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