NI ABSYNTH 2
Jan 1, 2004 12:00 PM, BY ERIK HAWKINS
Tempo-synched sonic sculptures that morph, twist and evolve — these are the types of synthesizer presets everyone seems to be after. From underground ambient-dub tracks to commercials advertising the latest vehicle for fashion-conscious young adults, such sounds are cropping up everywhere. For the past couple of years, Native Instruments' Absynth has garnered the reputation for packing a synthesis engine that can produce exactly these types of sounds. Absynth 2, the recent update of the venerable soft synth, introduces the even more powerful Mach 2 synthesis engine. Native Instruments has built upon Absynth's original engine by adding several new enhancements, including sample playback, granular sample playback, more filters and Mac OS X compatibility.
SHOW ME YOUR ABS
I tested Absynth 2 on a Mac dual G4/500MHz machine with 1 GB of system RAM and Mac OS X (version 10.2.6). Like most of Native Instruments' soft synths, Absynth 2 can operate as a stand-alone program or as a plug-in. I used it with Emagic Logic Audio as an AU instrument plug-in with a MOTU 828mkII interface and MIDI Timepiece AV.
Absynth 2 will run for a 30-day demo period before requiring authorization. To permanently authorize the program, you must register it; then, Native Instruments will e-mail you an unlock response. A handy registration application steps you through the registration process and generates the unique challenge for your computer. The process is painless if your music computer is hooked up to the Internet and you have e-mail; otherwise, you'll need to copy and paste some superlong strings of numbers to your Internet computer or on paper for fax or snail mail. Unlike most challenge-and-response schemes, which only allow one authorization, you can register Absynth 2 again to receive an additional response. This is really appreciated because most people these days have more than one computer — I installed it on my studio computer and on my PowerBook.
Although Absynth 2 is Mac OS X-compatible, for AU support, you'll need to download and install version 2.02 (a free update). Without AU support, you can't use Absynth 2 as a plug-in in either Logic Audio or MOTU Digital Performer because neither host program supports VST plug-ins in Mac OS X. Although the AU plug-in functioned in Logic Audio, at the time of this review, it was not working in Digital Performer — Native Instruments said that it was working with MOTU to fix the problem. Native Instruments will not be offering MAS versions (the preferred plug-in format for Digital Performer) of its Mac OS X-compatible plug-ins for some time, if ever, because Digital Performer (version 4.x and higher) supports AU (when all the kinks are worked out).
WARMING UP
The program is slick-looking with a neat aquamarine-gray sci-fi motif. In stand-alone mode, all of the program's windows can be recalled from the main menu and most can also be reached via the navigator bar. However, the Main window, where you will most often find yourself, also has navigation buttons to recall the program's six primary programming screens: Patch, Waveform, Effect, LFO, Envelope and MIDI. Its other features include bank and preset selection, global parameters (like polyphony and master tune), MIDI-controller sliders and a virtual keyboard. The MIDI-controller sliders provide a quick way to tweak a few parameters and also offer good visual feedback regarding the state of the input control source (for example, if the controller is automated or not). The Main window is well-designed and easy to navigate.
Sounds are organized into banks of 128 presets. The Main window can display the names of 16 presets at a time. This system is superior to one-line displays and squirrelly pop-up menus because it allows you to quickly scan all of the presets, relative to each other, in just a few clicks. In addition to the default bank, another dozen sound banks are in the program's Sound Library folder, for well over 800 presets. The number of stunning and useful sounds is amazing. Absynth 2 excels at thick, evolving pads and percolating, rhythmic synth loops (such as Mixed Beauty and Proof, respectively). But there are also a couple banks of drum and percussion presets that sound surprisingly sweet — clean and punchy kicks, snares and hats that mimic analog and vintage drum machines with a distinctive Absynth flavor.
The Absynth 2 plug-in looks nearly identical to the Main window. To reach the programming windows, click on one of its navigation buttons and an Edit version of the Absynth 2 application is booted alongside your host program. This is an odd arrangement, but it works okay thanks to the Active Plug-ins window, where all of your Absynth 2 plug-ins are displayed by their current preset. Select the preset that you want to tweak, and you're spared the hassle of returning to your host program to bring the proper Absynth 2 plug-in to the foreground. However, Logic Audio did crash several times and acted strangely (stuck MIDI notes and randomly changing parameters) when the programming application was open in the background. Ultimately, it would be much more streamlined if all of Absynth 2's windows could be incorporated directly into the plug-in, like other multiwindow virtual-instrument plug-ins.
