Absynth 6

[nusound mind]

Exciting news and pretty interesting subject.

I re-visited Absynth few months ago only, after many years of not using it on a machine I still should run it. Gonna be honest, it was fun, but not as cool as I remembered it. I think alot of people are maybe a bit biased by the nostalgia & fuzzy memories of it. After using so many other ultra powerful synths since and being so spoiled, Absynth kinda felt a bit dull and sounded dated I many department I must admit. It was very clunky to use also compared to what we're used now and limited in many aspects. I kinda forgot that over the years. Still fun to use, but definitely dated. To my ears at least. So I'm one of those who would like a rebirth yes, but updated, revamped and on par soundwise with the actual big synths on the market (Falcon, Omnisphere, Pigments, PhasePlant, etc). If they leave the engine 'as is' you might feel disappointed and be overtaken by reality VS nostalgia rather quickly, I'm telling you.

I'm going to respectfully disagree w/ you re: the sound of Abysnth, at least if I'm reading you correctly; I hope it has the same basic sound just w/ better fidelity and oversampled glory / more clarity. The main draw to me of Absynth is it's unique sound. If the fundamental sound engine is different I'll be disappointed.

I don't rule it out b/c of how different Massive sounds from Massive X. Although Massive X does sound good, but not so much akin to the OG Massive.

Although since Mr. Clevinger is involved my fears are allayed a fair bit due to that detail alone (I'm big Plasmonic fan, so he's 2 for 2 on my scorecard).

[nanostream]

Exciting news and pretty interesting subject.

I re-visited Absynth few months ago only, after many years of not using it on a machine I still should run it. Gonna be honest, it was fun, but not as cool as I remembered it. I think alot of people are maybe a bit biased by the nostalgia & fuzzy memories of it. After using so many other ultra powerful synths since and being so spoiled, Absynth kinda felt a bit dull and sounded dated I many department I must admit. It was very clunky to use also compared to what we're used now and limited in many aspects. I kinda forgot that over the years. Still fun to use, but definitely dated. To my ears at least. So I'm one of those who would like a rebirth yes, but updated, revamped and on par soundwise with the actual big synths on the market (Falcon, Omnisphere, Pigments, PhasePlant, etc). If they leave the engine 'as is' you might feel disappointed and be overtaken by reality VS nostalgia rather quickly, I'm telling you.

I have to agree, having had a similar experience a couple of years ago. Absynth, of course, is a legend. But it felt more than clunky, the envelopes especially, and it didn’t sound particularly good compared to contemporary stuff. I felt nostalgic for a hot minute, and never used it again.

I think it’s exciting that NI is bringing Absynth back, if only for the fact they’ve listened to their users and customers. But I hope it’s more than just a straightforward port with marginal improvements here and there.

Personally, I’m far more interested in (hopefully substantial) Massive X updates which seem to be on the horizon, and anything Reaktor related. And I’ll take all the buzz NI is generating at the moment, it’s a good thing and has been long overdue.

[audiouser720]

What if it will be Absynth X? Like Massive X to Massive?

It's not.

A bit off topic, but since you are the insider of NI Is there something in works for Massive X to adress the slugishness?

I find MX very snappy. I guess this might be a system dependent issue

[dayjob]

I think it still sounds amazing especially for pads and weird percussion. I’ve spent time with the mutator and ended up saving a Bunch of patches. I’ve gone back to those patches many times and used those sounds in tracks. Still a unique sounding instrument to my ears. Has a niche that is hard to fill with anything else. According to posts in this thread theyve reworked the envelopes and that was really my only complaint

[Gamma-UT]

Exciting news and pretty interesting subject.

I re-visited Absynth few months ago only, after many years of not using it on a machine I still should run it. Gonna be honest, it was fun, but not as cool as I remembered it. I think alot of people are maybe a bit biased by the nostalgia & fuzzy memories of it. After using so many other ultra powerful synths since and being so spoiled, Absynth kinda felt a bit dull and sounded dated I many department I must admit. It was very clunky to use also compared to what we're used now and limited in many aspects. I kinda forgot that over the years. Still fun to use, but definitely dated. To my ears at least. So I'm one of those who would like a rebirth yes, but updated, revamped and on par soundwise with the actual big synths on the market (Falcon, Omnisphere, Pigments, PhasePlant, etc). If they leave the engine 'as is' you might feel disappointed and be overtaken by reality VS nostalgia rather quickly, I'm telling you.

