Miles Raymer, Reader music writer, is obsessed with . . .
Native Instruments’ Massive synthesizer and Korg’s NanoKEY2 keyboard Massive is a polyphonic software synthesizer with enough oscillators and filters (and options for routing them into one another) that you have the potential for thousands of sounds before you even touch the virtual knobs or built-in step sequencer. It retails for $199, but if you already own certain Native Instruments gear you can download it free. I control this great-sounding synth with a $50 keyboard that weighs less than many paperbacks. If you could take this setup to the 70s and show it to Brian Eno, he’d shit his kimono.
Another Ma$e comeback I’m probably one of the biggest Ma$e fans on earth, but the powers that be have to cool it on giving this man so many chances. Every few years he pops up when some executive or rapper puts the battery back in his back. In 2012 it was Kanye and G.O.O.D. Music, and while it was dope to hear the pastor once again, I’d rather see these opportunities given to Juvenile or Trick Daddy or Peedi Crakk or somebody. Mason’s entire career has been a disappearing-and-reappearing act.
