The Hippies Won’t Come Back You Say – then suddenly…
Do you remember the 00’s? The hippy revival? When people started saying ‘man’ at the end of sentences again man? Do you remember Koblo and Rhizomatic Absynth? I mean the first version with the groove tube graphics.Trippy! I remember trying to teach it at the University of Western Sydney back whenever, and the students rebelling and wanting the familiar interface of Reason instead. But anyway.
That cryptic interface has kept Absynth’s mystique all these years, because if it ever used a simpler, more modern layout the cat would be out of the bag. It’s a three oscillator virtual analogue with cross modulation, two filters and wafty effects. It’s expansive – but not really that weird once you grok it. A bit like Synthmaster in some ways.
Version 1 had single cycle waveforms. Version 2 added samples (and if you look carefully at the presets, the provided samples hold a lot of the strangeness that people thought was in the synthesis). Granular playback of these samples gave Absynth its cloudy pot head texture. Version 3 added surround sound, frequency shifting and ‘fractal’ waveshaping. A resonator joins the pipe effect. Version 4 was more aligned with other NI plugins. Finally v5 added a mutator for easier patch creation and the ‘aetherizer’ effect. (And now there’s version 6 … scroll down!)
All these processes are well chosen and executed but not entirely unique. The expectation that Absynth has a particular sound comes more from the examples provided and the final effects than any innate limitation of the synthesis. So over time it has become a particular use machine, cinematic, compared to Omnisphere and Alchemy mostly based on the preset sample library and the surround outputs. But if you really wanted you could make the same kinds of sounds that Massive is supposed to be for – and vice versa.
The lesson being that perception, as guided by interface, is a major part of the synthesis.
Behind the Mask
UPDATE – Native Instruments dumped Absynth, but then suddenly produced version 6. One reason could be that NI’s recent offerings are worthy but increasingly dull. I rarely reach for an NI instrument because I don’t make generic soundtracks. They need to remind people that they once were the one of the leaders.
There’s two main new interfaces. Firstly a map that presents all the preset patches across an X/Y space. Once you filter the intended type to e.g. “Vocal”, you can quite quickly pick out a sound to reform. Finding sounds on the old word-based interface was painful.
Second is a much cleaned up synthesis path which you can learn reasonably quickly. I was however flummoxed for quite some time in trying start a blank patch. It’s almost hidden, just three tiny dots next to the logo opens up a menu. Really? C’mon surely making your own sounds isn’t that bad?!
Once you do make your own sounds you confirm your suspicion that Absynth was never really that spacey – it was always that the interface (dare I say) sucked. When laid out in modern interface rules you’ll very quickly see it as a high quality subtractive synthesiser … but not nearly as odd or unusual as the legend would suggest. For that you should look at Zebralette or Myth.
But if you do own Absynth from the old days – upgrade. It’s worth it.
Let’s encourage Native Instruments to follow this path. Yes! Good! You made something that wasn’t a sample library! Woof! We missed you!