If I want to use a synth like Omni or Phaseplant I'm going to. Absynth does other things. That's why I like it. It's nothing to do with nostalgia. It's just that it either does things that you can't with conventional synth architectures or are just going to take ages to set up. Avenger, Phaseplant and Zebra can to different degrees emulate the wave manipulations in the oscillator modules but I know how to dial them in for certain sounds that Absynth works well at. So, as far as I'm concerned, a compatibility update is enough to hit the spot for me.

Not everything has to squeeze through the same synth cookie cutter.

[audiouser720]

Exciting news and pretty interesting subject.

I re-visited Absynth few months ago only, after many years of not using it on a machine I still should run it. Gonna be honest, it was fun, but not as cool as I remembered it. I think alot of people are maybe a bit biased by the nostalgia & fuzzy memories of it. After using so many other ultra powerful synths since and being so spoiled, Absynth kinda felt a bit dull and sounded dated I many department I must admit. It was very clunky to use also compared to what we're used now and limited in many aspects. I kinda forgot that over the years. Still fun to use, but definitely dated. To my ears at least. So I'm one of those who would like a rebirth yes, but updated, revamped and on par soundwise with the actual big synths on the market (Falcon, Omnisphere, Pigments, PhasePlant, etc). If they leave the engine 'as is' you might feel disappointed and be overtaken by reality VS nostalgia rather quickly, I'm telling you.

I have to agree, having had a similar experience a couple of years ago. Absynth, of course, is a legend. But it felt more than clunky, the envelopes especially, and it didn’t sound particularly good compared to contemporary stuff. I felt nostalgic for a hot minute, and never used it again.

I think it’s exciting that NI is bringing Absynth back, if only for the fact they’ve listened to their users and customers. But I hope it’s more than just a straightforward port with marginal improvements here and there.

Personally, I’m far more interested in (hopefully substantial) Massive X updates which seem to be on the horizon, and anything Reaktor related. And I’ll take all the buzz NI is generating at the moment, it’s a good thing and has been long overdue.

Absynth has a uniquely distinctive sound. I’ve never thought of it as a synth for in your face tones like big analog basses or leads. It excels at background textures, atmospheric pads and effects. It can do everything, of course, but its atmospheric sounds are especially beautiful in context and sit wonderfully in a mix

[Lbdunequest]

What if it will be Absynth X? Like Massive X to Massive?

It's not.

A bit off topic, but since you are the insider of NI Is there something in works for Massive X to adress the slugishness?

I find MX very snappy. I guess this might be a system dependent issue

MAC?

Dune 3, The Legend HZ, Sylenth1, Obsession, ReFX Nexus, Phase Plant, Serum 1/2. Those are snappy
Pigments, other Arturia Plugins are somewhat in between snappy and ok. U-He plugins are OK.
Massive X is slugish. Does Massive X loads slower then when reopening then mentioned plugins or faster?

If slower, then we have a different understanding of what snappy is

[audiouser720]

What if it will be Absynth X? Like Massive X to Massive?

It's not.

A bit off topic, but since you are the insider of NI Is there something in works for Massive X to adress the slugishness?

I find MX very snappy. I guess this might be a system dependent issue

MAC?

Dune 3, The Legend HZ, Sylenth1, Obsession, ReFX Nexus, Phase Plant, Serum 1/2. Those are snappy
Pigments, other Arturia Plugins are somewhat in between snappy and ok. U-He plugins are OK.
Massive X is slugish. Does Massive X loads slower then when reopening then mentioned plugins or faster?

