im debating buying the upgrade to absynth 3.
to those of you who have already got the update...what do you think? is it worth the $100+ and if so, why?

im not setup for surround so that feature will be lost on me. i think the one feature that interests me the most is the all-in-one gui, and other UI related changes. how much do you feel that changes have improved the useability?

whats the fractalize like?

im currently a very light absynth user. just as with several other synths i've got, i love the sound of absynth, but other things/projects distracted from shortly after got it. but since i do still love the sound, i'd like to see if i can get more into it.

so i've been wondering if the 3.0 update would be worth my bothering with, since im not a serious user at all right now, or if UI changes (and other improvements) might inspire me to use it more.

-ugo

The surround feature is still useful running in stereo,ugo.All it does in stereo is add more outputs to your host if you wish.By careful panning,you can morph between the same channel feeding separate outputs with different external effects-a very cool thing indeed.You can do vectorish patches the same way.
The stereo option has two different settings-normal(think A2)and wide.Wide adds much more space,
The resonator is great,and the unison oscills make it even easier to get the fat analog sound.The frequency shifter is a single sided ring modulator,where you get the sum frequencies instead of both the sum and difference frequencies.Think OhmForce's Hematohm.
The fractalization adds a nice morphing texture to some patches,and the ability to use audio in as an oscil adds to the fun.
There's still some graphics bugs,but on the whole it's better sorted out than A2 was with its initial release...
You'd like it
ew

thanks for the info. cool to hear the new features are indeed fun...and especially nice to hear that i could still make creative use of the surround outputs. hmmm....

btw, know of any shops selling the updated for under $99? (just curious.)

-ugo

ew have you had an opportunity to mess with it's audio in functions?

Oh yeah
I'm working on something right now using it.I actually picked up my guitar for the first time in months( )and put my old Roland synth pickup on it.One channel's the guitar going through my Kasha and into Absynth as an oscil,and the other two channels are an Absynth patch controlled by the guitar.
What a sound
ew

could you post up an mp3?
i'd be interested to hear what thats like.

-ugo

When it's done...maybe tomorrow.
ew

I'm a little disappointed with it so far, to tell you the truth. All the new features are welcome, but I don't feel that they represent the same kind of step forward that the upgrade from 1 -> 2 did.

* ui improvements
The additions to the envelope editor are welcome. The rest are sort of a wash. I kind of liked the old separate editor screen and the new UI is less legible and suffers from some redraw bugs in the first release.

* unison mode & free oscs
This makes it easier to approximate more conventional analog sounds but I still wouldn't pick Absynth for that sort of thing.

* fractalize function
Haven't gotten anything musically useful out of this yet. Maybe more time will reveal the usefulness of this but right now it just seems to add extra HF harmonics, which was easy enough to do with A2.

* new effects
Kinda nonplussed by these too. Resonators seem most musically useful but I haven't gotten anything nearly as interesting out of them as the resonator effects in Reaktor.

So, overall I'm a little underwhelmed so far and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with it. It's easily bested by other synths for leads & basses and more traditional pad sounds. Old frustrations remain - only one effect can be used at a time, controller assignment is confusing and unconventional, the basic sound is somewhat antiseptic, it's granular synthesis is a lot less convincing than Reaktor's. It still excels at weird atmospheric stuff and complex evolving sounds but I don't feel that version 3 brings a whole lot more to that party than version 2 did. Perhaps after I've had a little more time with it I'll change my mind but so far I'm a little disappointed.

read ni's absynth forum - ab3 has lots of bugs, is much heavier on the cpu and the new sounds are dull. not worth the price imho. i'm waiting a while --- maybe another six months or so until the next $129 upgrade

Yup, I'm definitely holding off on the Absynth 3 upgrade as well. I could sink that $100 into lots of other stuff that I think I'd get more out of.

Cabinfever wrote:

read ni's absynth forum - ab3 has lots of bugs, is much heavier on the cpu and the new sounds are dull. not worth the price imho. i'm waiting a while --- maybe another six months or so until the next $129 upgrade

Agree, ill stick to absynth 2 for a while. Its to expensive, just to get audio input, and some suround outputtings. when I calculate it, ive used a lot of monny on un-necesary plugs and upgrades the last years (meaning I dont realy use them), even though its only $129, it will fast grow to $1290 if I was to upgrade and purchase all the "must haves" in a year.

Though id think it would be interesting running a drum loop through it, use surround sound outputs and apply different effects on theese different chanels in the host! Im interested in what absynth3 can do with that kind of prosessing. Will it pan the suround image in interesting "morphing" ways? And what does it add of internal sounds to the prosessed signal?

