feel that there's other attractive elements to invest further into NI ecosystems with synths like Massive XL?

chk071

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271044#Comment_271044

"To a great standard"?

Frankly, I don't think we really see that. At least, I haven't come along something which is mainly A.I. generated, which is in any way comparable with a well coded quality audio plugin.

Matthew_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271038#Comment_271038

I can take that one already. By mid 2027 it will support more than just Channel Aftertouch.

Shutara

Hey!

Could you elaborate on the reasoning behind charging Komplete bundle owners (thus, Massive X owners) twice as much for the upgrade? It is currently $99, which is quite unreasonable price to ask for, especially when people who bought it separately can upgrade for $49, if I'm not mistaken.

chk071

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271049#Comment_271049

It was 49 € for me (or rather 44 € at Thomann), and I own Massive X through Komplete 12.

Shutara

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271050#Comment_271050

I take it back - somehow it changed the price now (it always does fix itself when someone's looking!).

Was seriously confused because I was logged into my account and the price didn't want to go down before :D

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271039#Comment_271039

Thankyou I am aware of that approach, the trackers are very flexible, but to get this to work well, or to get everything corresponding to any particular scale, takes a lot of work and skill. Something like MTS-ESP support would be easier and more accessible to a wider range of users.

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271046#Comment_271046

Thanks Matt I’m very pleased to hear this, as I’m sure will a lot of people

Maciej Repetowski

Upgraded a moment ago, for £44.00 - very reasonable price. Thank you, NI !!!

Jan.Ola_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271042#Comment_271042

Hi @chk071, the wavetable import reads the samples in the audio file as is, there is no normalization. Stereo files are converted to mono, and there is band-limiting applied. No other processing. So if you want a full-scale waveform from a quiet recording, you'd have to normalize before import.

Jan.Ola_NI

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271055#Comment_271055

Yeah, totally, I think that's a great suggestion. Worth noting that the Trackers now also have Shape presets so you can store, share, and recall the settings once you put in the effort. But I agree, the Tracker workflow as it is today is more suitable for custom tuning experiments than implementing a specific microtonal scale.

chk071

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/271059#Comment_271059

Alright, thanks. 🙂

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