Best Of
Eulogy for Absynth 5 (or, Death of my Loyalty to NI)
Greetings all. I'm writing this blog post to lament over the quiet death of one of my favorite synths Absynth 5. Many of you may either love or loath the softsynth, but I really adored it. Even though it increasingly needed updating the more time went on, it still has use to me right now. Useful and unique features like the Aetherizer (my favorite feature of any synth), Resonators, Cloud, and Supercomb brought me back to the synth. Even though it isn't a wavetable synth, it's like the only NI synth I can think of that has a unique and usable wave editor.
This isn't my only gripe with NI, though. Products that I enjoy a lot like FM8 and Massive X also feel like they're missing something. For example, Sytrus (an FM matrix synth) has many more features like editable waves that FM8 does not offer. Massive X doesn't have a wavetable creator (which is laughable, considering the fact that SERUM and Vital have them). I feel like the only things that interest me from time to time are the expansions from NI, but even a lot of their older packs seem more interesting (Halcyon Sky, Hexagon Highway to name two).
Don't get me wrong. I still love NI. Products like Reaktor 6, Molekular, Skanner XT, and many have cemented NI in my mind as the company I come back to. I love and will love NI so much that I've been inspecting a bunch of product pages and downloading their product song demos for years. However, I find myself more and more maintaining interest in their older products, not the new ones. I am keeping my eye every now and then on new products. However, my loyalty died with Absynth. I'm looking to greener pastures, like to Korg. I mean, for frick's sake, their hardware synths like Modwave and Wavestate feel like the future. I feel like synthmakers like Korg are living up to NI's slogan more than NI is.
I completely understand killing a synth that they don't deem up to par with modern trends. Yet, if NI can't even do it themselves nowadays (again, looking at you Massive X), you can bet I'll look elsewhere for companies. Or, I'll make a synth myself.
This is an open discussion. Don't feel like my opinion is universal, because it certainly is not. I have unique tastes, like anyone else. If you feel like I'm wrong in certain ways and have evidence, I'm open to hearing what you guys have to say. Agree, disagree, or both, if you wanna reply to this post, remember to be respectful of each other's opinions, or you'll look silly.
(And if you're reading this and you happen to work for NI, please understand this "letter" is done because I've been a fanboy of NI since I was frickin' 12.)
-Exero
End of Sale for Absynth 5 - Official statement & FAQ
End of Sale for Absynth 5 - Official statement
Native Instruments has made the decision to not include Absynth 5 in Komplete 14, and to additionally stop selling it as an individual product. We know that this will be disappointing news for many of you who have been long-time users of the software synthesizer during its 22 years on the market.
We always aspire to provide the best user experience with each product that we offer in our catalogue. Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that this is sometimes not possible due to constantly evolving user needs and technological standards. Discontinuing Absynth 5 was not an easy decision to make, but the resource required to keep the product in line with modern standards has become too much of a challenge. Absynth 5 has also long been in need of updates and improvements, and we are unfortunately not able to provide the synth with the attention it needs.
Due to this, we have stopped all sales and development activities effective immediately. Users who already have a license will not be affected, as Absynth 5 will continue to operate normally. All users with a license will still be able to download and use it on current versions of Windows 10/11 or on Intel Macs up to macOS 12.
We want to deeply thank Brian Clevinger for being such a great collaborator and inspiring creator over the years, and thank all of you for loving Absynth as much as we have.
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End of Sale for Absynth 5 - FAQ
Why has NI stopped sale of Absynth?
The resource required to maintain Absynth in keeping with modern standards has become too much of a challenge. Absynth has also long been in need of updates and improvements, and we are unfortunately not able to provide the synth with the attention it needs.
Will Absynth continue to be usable for those who already have a license?
Users who already have a license will not be affected, as Absynth will continue to operate normally. All users with a license will still be able to download and use it on current versions of Windows 10/11 or on Intel Macs up to macOS 12.
Why was no effort made to reach out to Brian Clevinger for development support / why were no resources put into development?
NI has been in touch with Brian Clevinger about this topic for some time. He had offered his help to further improve Absynth, but it would have still required a significant effort on our end to modernize the product and keep it aligned with the portfolio. Ultimately we were not able to commit to further development work, and made sure Brian was amongst the first to know.
Why did NI not communicate to users that Absynth would be dropped from the bundle and no longer sold?
Users who currently hold an Absynth license will still have full access to the product. The discontinuation of new sales does not affect the experience for current users.
