Product: Native Instruments Absynth DXi
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted
11/15/2002
at
09:24pm
by
MarkM
Reviewer Background
:
Ease of Use
:
9
I'm new to synthesizerzs, and this one teaches you the basics of creating patches for synths. The GUI is very
intuitive. If you don't want to tweak your own sounds, then there is a plethora of presets sounds for all
occasions. Absynth is a soft synth so you load it into your computer and use the keyboard representation or a
midi keyboard controller attached to the computer.
It does not have a sequencer or arpegiator (sp?). What it does have is 6 oscillators, 4 filters, 3 ring modulators,
waveshaper and delay processor per voice. Also it freely drawable waveforms. And a multitude of graphical
envelopes with up to 68 break points per envelope. The envelope features really set this soft synth apart. You
can record on to your hardrive with its built-in recorder. It even has sound on sound capabilities. It links to host
programs like Sonar via DXi. It seems pretty stable to me. You can have up to 8 instances in Sonar.
Works ok for me. I don't use it live, but if you have a good soundcard and beefy computer, you could.
There are several User groups on the internet that love to trade preset patches. I haven't had any need to get in
touch with Native Instruments. The manual is not great.
Sounds/Sound Quality
:
8
For unusual organic pads and weird sounds, Absynth is fantastic. I didn't get it to sound like a piano or a B3.
There are some piano and harpsichord sounds that are fairly good. But if you're looking for strange sounds and
textures, Absynth is great.
Overall Rating
:
10
I love Absynth's simplicity and great range of sounds. It seems not to use a great deal of CPU. After Absynth I
bought Native Instruments flagship, Reaktor. Reaktor has a much steeper learning curve, and for a beginner like
me, it's harder to start making music. With Absynth, I was quickly up and ready to create.
