Native Instruments Absynth

I've been making music for about 25 years, and I've released two CDs. I'm using version 1.3.4 in standalone mode on a Windows 98, Pentium III 450 computer. I don't know how it performs in a DXi environment yet, I'll be upgrading to a new computer soon that can handle DXi. My listening environment is soundcard (Soundblaster Live!) to headphones (Sony).

The user interface (UI) is good, overall. Some people might not like the stylized sci-fi design, but it's effective, and it becomes appealing when you spend time with it. I especially like that it's very easy to add/delete audio components from the processing chain.

One complaint about the UI: unlike NI's FM7 product, you can't use your typing keyboard to play notes. This is a serious hindrance to people who primarily like to work with only a computer keyboard and mouse. NI should fix this! I would really like to see NI determine it's "best practices" (such as allowing the user to play notes with the computer keyboard), and then implement these best practices on each of its products. It's annoying when a good feature on one NI product is missing in another NI product.

The manual is fairly good, with three minor complaints: (1) although Absynth is for both PC and Mac, some of the text assumes Mac usage, (2) there is no index (unlike the FM7 manual), and (3) the mysterious "Abysnth Engine" is mentioned, but never explained. The manual should definitely be edited before the next major release!

Overall, there's a huge amount of sound variety and tweakability. Absynth is really at the future of cutting edge, twisting and modifying sounds, and it can also reproduce natural instruments fairly well (though not as good as a dedicated sampler can). The envelopes provide a lot of expressive power.

Absynth is semi-modular, which means that you can EASILY add/delete audio components from the signal chain. Abysnth gives the user a lot of tweakability power, but without the maddening complexity of modular softsynths like Reaktor.

i have been making music since i can remember and i play guitar and synths, have been in bands blah blah. the version i use is 1.3.4. always update ur shit it is better if u do. integrates seamlessly with digital performer 3.0 via audio and midi. i use this plugin for everything from ill ass ambient drones to hyperdistorted fucked up leads, electric pianos, LOOPS THE ENVELOPES ARE SICK, basses that blows ur head off, stabs, breakdowns, can be used as anything as flexable as all the hardware i got. i use a mac g3 and got os 9. i use monitors.

INTUITIVE AS HELL. SO EASY. maybe not for complete newbies but nothing i have quite is. no problems. automation not quite supported but the envelopes make up for it. one thing i wish is that u could modulate the waveforms themselves that would be very interesting. very easy to get just about any sound u can conceive and more!!!!!! the manual is straight up to the point.

IN A MIX SOUNDS LIKE I WANT A SYNTH TO SOUND AND MORE. very sweet sounding warmest software synth ever. presets are ok, they definatly showcase some of the finer sound design elements (the evolving atmospheres are pretty sweet for this). fuck presets anyway make ur own shit thats what absynth is all about. expressive as any synth with a few knobs. responds great to all keyboards i use. stereo sweetness. sounds as good as any 96k shit to me :> :> :>
as much polyphony as i need (u set this with patches). multitibral definatly.

WORTH EVERY PENNY THIS THING MAKES ME HORNEY AS MY HARDWARE SHIT (i own some hot korg and waldorf boards). fuck other plugins that are semi modular synths this has u covered, tassman actually looks like its cool. i love this program i hate nothing about it other then no realtime knobs, but its software dewds and dewdettes. i wish u could control waveform parameters with multi segment envelopes that woul dbe VERY phatt. its sweet on the cpu i run multitudes of things at once and i have a shitty comp. never crashed with the version i have older version did however.

This is in response to the last review:
You don't have to put in numbers to change the settings. There are sliders that change the individual digits. Granted, they don't look like conventional sliders, but each one is dedicated to a digit i.e 1/1000s, 1/100s. 1/10s, 1, 10s, etc.
I have been making music for 35 years, but only been using a synth in the last several months. I make experimental electronic music with Absynth and find it the best of several soft synths that I own. I have it going through a PC. There is a very good Absynth community on the internet and there are hundreds of patches available to download for free.