If slower, then we have a different understanding of what snappy is

Yeah what I meant by snappy is when operating the plugin e.g. turning knobs, dragging modulation and how reactive it is. On Mac, yeah. To be fair it varies a lot among different plugins and DAWs. MX opens much quicker in ableton than Pigments (vst3) but pigmen opens quicker in logic (au obviously). Some u-he plugins are sluggish in Bitwig (clap version) whereas the same plugins are extremely snappy under other hosts. I find that the most consistent plugins are Fabfilter regarding UI snappiness and immediacy. No matter what host, they always open imminently and it’s a breeze to tweak them. Soz for OT.

[Lbdunequest]

What if it will be Absynth X? Like Massive X to Massive?

It's not.

A bit off topic, but since you are the insider of NI Is there something in works for Massive X to adress the slugishness?

I find MX very snappy. I guess this might be a system dependent issue

MAC?

Dune 3, The Legend HZ, Sylenth1, Obsession, ReFX Nexus, Phase Plant, Serum 1/2. Those are snappy
Pigments, other Arturia Plugins are somewhat in between snappy and ok. U-He plugins are OK.
Massive X is slugish. Does Massive X loads slower then when reopening then mentioned plugins or faster?

If slower, then we have a different understanding of what snappy is

Yeah what I meant by snappy is when operating the plugin e.g. turning knobs, dragging modulation and how reactive it is. On Mac, yeah. To be fair it varies a lot among different plugins and DAWs. MX opens much quicker in ableton than Pigments (vst3) but pigmen opens quicker in logic (au obviously). Some u-he plugins are sluggish in Bitwig (clap version) whereas the same plugins are extremely snappy under other hosts. I find that the most consistent plugins are Fabfilter regarding UI snappiness and immediacy. No matter what host, they always open imminently and it’s a breeze to tweak them. Soz for OT.

I see. For me UI is snappy, responsive when just turning knobs, sliders inside FL Studio 25.2. Only opening and reopneing plugin takes like 1 second, sometimes a bit more and when plugin first time opened moving thro tabs takes a bit longer.

For me thats slugish

[Caine123]

i hope it will be Absynth 6.dll then, as before each version its own dll!
and NI dont discontinue Absynth 5 from activation, no time to export all the stems, I had too much trouble replacing Absynth 4 with 5 (sadly not all presets sound the same...)

[Gam456]

What if it will be Absynth X? Like Massive X to Massive?

It's not.

A bit off topic, but since you are the insider of NI Is there something in works for Massive X to adress the slugishness?

I find MX very snappy. I guess this might be a system dependent issue

MAC?

Dune 3, The Legend HZ, Sylenth1, Obsession, ReFX Nexus, Phase Plant, Serum 1/2. Those are snappy
Pigments, other Arturia Plugins are somewhat in between snappy and ok. U-He plugins are OK.
Massive X is slugish. Does Massive X loads slower then when reopening then mentioned plugins or faster?

If slower, then we have a different understanding of what snappy is

Massive X is not slower at all

[dune_rave]

I' ve just uninstalled MassiveX. You know what? It 's jus' left its factory content on the drive. Crap.

[aMUSEd]

i hope it will be Absynth 6.dll then, as before each version its own dll!
and NI dont discontinue Absynth 5 from activation, no time to export all the stems, I had too much trouble replacing Absynth 4 with 5 (sadly not all presets sound the same...)

Well it probably won't be a dll at all as NI are now all VST3 (and AU on Mac) so it won't replace the Absynth 5 VST(2) but I agree I would hope it remains authorisable.

[_leras]

The name KORE ruined KORE.

Don't be silly, the name had none to minimal impact.

The decision to treat the NI plug ins differently than third party, to make integration better, made their maintenance become a time consuming headache. Every plug in at the time seemed to need lots of attention to keep it up to date. I'm sure others could explain the issue better.

Unfortunate really as the concept of a generic controller, with high definition control instead of 0 to 256 for all plug ins still hasn't been realised.

[EvilDragon]

i hope it will be Absynth 6.dll then, as before each version its own dll!
and NI dont discontinue Absynth 5 from activation, no time to export all the stems, I had too much trouble replacing Absynth 4 with 5 (sadly not all presets sound the same...)

Major version updates are always separate installs for NI products.