Absynth 6

[sunthief01]

you can hold down one key and listen to it evolve and mutate for hours on end. It's like a Dead Voices on Air gig in a plugin.

Love the DVOA shoutout. Mark Spying is a legend and yet really down to earth, I got the chance to interview him during the pandemic when he was remastering and revisiting a lot of his mid 90s classic albums.

And it goes well with EvillDragon's point about delay, because so much of the DVOA / Zoviet France material was so delay based...

[wagtunes]

Absynth is one of those synths that has a unique sound. Kind of like...

Moog Polymoog
Ensoniq Mirage
Korg Wavestation
Yamaha TG33
Sonic Charge Synplant

There are others but these are ones that immediately come to mind. Absynth is one of those unique sounding synths.

[zerocrossing]

The way I see Absynth: to me it's "delay, the synth". Each and every main effect is delay based. A lot of the per voice modules are delay based in one way or another. It is simply going ham on all the interesting things you can do with delays, coupled with I harmonic stuff like ringmod, frequency shifters, and so on.

No wonder it went super hard on the alien green! It is a completely alien type of synth.

It was my first foray into pure software instruments. Until then, I was happily working with hardware instruments, an Ensoniq TS-10 as the centerpiece of my studio. At least in terms of synthesis. I first heard it at a Noisefest in Sacramento, CA. Wondered what that weird green UI was. Soon after, NI had a booth at Macworld and I got a proper demo and I bought it there. I still have the installation discs. I didn’t really fully integrate it until much later, but I still use it.

[syncline]

I'll be glad to be able to use Absynth with a modern, resizable interface. As display resolution grew, Absynth shrank to a microscopic size, and became nearly impossible to use w/o the magnifier in Windows/FL Studio, which is a PITA. I'm also really looking forward to all the other updated/upgraded features that have been mentioned here as well. Can't wait!

[vurt]

I still prefer how Absynth sounds, even for regular synth sounds. I won't debate the objective technical (if not timbral) superiority of modern synths, but I mainly stick Absynth in the middle of layers of guitars, and most of the newer hi-fi synths just stick out like a sore thumb in the mix. Beyond that, the sounds Absynth can make (from a patch point of view) have an organic quality that just works perfectly for my music, and no other synth I've tried can really make work. It may not be the 'best' synth, but it's the best synth for the kind of music I make, which is way more important.

absynyh is as absynth does.

[osiris]

I also believe it's the only VST I have that has both a separate mono and Stereo version.

[EnGee]

I believe that the sound design (the presets) what really contributes in Absynth’s greatness.

I hope the new one attracts the old sound designers (or as nerdy as them), so we can enjoy again those exotic/sci fi sounds. It must be compatible with previous versions (playing the presets), otherwise I don’t think I would be interested.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I believe that the sound design (the presets) what really contributes in Absynth’s greatness.

I hope the new one attracts the old sound designers (or as nerdy as them), so we can enjoy again those exotic/sci fi sounds. It must be compatible with previous versions (playing the presets), otherwise I don’t think I would be interested.

It’s been stated already that it will load the old presets.

I myself love the old v1 and v2 presets. I saved the old ones because many were no longer included in later versions factory libraries.

[aMUSEd]

Yeah me too - like all those old Vampires and Orca series patches

Lots of gems in the Absynth User library still

[Funky40]

I believe that the sound design (the presets) what really contributes in Absynth’s greatness.

i think so too. It´s an important aspect.
At that time back then weren´t that many great plugin synths around as far i can tell. And they kept probably going over years with the creation and optimisation of their preset creation work, and not just over a few evenings.

The trick that catapulted Absynth5 -three years ago- for me into top liga, -while i was discovering it again after 15 years or so of no use- , was to apply dynamic EQing. In fact i developed my dynaEQ tricks with Absynth. Its vivid sounds is the perfect base to get into "that".

[aMUSEd]

I'll be glad to be able to use Absynth with a modern, resizable interface. As display resolution grew, Absynth shrank to a microscopic size, and became nearly impossible to use w/o the magnifier in Windows/FL Studio, which is a PITA. I'm also really looking forward to all the other updated/upgraded features that have been mentioned here as well. Can't wait!

You can do this though (this on 5K btw - and a surround setup)

Screenshot 2025-11-20 at 10.38.59.jpg

[Touch The Universe]

Yeah me too - like all those old Vampires and Orca series patches

Lots of gems in the Absynth User library still

Those sound interesting, were they part of the factory?

[aMUSEd]

Look in the user library

[aMUSEd]

Actually I'm a Magpie and have pretty much backed everything Absynth up over the years and made them into collections - these were all free in the UL so should be OK to share (I've also converted them to .nabs format and added previews for Komplete Kontrol)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/r0m8psw5 ... 4ongr&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tp05uxzl ... j1lcq&dl=0

A lot of this early experimentation was outstanding - what really attracted me to NI products back then - I hope we get some of that back

[syncline]

You can do this though (this on 5K btw - and a surround setup)

LOL. Okay, you have my complete attenion now

Please, share a bit on how to do this. I thought I had shaken the tree pretty thoroughly and failed to find a way ...

Thanks in avance!