Id love to hear some examples of this! Well, theres probably coming a demo soon I can try..

I've been considering buying Bsynth 3, ( idon't have any earlier version), but from all of NI's demos, I've found them to be buggy and unstable using Logic on PC and on a Mac.

I think I'll wait 'til a few updates sort out the bugs.

I've not got it yet, but don't complain about its sound. Its marketed as something "different" so don't compare it to the flock.

Oceanzen wrote:

I've been considering buying Bsynth 3, ( idon't have any earlier version), but from all of NI's demos, I've found them to be buggy and unstable using Logic on PC and on a Mac. I think I'll wait 'til a few updates sort out the bugs.

I never tried their demos but my Komplete2 is very stable (PC)

Sicklecell666 wrote:

ew have you had an opportunity to mess with it's audio in functions?

you'd love it

spaceman wrote:

Sicklecell666 wrote: ew have you had an opportunity to mess with it's audio in functions? you'd love it

Not for long, though

Cabinfever wrote:

read ni's absynth forum - ab3 has lots of bugs, is much heavier on the cpu and the new sounds are dull. not worth the price imho. i'm waiting a while --- maybe another six months or so until the next $129 upgrade

It has less bugs than v2 did when v2 was first release-trust me on that.NI's aware of the bugs(most of them being graphics)-they acknowlege this point in the readme(which most people tend to ignore ).The CPU hit is from the patches using the new features-they're aware that some optimizing needs to be done.
If it's not worth the price to you-fine.Just don't kick yourself later
ew

ew wrote:

NI's aware of the bugs(most of them being graphics)-they acknowlege this point in the readme(which most people tend to ignore

so ni decided to release a product it knew was full of bugs, but because they mention them in the readme that makes it all ok ?

picture the scene in ni...

marketing man: "release 3 still has a whole lot of serious bugs, what'll we do ?"

accountant: "we've committed to releasing it. it's in our komplete pack so its gotta ship."

marketing man: "i know, lets just put a readme file in there saying that we know all about the bugs"

accountant: "brilliant ! that'll make people think we give a shit about their problems and make us look thorough."

marketing man: "and we can fix all the bugs whenever we happen to get around to it."

accountant: "he he he, you mean fix them for version 4 and charge the dumb synth addicts another $129 "

marketing man: "done ! now where are we going for lunch ?"

It's not quite like that,Cabinfever(even though I see your point)...
Yes,they knew there were some unresolved bugs in it when it was released.That's not any different than 80% of the software released these days.
The only one I've run into that's a potential show stopper is the no srollbars on the new envelope window,so if you have the channels maxed out with envelpes,you have to delete some to do master envelopes.You can reinsert the channel ones after that though,so all's not lost.
I'll state once again-3's initial release is much more bug free than 2's was(not that it justifies anything)
ew

Hey man, it's customary for all NI apps to be released in the raw..why act surprised?

Battery 2 was released without even having output config options..



Big Deal. All NI products still kick the brains out of everything else, so I could care less what needs to be fixed in v1.05..Reaktor 4 was launched with a misery of bugs & non-optimized code..2 months later that was almost completely forgotten as the opiates were flowing unobstructed due to swift updates..



Everyone's gotta take a shot at the guys on top..

Losers.

You guys act like it's the actual coders who have any say about if & when a pruduct launches..Those guys probably bust their ASSES getting these things as close to perfect for an unrealistic launch date as possible, so how about a little respect, eh?

Sicklecell666 wrote:

You guys act like it's the actual coders who have any say about if & when a pruduct launches..Those guys probably bust their ASSES getting these things as close to perfect for an unrealistic launch date as possible, so how about a little respect, eh?

Add the testers to that,and I couldn't have said it any better myself
ew

HI

I loaded up battery V2 in SX the other day - it took me several hours to scroll down through the frigin outputs that it threw up!


Flipper.

Have you installed the 2.1 update,flipper?That's supposed to address that problem(or so I've heard-I haven't updated my Battery 1 yet...)
ew

Sicklecell666 wrote:

Hey man, it's customary for all NI apps to be released in the raw..why act surprised?

I'm not that bothered by the bugs in A3. It's pretty stable for a first release, actually.

I am a little underwhelmed by the new features so far though.

kuniklo wrote:

I am a little underwhelmed by the new features so far though.

I can't speak for you, but Absynth has never been the most intuitive programming enviornment for me, so maybe there's more under the hood you are yet to discover..

