Hey everyone, since there's been a lot of talking around the preset explorer, just wanted to share this NI blog post about it: https://blog.native-instruments.com/absynth-preset-explorer/
Thanks for the link. I have not upgraded my Absynth 5 yet. Not currently doing any production that needs synth parts until next year.
BUT…
I find the Preset Explorer in Absynth 6 to be the most intriguing thing for NI to introduce in a long time. For me, the visual tool for finding sounds by their sonic characteristics is what I've been waiting for for several years. Bravo!
The blog is interesting and I agree with the underlying philosophy that musical exploration goes beyond, and even beneath, words and language - or rather it is its own language.
However I think the way this is implemented currently for me is disappointing, I presume (and hope) this is a work in progress
'The challenge of the infinite library' highlights both its strength and its weakness. Yes the current Absynth library is already vast, so a visual way to explore that is a welcome addition to navigating the browser (although I also do use the browser because much of the original library is very well trodden already by me so I know where to look). However it is only potentially infinite when one starts to create or bring in new sounds and alas, this is where it falls down in 2 ways.
Firstly as soon as you make a new patch, or bring in one someone else has made, it is lost to the Preset Explorer. I have whole banks of patches made by myself and others that are just invisible to it.
Secondly, for me the big excitement would be in using the Preset Explorer as a tool for exploring the spaces between existing sounds - that in itself makes it closer to being infinite. But again it can't do that. The points in the map are fixed on the presets - yes you can mutate stuff the old way but the visual metaphor of exploring a space to me implies being able to explore the spaces in between each point to morph, create (or find) new sounds. It is only a 'navigable sound space in which related textures naturally sit near one another' if you want to leap from one point to another, and not explore the spaces between or beyond them. That's a real pity. This is not the only example of using the map metaphor to explore sonic space in a plugin - some Arturia plugins used to have something similar, Audiomulch has had its 'Metasurface' for many years, and currently so do the UVI Bloom and Spark reverbs - but in all these cases you can explore the in-between spaces to find and then save new sounds eg:
I suspect it is because the AI was not trained on how the sounds are constructed but was only going by samples - which I guess is an economical shortcut but if it is a single synth and not something like Komplete Kontrol (where you would have to use samples) it would be much better and much more useful to be able to morph between points in the map - that would be a very cool approach to intuitive and musical sound design and very much inline with the blog post's philosophy.
'By taking on the analytical work of mapping a vast sound library, the system frees artists to focus on what matters most: listening closely, following intuition, and shaping ideas as they emerge.' Yes I agree but artists generally also want to create new things, and go beyond what is already there in the existing corpus. Saying 'the Preset Explorer extends the instrument’s character: a system designed not to smooth out strangeness, but to make it accessible, navigable, and playable' seems to imply a passivity, that artists are meant to be just consumers of what is given, not creators - and yet this is a synth, its whole purpose is to create, not simply curate, sounds.
The crux of the problem is this; 'We kept these principles in mind when incorporating AI into Absynth 6.' But AI is not incorporated into Absynth 6 - it was used outside of Absynth 6 to analyse the existing factory libraries. Presumably using external tools and LLMs. If Absynth 6 is really going to achieve the vision that is so well articulated in this blog, the tools need to be built into Absynth 6 so every time someone creates a new sound it creates a new position in the map, and so that the map can also be used as a creative tool to explore and chart new sonic territories rather than just as a passive guide to what already is mapped.
I just did the Absynth 6 upgrade purely to experience Preset Explorer…
Feedback to follow in a few days…
