How come nobody ever talks about Absynth anymore?

[EnGee]

No! I'm saying that new synths are not necessary better than the old ones!

Actually, I'm discovering new ways for me to make FM8, Absynth 5 and Massive sound huge and big! Using Guitar Rig I mean effects in general make sounds bigger.

[LeVzi]

Having just gone down the Komplete road, now I have this synth to use, and jesus its powerful, only used presets so far, but its such a lush sounding thing.

Instantly like it

[voidhead23]

Glad this thread popped back up. i've recently been getting into really learning Absynth after years of neglect and am really becoming more and more impressed by it now that i have some clue of how to program a synth. Yeah, it does the experimental pad thing fine, but that avenue with this synth has been done to death and is really bad marketing for it, imho. Where it shines, i think, is in creating sounds that really blur the line between synthesis and physical instruments, until the sound becomes musical but not precisely identifiable.

When i load up something like Zebra, yeah, it sounds beautiful, but it still retains its synthy-ness even after considerable processing. When i load up Serum or Massive, you get that great wavetable crunch, but it's definitely an identifiable synth sound (nowadays especially). Absynth can get really abstract if you take a slightly alternative approach when designing basic synth sounds like leads, plucks, arps, etc and start mixing up what your oscillator sources are, and what effects you're using. The only other synth i've used that comes close to this is Thorn...but in a different, more digital way. You also have to work to get a stereo sound in Absynth as it stays quite contentedly in mono, which makes it way, way easier to mix if you make your own patches (even some of the factory patches are way more mono compatible than anything you'd find in a more recent synth).

i've also gotten pretty good, thick analog sounds out of it that satisfy me even more than something like Repro, though i still can't get a good, tight low-end out of it like what i would expect from a u-he synth or TRK-01.

i'm not bothered by the filters (yeah, they're not u-he filters, but that's also part of its character) or lack of knobs, though i do think the UI could be resized and cleaned up a little. But the longer i spend with it, the more it's becoming my favorite. And i don't do ambient music. i just really wished i had learned it thoroughly earlier.

[Ah_Dziz]

I still use it quite regularly for a wide variety of things. It's one of my go-to pad/ drone synths. I'm guessing that you don't hear much discussion of it because most of it's user base has had it as a part of Komplete for a good long while. You don't often have folks wondering whether they should just buy absynth all by itself.

It's a damn amazing synth though and uses next to no resources.

JJ

[Kalamata Kid]

Love the Mutator in Absynth.
It is the best randomizer of all plugins!
Also how it handles fine adjustments.

Check out
Absynth 5 Overview with Brian Clevinger Part 1

[ghettosynth]

i'm not bothered by the filters (yeah, they're not u-he filters, but that's also part of its character)

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

[voidhead23]

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

You can also dismiss any person's subjective viewpoint like this. Good job. It doesn't mean i can't make sounds i like with this synth as it is.

[ghettosynth]

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

You can also dismiss any person's subjective viewpoint like this. Good job. It doesn't mean i can't make sounds i like with this synth as it is.

I make sounds that I like with it as well. However, my point holds, the filters aren't good. They're a big reason why Absynth consumes so little CPU. That video above tells you all you need to know, this thing was done in the late 90s.

But if you want to say that weak technology is synonymous with character then you can, indeed, say that about anything and there's absolutely no point in asking questions as in the title of the thread. People don't use Absynth because it is outdated. Some don't use it because the U/I is outdated and some don't use it because the technology itself is outdated.

So I just loaded up some patches for fun. Look at Bowed Steelpipes, this is what Absynth does fairly well. The filters are mostly being used in a clinical way with no focus on emphasis or saturation. It's a sound that combines a simple wave osc with some granular synthesis. Even in this though, you can hear some artifacts, particularly in the comb filter.

Absynth is good for quickly layering simple sample and wavetable sounds in an additive like way. It reminds me a lot of working with the JD-800 back in the day. But, like the JD, it's filters are crap so you have to be careful to use them in ways that don't expose their weaknesses. I don't call that character, I call that weak and outdated modeling. While there is nostalgia for crappy sounding filters, I don't get it and I'm not onboard with it. Absynth would be a much better synth if it had new filters. Maybe NI will take what they learn from Massive X and update Absynth, but I doubt it. I think that there's probably too much overlap.

[EnGee]

It doesn't matter the filter in this synth. Really! It matters in analogue emulations like Diva and RePro but it is the last thing I'm concerned of with sci-fi synths

[perpetual3]

i'm not bothered by the filters (yeah, they're not u-he filters, but that's also part of its character)

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

But he didn’t dismiss any criticism. He just said that it doesn’t bother him.