Another deep breath, hold your nose & plunge downwards..or inwards..or inside-outwards..

Sicklecell666 wrote:

I can't speak for you, but Absynth has never been the most intuitive programming enviornment for me, so maybe there's more under the hood you are yet to discover.. Another deep breath, hold your nose & plunge downwards..or inwards..or inside-outwards..

That's certainly possible. My disappointment so far is just a first impression.

I just got Absynth 3 and I think it sounds better than Absynth 2.AS 3 has wider stereo image than AS2 and AS 3 can produce surround sound which is very useful for sound designers. It has also some new features and new graphics. But most importantly you can still hear that it's Absynth(I think the sound that AS produces is something very unique)

Quote:

is much heavier on the cpu

Well that was one reason more for not buying it, another: Agreeing with Sicklecell666 "empty pockets". But when thinking of the synths I have which I would like to use some more but can`t because they drain the cpu like vampires, I would urge Vst manufactures to make efficientcy a much bigger issue on their schedule than it is now. By the way can not recall the bugs in Absynth 2, regarding the gui I like that very much in 2, why have they changed it It is one of my most used synths, with the way of handling the presets as one of the finest around.

>> absynth 3 update: worth the price?

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=891364

It's only some of the patches using the new features that are CPU intensive.Otherwise,it's the same as A2.
ew

Fair enough, then there might be a future for it on my pc sometime, but I still wish they had not changed the apearance of it in such a degree.

i've had it installed for about 24hrs. now ...

barely scratched the surface ...

is it worth the price to upgrade ?...

in a word ... yes ...

normal wrote:

i've had it installed for about 24hrs. now ... barely scratched the surface ... is it worth the price to upgrade ?... in a word ... yes ...

why?

EDIT: OPPS.. .just got onto this thread and never read the other 3 pages

TC

Quote:

so ni decided to release a product it knew was full of bugs, but because they mention them in the readme that makes it all ok ? Laughing picture the scene in ni... marketing man: "release 3 still has a whole lot of serious bugs, what'll we do ?" accountant: "we've committed to releasing it. it's in our komplete pack so its gotta ship." marketing man: "i know, lets just put a readme file in there saying that we know all about the bugs" accountant: "brilliant ! that'll make people think we give a shit about their problems and make us look thorough." marketing man: "and we can fix all the bugs whenever we happen to get around to it." accountant: "he he he, you mean fix them for version 4 and charge the dumb synth addicts another $129 Laughing " marketing man: "done ! now where are we going for lunch ?"

We had such fun reading that...I forwarded it to our marketing guys (I'm one of them) and to the accountants...
I wish you all a lot of fun with Absynth3's new featurs! We are working very hard on the update and even droped the demo version because of that - but no worries we will work on it right after the update is done.
greets,
Daniel (NI)

so what will happen if there are user created Absynth 3 patches in the NI user's banks and an Absynth 2 owner tries to load and run that Absynth 3 bank in Absynth 2?

in the two cases of with and without the new features?

the answer to that will influence my decision (a few days left) to go with Komplete Care.

(i am leaning toward going for it. just add it to the pile of Xmas bills)

wrench45us wrote:

so what will happen if there are user created Absynth 3 patches in the NI user's banks and an Absynth 2 owner tries to load and run that Absynth 3 bank in Absynth 2? in the two cases of with and without the new features? the answer to that will influence my decision (a few days left) to go with Komplete Care. (i am leaning toward going for it. just add it to the pile of Xmas bills)

afaik , there are no A3 only banks in the UL yet ...

in an effort to answer your question , i did the following :

open A2 in mini-host ...
attempt to load one of the A3 factory banks into A2 ...
this brings up an error message that 'this bank is not a valid absynth bank' ...

to note:
an A2 bank that has been opened , and saved in A3 , still loads into A2 , contrary to what i was lead to believe ...

normal,
thanks for checking that out.

one of the concern with updates is this feeling of being left behind.

the fact that absynth 3 factory presets won't play in Absynth 2 means Absynth 2 will become a bit of an island -- a very large island, esp. if one can program sounds, but an island.

the creative thrust of (most) sound designers will undoubtedly focus on Absynth 3 and as much as anything I wouldn't want to miss that.

My Komplete Care decision has to weigh this issue.

wrench45us wrote:

normal, thanks for checking that out. one of the concern with updates is this feeling of being left behind. the fact that absynth 3 factory presets won't play in Absynth 2 means Absynth 2 will become a bit of an island -- a very large island, esp. if one can program sounds, but an island. the creative thrust of (most) sound designers will undoubtedly focus on Absynth 3 and as much as anything I wouldn't want to miss that. My Komplete Care decision has to weigh this issue.

it's not inconceivable that , in time , A2 will be left behind by the user community ...