If you're using Absynth 2 in stand-alone mode without a sequencer, a handy audio-recording feature is available for laying down ideas and creating loops. The recorder is RAM-based, so recording time is limited to your computer's amount of available system RAM. Overdub and Wait for Note features make recording parts a breeze. I actually found it refreshingly simple to write a part in the Record window, save it as an audio file and then import it to my digital audio sequencer and create a loop from the performance.
LEVEL ONE
From the Patch screen, you can clearly see the synth's basic architecture: three oscillator channels, each containing three modules (Oscillator, Filter and Mod). The level for each channel can be set individually, then mixed together and routed through a master channel made up of the module's wave shape, filter and effect. Each module (except Effect, which I'll discuss later) has its own set of unique parameters, and modules can be turned on or off by clicking on their edges. Individual module settings and entire channels can be saved and recalled in any other preset, which is a powerful sound-design tool. The Patch screen is great because it beautifully presents the complete picture of a preset, making understanding the signal flow and programming quite intuitive.
The oscillators are flexible and can be generated using one of several different synthesis modes per module: Single, Double, FM, Ringmod, Sample and Granular. Stock wave shapes include not only standard shapes such as sine, square and triangle but also more esoteric shapes such as Soft Trump, Inharmonic, Broken Speaker and Big Chord. Even more fun, the Sample and Granular modes let you load a sample as the waveform. This is an amazingly powerful new feature that gives you the ability to combine, warp and mangle whatever sounds your heart desires. Then, employing the incredible envelope parameters, it's possible to concoct tempo-synched sounds similar to those that BT cooks up in his much more expensive Kyma sound-synthesis workstation (by Symbolic Sound). The Oscillator module's other parameters include tuning, phase adjustment for the synthesis modes and sample start time for the sample-playback modes.
In addition to the eight filter types of Absynth's original engine are four new filters: 2-, 4- and 8-pole lowpass and a bandpass variant. From the Filter modules, you can select the filter type for each channel. Related parameters change according to the filter type selected. For example, lowpass 4-pole has the parameters Hz, Res and dB whereas bandpass has Hz, Q and dB. The master channel's Filter module includes a Mono or a Poly setting — Mono routes all of the oscillator channels through a single master filter; Poly routes each oscillator channel through its own individual master filter — otherwise, it's identical to the oscillator channel's Filter modules.
From the Mod module, you can introduce modulation based on the same stock wave shapes found in the Oscillator module. There is a control for adjusting the frequency at which the modulation occurs and another control for mixing the ratio of input and modulated signals. The explanation in the manual for this module is totally awful; even the picture of the Mod module differs from the program's Mod module: There's a Mode setting in the manual's picture but none in the program. What's going on?
Think of the Waveshape screen as a distortion effect employing a waveform to create nonlinear distortion of the input signal. The waveforms available are the same as those found in the Oscillator and Mod modules, and there is a Mono or Poly setting just like the master Filter module. Parameters include input and output levels and phase. Choose a waveform that doesn't add too much distortion (such as sine); then, push the input level way up and the output level down to give a preset extra punch. However, don't expect traditional-sounding distortion effects from Waveshape, more like heavy-handed digital distortion. Although the module is certainly useful, it would be nice if it had a mode featuring more standard types of distortion algorithms (perhaps even including a bit-reduction type).
The master Effect module has no parameters of its own; rather, you click on the word edit, and the Effect window appears. From there, you can choose one of three effect types: Multicomb, Pipe and Multitap. The effects are utilitarian, nothing spectacular. Multicomb offers six independent delay lines. Pipe is a wave-guide effect that is similar to physical modeling. And Multitap is a single delay line featuring three multitaps. Absynth 2 already packs an amazing array of stunning sounds, so saying that it could benefit from a more powerful effects engine, with multi-effects and reverb, is probably going overboard.