[ghettosynth]

It doesn't matter the filter in this synth. Really! It matters in analogue emulations like Diva and RePro but it is the last thing I'm concerned of with sci-fi synths

Absolute nonsense. It matters in every case where you are putting in a digital filter model of an analog device. What exactly do you think a digital filter is anyway?

I really don't get apologetics for synthesizers.

[perpetual3]

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

You can also dismiss any person's subjective viewpoint like this. Good job. It doesn't mean i can't make sounds i like with this synth as it is.

I make sounds that I like with it as well. However, my point holds, the filters aren't good. They're a big reason why Absynth consumes so little CPU. That video above tells you all you need to know, this thing was done in the late 90s.

But if you want to say that weak technology is synonymous with character then you can, indeed, say that about anything and there's absolutely no point in asking questions as in the title of the thread. People don't use Absynth because it is outdated. Some don't use it because the U/I is outdated and some don't use it because the technology itself is outdated.

So I just loaded up some patches for fun. Look at Bowed Steelpipes, this is what Absynth does fairly well. The filters are mostly being used in a clinical way with no focus on emphasis or saturation. It's a sound that combines a simple wave osc with some granular synthesis. Even in this though, you can hear some artifacts, particularly in the comb filter.

Absynth is good for quickly layering simple sample and wavetable sounds in an additive like way. It reminds me a lot of working with the JD-800 back in the day. But, like the JD, it's filters are crap so you have to be careful to use them in ways that don't expose their weaknesses. I don't call that character, I call that weak and outdated modeling. While there is nostalgia for crappy sounding filters, I don't get it and I'm not onboard with it. Absynth would be a much better synth if it had new filters. Maybe NI will take what they learn from Massive X and update Absynth, but I doubt it. I think that there's probably too much overlap.

Yeah man, but many people find technical defects to be sources of character. Just look at old samplers, like the Emu I/II, Akai S950/S1000, SP1200, etc. Or effects like VectoMelt, Retro Color, Permut8, Dégrader or that trio of effects from NI (crush pack?). Or tape emulations, and especially delays. Heck, Goodhertz makes an effect called Lossy, which is all about old digital tech, like mp3 compression. Plogue is devoted to this, look at Chipcrusher, and one of my favorites, PortaFM.

Yeah, I agree that Absynth would be better with modern filters. But that doesn’t mean that the old tech doesn’t lend it some character just because you’re not on board with it. No offense.

[ghettosynth]

i'm not bothered by the filters (yeah, they're not u-he filters, but that's also part of its character)

You can dismiss any criticism of outdated technology like this. It doesn't mean that the criticism isn't valid. The filters are very outdated and you can't push them at all because of it. Now, this is ok for some, even many, sounds, but I don't think at all that it's a part of the "character." The question to ask is "if the filters were replaced with better variants, how often would you choose the original filters for their sound?" I don't think that many people would very often. For any filter variant you can name, you can improve upon the model in Absynth with more modern variants.

BTW: When I say filters, I mean all of them, the ones in the various effects modules as well.

But he didn’t dismiss any criticism. He just said that it doesn’t bother him.

And claimed that bad filters are a part of the character. That is a dismissal. Again, I don't understand apologetics with respect to synthesizers. They're shitty, you can hear it, and that's one of the reasons that people don't talk about Absynth.

He even says he can hear it "they're not Uhe." No, they're not, they're shitty, stock vintage synthedit shitty, dsp.org sample code shitty, just shitty. When you put a bunch of shitty filters into an otherwise interesting synth, you weaken that synth, no matter what the goal of the synth is.

[dune_rave]

IMHO Absynth is much more "outdated" than FM8 and Massive. regarding their sounds FM8 and Massive are not dated, only their GUI. You can use FM8 and Massive in any music style. The same can't be told about Absynth. Absynth's factory library is kinda "special".
Anyway, since users can pick a synth with good sound with good GUI and visualizations, I don't think someone would choose Absynth in the current market... For example Arturia Synclavier is good sound with good gui, it's rather an obvious choice. This was just an example, I could say PhasePlant or any other good looking software...
Of course one advantage of these old softwares like Absynth, is the low cpu usage, but in the case of Absynth, only this is not enough

[EnGee]

It doesn't matter the filter in this synth. Really! It matters in analogue emulations like Diva and RePro but it is the last thing I'm concerned of with sci-fi synths

Absolute nonsense. It matters in every case where you are putting in a digital filter model of an analog device. What exactly do you think a digital filter is anyway?

I really don't get apologetics for synthesizers.

You are obsessed with filters I'm not!