How come nobody ever talks about Absynth anymore?

[chk071]

Absynth appears like this to me:



Sort of like the HG Fortune synths as well.

[vurt]

a beautiful hydra?

hail hydra!

[chk071]

Yeah, but... it's quickly out of control. And, i wantz control.

[vurt]

control? hmmm maybe one day ill try that...



i get what you mean though, while it can be a complicated mofo, it can be simply used as additional one shot fx, adding some really interesting bells n whistles to any genre imo.

not saying there isnt anything else that could do the job out there, but you have it as part of komplete already, may as well see if it offers you anything

[chk071]

True that.

[4damind]

The big question is: is there another synth with the same or better abilities? A synth where you can hear the presets and find the same endless ambient sounds?
I think that Absynth still has its niche today because it sounds very special and offers quite complex sound design possibilities.

The problem with NI: It's a big company and the employees often don't know the other departments or the "big plan". I spoke to a NI employee whose name is on the credits page in Absynth, and he had absolutely no idea about the future of Absynth...

[jancivil]

Really? I don't think there is any "convert to scala" unless you mean re-write something in it.

Hi, you quoted me incorrectly, I said "convert IN scala", not "convert TO scala". I meant you could export the gly file directly from Scala.

I don't see very well apparently, sorry. Yeah, Absynth has a mystery proprietary code, I would argue about scala being more universal.

Disagree about the ease of writing .gly files - they look like some kind of RIFF file, can't be read/edited in a text editor (like tun or scl). Many of my scl files I wrote in a text editor. It's nice that it'll accept ratios though.

All of my .scl were written in a text editor. I don't know what's harder about typing cents in the little box in the Absynth interface vs that, I don't. Fine, whatever, matter of opinion.

There would be no real point to writing a file outside Absynth if the goal is to write a tuning file.

I don't understand, there are many methods to generate tunings that Absynth doesn't have, so many reasons to want to write tuning externally.

Yeah, there's ratios. I don't understand you either, but there is that.
When it's down to 6 decimal points, I could write like 126.098765 for to approximate the ratio if I got really concerned it's much finer than what I do in Kontakt. So yeah, there's the one way, ratios. I make files for Vienna Instruments Pro which have to be 12 to octave and the idea for me here is ratios; so there will be the translation from that file to Absynth or Kontakt but I don't care about literally making one for the either usually.
I'm using to thinking in both and in particular VI Pro has a cents display, so...
doing arithmetic my own self is admittedly not ideal

goalpost was Abynth's is 'not good', and I think it's pretty good.

Also the argument per Kontakt failing to work here runs into the wall of other scripting isn't it, it isn't losing tunings in itself, and one is free to turn scripts off afaict.

OK, can you share the script you use to retune and explain how you're using it? Perhaps you've got a better method than I'm using, I'm certainly no Kontakt expert. Are you saying that your script retunes reliably in pretty much all circumstances?

tuning scripts, factory.png

Ok, I loaded the 'microtuning', which is what I'd usually choose, and that's the same as it was the last time, that's one of my mine I recognize, -29¢ for the minor second, -14¢ for the major third, 4th and 5th accord to 4:3 and 3:2...

I suppose that when there is a script the developer wrote... let me check

Ok, Kontakt Factory Library came to mind, 'Persian Ney' which has the option of some preset tunings. I went into Scripts/Tuning/Microtuning and set some intervals, saved it with 'Natural' on the Options page of the instrument (which does not appear to be editable, there is no script in 'Scripts''), opened it, nothing changed visually but I'm not hearing my intervals, their locked mystery script must override it.
In this case there appears to be no way to change this fact. I have turned off visible scripts in the past, it looks like you're borked with this kind of thing.

But in the basic case, yes, it always returns, the script I opened is from a long time ago and the climate changes have not affected it.

[jancivil]

The big question is: is there another synth with the same or better abilities? A synth where you can hear the presets and find the same endless ambient sounds?

That's two separate questions. I don't go into Absynth looking for a preset, I go in to create something all my own. If I need a starting point I have plenty from my own pretty extensive banks. The notion of 'presets/the same endless ambient sounds' is quite boring to me. I have found, however some awesome presets which don't match your reductive characterization.
You'll have a vastly different outlook if you were interested in the thing.

Is there a synth with the cloud filter with those particular types of shaping (eg., 'Vowel' w. Q from 0-1000, randomizing freq, Q and the percentage of 'Vowel') with the multiple breakpoint envelopes assignable to pretty much anything in the patch from osc to filter to modulation to its FX? EG: Aetherizer, Pipe, Resonators...
Is there a synth with its FX like at all? I seriously doubt there's anything of the sort in_existence.

[EvilDragon]

Yeah there's nothing out there that matches everything Absynth can do, that alone is obvious. It definitely has its niche.

I love that hydra image. It is a very apt description of Absynth

[jancivil]

When I bought Absynth 2 in 2003 it was a dream come true.

[4damind]

Absynth was a flagship synth at the time. I can't remember another synth that was on a similar level.
But not cheap either, I paid about 230€ for Absynth 2 in 2004..... The regular price for Absynth 5 today is 149€?
Too bad that NI doesn't seem to be so interested in a big update. The Synth is still excellent! A slightly reworked GUI and maybe a routing like in Massive X and some other small things....

[Kalamata Kid]

TBH, i never even tried Absynth. It always seemed like a odd beast to me. I have it installed since i got Komplete, but... didn't dare to open it yet.

If you produce anything similar to Ambient you must try it!

[EnGee]

When I bought Absynth 2 in 2003 it was a dream come true.

I couldn't afford it. It was $399 that time as I remember. It was my dream synth (together with FM7).

[suthnear]

Absynth is amazing. Thanks to the OP for reminding me about it. I'm a bit embarrassed that I forgot, actually. I used to use it all the time because it didn't sound like anything else. And it still doesn't...

[omiroad]

It goes to show that no matter how unique or well made a piece of software is, it will eventually die if it isn't maintained.