similarities/differences between Absynth and Crystal

[Meloday]

Okay. So I'm in the middle of deciding weather to buy symptohm or absynth. At this point (especially since I can't demo absynth 3)I'm leaning towards symptohm.

I've heard the comparison, on more than one occasion, that crystal is very similar to absynth. Why are these comparisons being made? The sound palettes? Functionality? Flexibility?

The reason I ask is because if absynth's sound palette isn't that much different from crystal's (which I love) it wouldn't make that much sense for me to spend the money on absynth which, in turn, clinches my decision on buying symptohm.

Thanks all!

nrb

[shamann]

Back in the day, there were a lot of comparisons between Crystal and Absynth. Some folk thought it suspicious that it seemed so similar to a free synth.

However, Absynth has added a lot of features in the meantime, I think the similarities have disappeared some. There will be an absynth demo soon (so NI says).

[experimental.crow]

crystal is a wonderful , free , gift to
musos everywhere , and , glenn deserves mad props for his developement ...

but it's not absynth ...

[ew]

Probably the flexibility and the multipoint envelopes. Crystal can do some things that Absynth can't, such as wave sequencing and loading soundfonts. Its mod matrix is a lot easier to get used to than Absynth's create an envelope for everything approach.
However, it doesn't have Absynth's more esoteric options such as granular synthesis, fractalization and the like. Plus, Crystal uses lots more CPU for a comparable sounding patch- figure about triple the hit.
As normal put it- Absynth is Absynth. It's in a class of its own (as is Crystal).
ew