This is a very easy synth to tweak. If you are just starting out, I can't think of an easier and more intuitive synth to get. The manual is just ok, but there is quite a bit of tutorials on the internet to get you going. There is some automation to support your keyboard controller. It works very well with Sonar. I have never had any problems with it. There is a user group on Yahoo where Absynth's maker, Brian Clevinger is accessible.

Wonderful sounds. This is great for sound designers and experimental electonic music. Don't get this if you're looking for B3s or Pianos. (although you can get some close sounds). There are many other soft synths out there that specialize in those. There are great presets available and you can easily tweak them and save them. It has some great effects (reverb, delays, flanges) as well, and that's where you can get some neat stereo effects.

This is one of the more inexpensive soft synths out there and it really delivers the sounds in a easy to use package. You can use it by itself or with a sequencer. It even has its own recorder that you can do some sound on sound overlays. Goes great with Sonar or Acid. I can't remember the last time it crashed on me. I have never had it shut down because it taxed my CPU.

Amazing sounds, absolutely amazing. Very deep, complex, atmospheric, professional. Excellent for soundscapes/chillout music or simply trance intro/outro/breakdown. Beautiful sound. You can make a song just by changing some presets and playing random notes, and it will sound professional. Amazing huh?

This synth is perfect in every way.. EXCEPT sound editing. It's a complete pain in the ass.. and i hope its something they'll fix in future releases. Even something as basic as changing the types of filters, and filter settings.. YOU HAVE TO ENTER NUMBERS TO CHANGE FILTER SETTINGS, and practically everything else. IT SHOULD HAVE KNOBS AND SLIDERS FOR THESE THINGS... this really makes things a pain in the arse.

If they released this thing with knobs, sliders, etc. instead of having to enter numbers.. this would be 100% PERFECT.

ARE YOU LISTENING NATIVE INSTRUMENTS???? Get a clue and make this thing USER FRIENDLY!!!!!!

V 1.2
The presets are rich and have a polished, cinematic quality about them. There are some great portions of the editor- for instance, the section for entering envelopes. Other parts of the editor seem perfunctory and dull. There's a very wide range of sounds but without an endless number of hard to find parameters. That's the magic quality you want in a synth and not to many have it.

The character of this synth, what sets it apart, seems to be the effects section. There are only three effects, and it's really only the first two of them that make up the heart of the design. You'll wish the effects were available separately- they would be amazing on other material.

It's very good at bright/hard/spooky/atmospheric. It doesn't seem to do warm/intimate/earthy.

The latency is not so bad for a soft synth, but not good enough for serious keyboard playing- but that's a problem with all soft synths.

Wonderful as a sequencer sound source.

I would NEVER trust it for live use, but that's probably true for most soft synths. It can create a range of sounds that are unlike anything else and it's fun to play with. Might be the first soft synth that's both cheap, easy to use, and capable of sounds you can't get out of any hardware synth. So, it's definitely worth the money. The question is whether it's worth the time- to reboot a lot.

Here I have to say I have not had much luck. I'm running with Logic 4.8.1 Platinum, and my system seems to be rock stable when I'm not using Absynth. With Absynth, I get about a crash an hour, usually during an Absynth edit. Absynth launches a separate master program that interacts with the VST plugin- a complicated arrangement. It does have a feeling of being a hack.

First of all, it was hard to buy. The first box I bought had no CD- and it turned out all the boxes in the store where I bought it had no CDs. It seems the company is having growing pains. Frustrating, even though it's clear they're stressed out and trying their best. The company has told me that another product I bought from them (Spektral Delay) does in fact cause crashes with Logic and that they're still working on a fix- but that was promised last year and it still isn't done. In that case I spent non-refundable money on something that has been absolutely useless. I felt discouraged by that experience, and didn't try very hard to talk to them about Absynth problems. When I have tried, I sometimes get responses to emails and sometimes not.