HARDCORE
The Waveform window has two modes, one for drawing waveforms and the other for shaping a waveform's harmonic content. In Waveform mode, there are tools for drawing straight and curved lines, as well as for shaping and stretching only the waveform between two anchor points. The tools are unique, not what most people are probably used to (there's no Pencil), but when you become accustomed to how they operate, they're okay. In Spectrum mode, the waveform's harmonic content appears as a series of bars of different lengths. There is a tool for shaping a group of bars and another for lengthening or shortening a single bar at a time. Custom waveforms can be saved for recall in different presets, and there is an option for extracting the first 1,024 samples of a sound file to use as a waveform. What is especially exciting is that drawing waveforms is a real-time operation; you can hear changes while you're actually shaping the waveform.
The single most distinctive and potent components of Absynth 2 are its envelope functions. From the Envelope window, you can create tempo-synched envelopes with as many as 68 break-points — very cool. Every oscillator has a dedicated envelope tied to amplitude, as you would expect. However, the real power lies in that practically every parameter can be tied to its own control envelope. For example, an envelope could modulate an oscillator's pitch or change a sample's grain size over time. Think of control envelopes as a way to automate the synthesizer's parameters right in the program itself, without using a sequencer. As in the Waveform window, custom envelopes can be saved and recalled, and all envelope tweaking can be done in real time.
Although the program's envelopes are amazing, the Envelope window has a couple of problems. You can snap break-points to a grid, which is handy, except that the grid is set to quarter notes. There really needs to be a way to change the grid resolution to smaller and larger note values — this is crucial. Also, with a whole bunch of control envelopes displayed at the same time, all of the envelope lanes start looking like a multitrack recording session. There needs to be lane width and length zoom controls, like the track zoom controls found in a digital audio sequencer's arrange window. These controls are especially important for long envelopes and the new Sample Jump envelopes that actually display a sample's waveform. (Sample Jump let's you set multiple trigger points anywhere in the sample, with any sample start time, all locked to tempo — a really cool effect.)
From the LFO window, you can reach the synth's three low-frequency oscillators. The same wave shapes available in the Oscillator and Mod modules can be employed for the low-frequency oscillators. Each LFO can modulate several parameters for each oscillator channel individually or all three and the master channel at the same time (depending on the parameter). Modulation targets include Pitch, Amplitude, FM Index/Balance (amount/level), Filter, Effect Time and Pan. In turn, each LFO's depth, rate, sample-and-hold rate and retrigger on/off can be controlled by a MIDI controller. As if Absynth 2's envelopes don't provide enough sound-design spice, the LFO architecture introduces an even wider palette for cooking up morphing, evolving sounds.
Still crave more control? Extensive MIDI control features can be found in the MIDI window. There, you can assign MIDI controllers to one of five sources: FM Index/Balance, Filter, Effect Time, Pan and Volume. A note's velocity can be used to modulate Oscillator Amplitude, FM Index/Balance and Filter for all three oscillator channels at the same time or individually. You can draw your own custom note-scaling curve to calculate how all of these parameters will be scaled across the keyboard. You also have complete control of tuning; select from a list of stock scales (such as Indian and Pythagorean), or create your own custom microtonal scale.
ABSYNTH ROLLER PLUS
This soft synth is amazingly powerful and complex. And as such, it deserves a good step-by-step sound-design tutorial. Unfortunately, there isn't one, and the manual isn't much help when it comes to explaining certain parameters. Luckily, with such a wealth of killer presets, you can probably skate by with little programming. Although Absynth 2 probably shouldn't be your only soft synth because it has such a distinct sound and it's short on truly useful bass presets, it excels in the tempo-synched sci-fi-soundtrack-type-sounds area. And the new sample-playback features are too cool — I can't say enough good things about these tools. I'm looking forward to using Absynth 2 in many future productions.
Product Summary
NATIVE INSTRUMENTS
ABSYNTH 2 > $299
Pros: Amazing sound-sculpting powers, including ability to use a sample as an oscillator's waveform. Tons of great presets. Handy RAM-based recorder for laying down ideas.
Cons: Weak manual. No comprehensive, step-by-step sound-design tutorial. No RTAS or MAS for Mac OS X plug-in. Short on clean, utilitarian bass presets.
Contact: tel. (866) 556-6487; e-mail info@nativeinstruments.com; Web www.nativeinstruments.com
System Requirements
MAC: G3/400; 256 MB RAM; Mac OS 9.2.2/OS X
PC: Pentium III/700; 256 MB RAM; Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
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