Dust Road by Rekkerd

The Dust Road soundset by ModeAudio aims to bring the sounds of analogue synthesizers to Native Instruments Massive.

Now, I guess Massive isn't exactly known for its warm, analogue type sounds. You might think it's all about aggressive dubstep wobbles & harsh, digital sounding electro stabs, but it does in fact sport an analogue architecture.

Dust Road comes with 50 presets: 10 bass, 5 chords, 5 lead synths, 15 pads, 5 plucks, and 10 classic synth sounds. It also includes 50 MIDI loops which showcase the bass, synths and chords.

Below is a short video of me checking out the patches. The end of the video includes a short demo clip I made in some 15 minutes, using only the sounds from Dust Road and a drum kit preset from ModeAudio's Hyper Beats for Maschine 2.0.

So what do I think?

It's great to see a soundset for Massive with a bit of a different approach. I think Dust Road does a great job showcasing the more analogue side of Massive.

I have to admit the lovely demo track at the ModeAudio website already won me over. This pack has so many unique sounding patches, I am well impressed with Dust Road.

I love the movement, the slight variations you get when holding a note, and the useful macro assignments. With the included MIDI's you get a good idea of what ModeAudio was thinking of when designing the patches. The only section that didn't do much for me was the plucks.

In general, I reckon you're going to get some good use out of the sounds of Dust Road, especially if you do downtempo electronic music or cinematic works that need a gritty, analogue type vibe.

PRODUCT: DUST ROAD BY MODEAUDIO
FORMAT: 50 MASSIVE PATCHES + 50 MIDI FILES
PRICE: £12 GBP
LIKE: GRITTY VIBE, LOTS OF MOVEMENT IN THE SOUNDS
DON'T LIKE: PLUCKS
VERDICT: 8/10