Is NI planning to stop sale of any other products?
Generally speaking each product has a lifecycle. Unfortunately, we can’t maintain all products forever, but do our best to extend the lifespan for each product to its maximum. Usually we evaluate each product with the release of a new Komplete version. Soundwide will always manage its portfolio to keep it to the highest standards possible.
How does NI evaluate when to stop supporting a product?
Our goal is to give as many users as great an experience as possible. We evaluate the size of the user base versus development efforts and what other opportunities might serve a larger user group. Unfortunately, we don’t have unlimited resources and sometimes have to choose between different options.
For how much longer will I be able to activate my version of Absynth?
There are currently no plans to make Absynth inaccessible for users who already have a license, and who are using the product on a computer that is compatible with both Native Access 2 and Absynth 5.
Will customers be able to buy Absynth 5 at another retailer?
Absynth is NI proprietary technology and we have made the decision to discontinue all sales. This means it will unfortunately not be available at any retailer.
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There is already a discussion in our forum, if you wish to ask other questions or wish to comment, please go here.
Probability and conditional triggers plugin for Maschine 2
I've created a VST/AU plugin called Chance Machine that allows me to set per-step probability and conditional trigger rules for patterns in Maschine. I thought I'd share this here as it might be useful to other Maschine users. It's only available for MacOS, though.
It's a great way to add a bit of variation to patterns, without needing to make them super long. The parameters map very nicely to the interface on MK3 controllers as well, so it makes it easy to adjust things without looking at the computer.
I'd love to hear what people think and if you find it useful.
You can find more info and download the plugin for free here:
https://github.com/borisdivjak/ChanceMachine
borisdivjak
Re: Native Instruments Apple Silicon M1 Compatibility
Hey all, new updates are available now in Native Access. All the effects are now ARM ready / natively compatible with M1:
More to come soon.
Why is NI hell bent on preventing it's users from using Maschine as a main DAW?
I'm serious. As someone who's been waiting my whole life for a company to make a powerful production studio in a box, ever since I bought Maschine mk3 I've been on a mission to make it my one and only DAW. I've ditched Cubase, and have been using Maschine only, and ONLY the hardware (as much as humanly possible).
The reason? I, like many others, stared my music making experience on a PlayStation, of all things. Yes, Music 2000 app for PlayStation 1. Over 25 years ago.
And since then, I've bought a PC, built a studio, released albums, played all over the world, bought hardware synths... and all the wile never really re-creating the simplicity and pure inspiration I've experienced making music using a PS1 controller and a well-built (for the time and system used) piece of software.
And then I got the machine mk1 and I just knew... this was it. It was not there yet, but all the essentials were here. And with the mk3, I was hooked.
So for the last 2 years I've only been using the maschine and a midi keyboard to make my tracks. From start to finish. Mutiple genres of music. And I made some of the most inspired, creative music I've ever made, and more importantly, I've had the most fun ever... but it's also been extremely frustrating at times, as I've had to find slow and painful workarounds for functions which take a split second in all other DAWs. And some are completely undoable, and I had to let them go. And it take so little to add these few features, I'm starting to wonder if NI's doing this on purpose.
Which to me begs the question; Why does NI not address the few glaring issues and capitalize on getting maschine to be the first actually fully fledged HARDWARE DAW controller. I think this would be much more popular and exiting, not to mention lucrative than say.... Komplete v36.5 or whatever the number is today. Do you have any idea how many people like me spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to create a simple, powerful and inspiring hardware studio that we would actually use in full capacity, and get professional level results?
Are there no visionaries left there? C'mon NI, think big!
If you ever want a list of small features that would make a huge impact towards that goal, feel free to P.M. me.
Anyway, not expecting a reply from NI, but you never know...
I've said what I had to say. Now back to making music.
Maven303
Re: [New release] KONTAKT 7 is here
hahahahahah! sorry but ”resizing empty space” is funny on several levels!
djadidai
Re: Bug in TP3 - 3.6.0 325 - Duplicate entries in collection
We can indeed reproduce the issue of duplicated entries having special characters in either path or folder names after importing the Collection from 3.5 into 3.6 and are investigating the issue with highest priority.
We will keep you updated on our findings as they come in. Our goal is to release a fix as soon as possible that stops the duplication and also removes the until then created duplicates from your collection.
Re: GUI design: adventures in Blender.
One more picture of the 3D model. Super happy with how it came out.
Greets,
Bolle
Bolle