I've been using Absynth at work (I've been a full time composer/sound designer for over 10 years) for only 2-3 months now. I've used it a great deal in this short time. As long as you understand synth basics it is fairly easy to use and learn. It has an incredible library of presets that come with it. This is not really a synth for making "bread & butter" sounds - pianos, horns, strings, etc. though it can if you really want it to. It's really a very advanced sound designers type of synth as well as a groove box /loop maker. I have never ever encountered a software or hardware synth capable of what Absynth does. No words can do it justice - just go hear it - if hearing it doesn't freak out you better check your pulse. The printed manual is very well done and very helpful.

I use it (on a MAC obviously - the only platform it's available on at the moment) with Logic Audio Platinum. It is 8 part multi-timbiral and the polyphony is limited only your cpu's horsepower. Polyphony is set and saved with each patch. The more polyphony you use, the bigger the hit your cpu takes. It does better on the more high powered macs though I've used it on both a G3 and a G4, as well as a PPC604e with a G3 upgrade card. I've never had it crash on me. The synth engine consists of 3 identical oscillators which are ultra versatile and powerful. The ocsillators have multiple modes - single/double/FM/ring mod. In addition there are quite a number of useful waveforms, but if you don't find what you're looking for you can just DRAW and edit your own waveform!! Too cool! The filters and modulators are also much deeper than what you see in the newer hardware synths. The envelopes are where you'll notice the biggest difference - up to 68 segments for each envelope. The envelope segments even include slope control - very deep. These envelopes give Absynth the ability to make some unbelieveable loops - both pitched and non-pitched. The one unusual thing though is that the lfo's and envelopes are not midi syncable. Instead you can adjust to your desired tempo by using a handy autoscale function. You just dial in the bpm and you're done. One of my co-workers told me that the tempo does drift from Logic's tempo after a while but I personally have yet to encounter this - I usually retrigger my rhythm loops every 2 - 4 measures anyway. But I digress. These 3 oscillator lines can be fed into another section NI calls the waveshaper module. Here you can add gain and/or add distortion. After this, there is yet another filter, and finally the effects section. The effects include multi tap delay, multicomb (6 independent delay lines w. lots of control) , and pipe. Pipe is hard to describe, it seems to be able to add a cool organic quality to the sound. Again, no words will do it justice. And to top it all off - it even has a built in hard disk recorder which you can overdub with as well. That being said, a single oscillator on the Absynth has enormously powerful sonic capabilities - you get 3 of these. One can be doing a slammin' bass loop while the other two are kicking out an intense rhythmic groove or whatever. The creative possibilities on this device are inspiring and I'm still probably leaving out plenty of other cool stuff about it.

In addition to Absynth's amazing groove/beat/loop making abilities, it has all the desireable fat warm analog qualities you'd look for in a straight ahead synth. Because the basic synth engine is so powerful though, the sounds are otherworldly. They give the impression of being acoustic, organic, even ethnic, yet they're anything but. Some of the presets sound like some sort of strummed ethnic instrument - yet you know you've never ever heard anything like it. Some of the patches have cool talkbox like formant qualities to them. I wouldn't say Absynth is made to copy or emulate sounds like pianos etc. so much as it is made to create very life like, organic sounding fictive musical instruments.

Getting Absynth is a no brainer if you're into really modern music - which is how I'm using it at the moment. I see great possibilities in many other musical styles though. You'll never find a hardware synth that will do what Absynth can do at ANY price - none - I already have them: Virus, Nord 2, Oberheim Xpander, Prophet Vector Synth - all great -but NOTHING like Absynth - which retails at a mere $299.00! Sure you need a Mac G3 or G4 - but Absynth is a MONSTER synth and will be a sonic force to be reckoned with for the hardware synth companies.