A2 generated a vast amount of user banks , both in the user library , and from the yahoo group ...

the improved stereo field , and surround options in A3 breathe new life into the existing A2 patches ...

it's really quite stunning ...

This thread has really given me a dilemma. I don't own Absynth, but over the past few weeks I've sold a few synths to raise the cash to buy it.

Then this debate turns up...

I don't know what to do.

it sounds excellent
can make sounds no other synth can make
it's really great to programm
lot's of patches to start from
great effects and filters
I think the cpu usage is good for what it does

but what should I do?

My buddy sure seems to think this new version is the dog's bollocks.

CypherOne wrote:

This thread has really given me a dilemma. I don't own Absynth, but over the past few weeks I've sold a few synths to raise the cash to buy it. Then this debate turns up... I don't know what to do.

I don't want you to suffer with that dilemma............. so send the money to me. Then you don't have to worry about it anymore

CypherOne wrote:

but what should I do?

Get it, of course. I'm still a little on the fence about the new version but even without all the new features it's still an amazing instrument.

normal wrote:

an A2 bank that has been opened , and saved in A3 , still loads into A2 , contrary to what i was lead to believe ...

And my results were just the opposite
As to the A2/A3 bank problem in the user library,I recommended in the Absynth forum(and I'll recommend it here as well)that anyone uploading banks to the library either put in the bank's name or in the description in the library that the bank is an A3 bank.For example,joe's bank-A3 would be the bank name.
ew

ew wrote:

normal wrote: an A2 bank that has been opened , and saved in A3 , still loads into A2 , contrary to what i was lead to believe ... And my results were just the opposite As to the A2/A3 bank problem in the user library,I recommended in the Absynth forum(and I'll recommend it here as well)that anyone uploading banks to the library either put in the bank's name or in the description in the library that the bank is an A3 bank.For example,joe's bank-A3 would be the bank name. ew

well ...
i opened it in A3 , but didn't save it in A3 ...
now that i've saved it in A3 , it no longer opens in A2 ...

( like you said ) ...

I'd say "I told you so ",but...

Wait a minute!Screw this nice guy thing!

I told you so


ew

CypherOne wrote:

but what should I do?

wait until I sell mine in a moment of insanity

too late, I've ordered it....

As to the A2/A3 bank problem in the library,there will be a scanner in place when you upload a bank that will put whether it's for A2 or A3 in the bank comments.Expect it in the next few weeks.
For all of you A3 owners who were having problems logging in to the user library,that was fixed today.
ew

ew wrote:

As to the A2/A3 bank problem in the library,there will be a scanner in place when you upload a bank that will put whether it's for A2 or A3 in the bank comments.Expect it in the next few weeks. For all of you A3 owners who were having problems logging in to the user library,that was fixed today. ew

i find it tiring that NI moderaters constantly post useful information , and tips on this board ...
they must have some kind of an agenda ...

CypherOne wrote:

too late, I've ordered it....

you sellin your update yet?

que?

normal wrote:

i find it tiring that NI moderaters constantly post useful information , and tips on this board ... they must have some kind of an agenda ...

Hear hear.

Devious cabal, that lot. At least they should tell us in advance that they are trying to help us. It's misleading otherwise.

i want it but cant afford it yet(dont get paid till next friday)it was merely a joke mate dont get para

not para mate, just confused. I never ordered an update, just the whole shebang, I've never had any version of Absynth before.

I'll sell you a picture of the manual tho...

ah i see,in that case your in for a treat
i adore 2 as possibly one of my most used pieces id definitely say well worth the cash,just cant wait till ive got the cash for the update and elec instruments vol2 PHOTONE will be mine

shamann wrote:

normal wrote: i find it tiring that NI moderaters constantly post useful information , and tips on this board ... they must have some kind of an agenda ... Hear hear. Devious cabal, that lot. At least they should tell us in advance that they are trying to help us. It's misleading otherwise.

Sorry...I'll get my coat


ew

ew wrote:

shamann wrote: normal wrote: i find it tiring that NI moderaters constantly post useful information , and tips on this board ... they must have some kind of an agenda ... Hear hear. Devious cabal, that lot. At least they should tell us in advance that they are trying to help us. It's misleading otherwise. Sorry...I'll get my coat ew

oh ...
great ...
now you rub my face in the fact that you have a coat ...

will this abuse ever cease ?...

Probably not
ew