Twenty‑five years is a long time in software, but NI’s Absynth is still with us, still green and still a force to be reckoned with.

I’ve had a version of Absynth lurking in my plug‑in folder since about 2001, when software synths were still largely a novelty act (anyone remember Plugsounds 1‑6? Samplecell?). However, I found it intimidating and too spiky sonically to use in the squeaky‑clean pop productions I was making at the time. Also, like the lethal drink it was wittily named after, it was rather offputting visually. As a result, we didn’t hit it off and so there it sat, unloved, at the top of the pull‑down list for years until it eventually got moved to the ‘unused plug‑ins’ folder where it languished miserably ever after. The end.

Twenty‑five years later, however, unlike my pop career, Absynth lives on, and any bit of software that can claim a near uninterrupted lifecycle of over a quarter of a century has to have something about it. So when news of Absynth 6 started doing the rounds, my interest was piqued anew.

Redesigned from the ground up by a team lead by original creator Brian Clevinger, Absynth 6 takes all that was undeniably great about its ancestral lineage and smacks you round the chops with a thoroughly modern reboot of what is now regarded by many as a soft synth classic. The basic principles of what made Absynth so sonically versatile are still there — three oscillators, or source modules in Absynth‑speak, arranged into three channels with a top‑to‑bottom semi‑modular signal flow modulated by two further insert modules per channel. These modules process the sound coming from the oscillator module above it and can variously be filters, modulators or waveshapers.

These channels are then mixed into the Main Channel at the bottom of the UI, which has space for three further modules, two of which give you the ability to add more filters, modulators or waveshapers, with the third module reserved for effects and to which you can add the six heritage Absynth classics: the Aetherizer granular processor, a multi‑comb filter, a three‑voice independently programmable resonator, a pipe effect (which is an exciter that enables you to position modulatable virtual pickups along the ‘length’ of the input to create flanging, pitch‑shifting or rotary type effects), a multi‑tap delay and a three‑voice delay. As if that wasn’t enough there’s also a surround section with a multi‑channel panner for mixing in spatial audio. It’s also worth pointing out that Absynth has had surround capability since its third iteration way back in 2005. Future‑facing stuff indeed in this increasingly binaural world.

(Not) Lost In Space

When the synth fires up it presents you with a very visually appealing browser page, which shows what appears to be a pointillist version of an Anglo‑Saxon battle helmet viewed from above. Each dot in the ‘galaxy’ is one of the 2000+ presets that now come as standard, and they’re grouped together in colour‑coded areas of related sonic genre. As you hover over a dot, the name of the preset and a description of its sonic character are helpfully displayed above it. Clicking on the dot previews the sound and a double‑click will load it. There are also search filters to the left of the browser display that thin out the dots as you home in on what you’re looking for, including a nice set of sliders that let you slide and select from choices like dark to bright, clean to noisy and so on. All combined, it’s a brilliantly creative way of quickly finding sounds in what would otherwise be a life‑sapping scroll down a seemingly never‑ending list of presets.

At the bottom of the browser page resides the Mutator, which is a user‑definable randomiser. There’s also a Mutation History list that populates itself as you descend into mutantry. It’s another one of those bits of common‑sense genius to save your blushes if you’ve been a bit click‑happy.