Solid though I downloaded the 1.2.3 update - which included 2 more banks of new killer sounds. The update did some things I didn't care for and I went back to the original 1.2 version. The 1.2.3 version wouldn't reload the sounds correctly when returning to a work in progress - you had to re-select them - even though it appeared to have the correct sounds selected. Until I would re-select the sound, Absynth played only sine waves - weird. Going back to 1.2 fixed this problem for me though. The download is worth it just to get the 2 new sound banks though.

I've only

Version 1.2 comes right out of the box and installs in a flash. Very little setup hassle, detected and integrated into OMS with no poking or prodding. I've played around with a bunch of soft synths (Reaktor, Reason, the Vibra series, etc...) and Absynth is easilly the most instantly gratifying synth yet. Presets are a dream come true, especially if you are into the eclectic, soundscapey, ambient-style patches. A few presets deliver that amazing Squarepusher "drill and bass" sound with single keys or simple chords, and the potential is just staggering.

Patch editing is all laid out nicely, both in terms of interface and in explanation in the printed manual (kudos to NI for not copping out and delivering a PDF manual only, like those nasty Propellerheads folks...)

Polyphony is strange- the program is truly only 8 part multitimbral in its' plug in state, but even single patches in standalone mode are rich and full of life and sonic fury. All the great synthesis types are here, AM, FM, Waveshaping, and Subtractive and the ability to mitch and match to your hearts' content can create some downright amazing sounds limited only by your patience and sense of adventure/curiousity. Envelopes, ringmods, and oscillators have never sounded this good in a software synth before, and the supplied sound libraries are great jumping off points for really fucking with people's heads! I forsee this program becoming a favorite child for creators of IDM and industrial music, as the sounds are well suited for these styles and at your fingertips with little to no effort whatsoever.

full midi control and compatability is had here, as is VST, ASIO, OMS, DirectConnect, MAS, Freemidi, and Soundmanager, and even on my wimpy iMac 400 it sounds great and runs like a cracked-out athelete (256 mb RAM is recommended- the 128 mb requirement when used as a plug-in may intimidate some, but the results are worth the RAM investment, especially with the current RAM prices...) If this had it's own sequencer, I'd hardly need another thing, but alas...

Again, this thing is a SONIC MOTHERFUCKER- probably not your thing if you want to make any style of music other than electronic/ambient/industrial/dance type jams, but I could see some truly amazing hip-hop being done with this, in the right hands. Jazz and r&b types will probably want to look elsewhere, as you won't find amazing pianos or terribly lifelike basses, but the things this baby does well are almost unsurpassed. If this program had the KARMA synthesis/GE creation ability and a built in sequencer, I'd file for divorce and marry my computer.

response is about average, latency not a terrible issue on my iMac, so I bet with an ASIO setup this thing is TIGHT. Responds to aftertouch and velocity, along with other controller types, and I have yet to encounter any weird compatability issues (stuck notes, crackles, etc...)

if it were lost or stolen, I would cry. Absynth has only been a part of my life for a short while and I am absolutely floored by its' sounds- Fans of Skinny Puppy will wonder how they survived without this, and anyone who makes any sort of electronic music will benefit from this program immensely. NI is not known for making very user-friendly software (Reaktor is a science unto itself) but AbSynth is hopefully the beginning of a new era for both NI and software synthesis in general, as it is incredibly versatile, feature laden, complex, and still easy to pick up and a joy to use. Warning: you will lose DAYS of your life just screwing around with drawing waveforms and listening to how it fucks up your sounds, this could become a controlled substance, so buy it now before the cops step in...

No crashes yet, but it is a software synth, so use it live at your own risk. NI is pretty dependable, but the weakest link is what you have on your computer and how you maintain your OS- tweaker types will probably experience near flawless performance and hobbyists may encounter a bit rougher waters, but that comes with the territory.

Nver dealt with NI, but all the feedback I've seen is that they are princes to deal with. One note- the cd has a crazy copy protection scheme that really messed with my head (2 little holes drilled into the disc itself)- not really backup-friendly, if it's even possible, so treat your disc with care and don't lose it, as you may be asked to reinsert it if you make any system changes