Wow.

This is the only software synth I truly love because its not emulating ANYTHING. Oh the amazing sounds I've learned to dial up with this monster. The filters are otherworldly, the wavetable abilities are beyond imagining (or they were in the 90s) and she, well, umm, just WOW man. It took me a sleepless week to be able to start with a blank canvas and create cool sounds and another month to imagine a sound and figure out how to make it happen in Absynth, but hell if it wasn't worth overcoming the learning curve. You can wrap your head around this monster if you really understand how to program patches from scratch on a dx7 or an esq1.

Look, this synth is basically a ROMpler for people who don't have a professional studio recording background and thoroughly understand synthesis, general audio electronics and acoustics. If you can't program an FM synth, adjust an EMT plate (delay and gate that plate in time with your groove too), route surround through an SSLG or a million other tasks that require knowledge and attention to detail? DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME. Absynth is not for you. Even if you managed to learn it passably well you will not like it.

PS: the manual and online literature is utterly worthless because huge chunks of this synth's feature set are indescribable via technical jargon and have to be experienced to be properly learned. But, as I said, If you have a really well-rounded music electronics background you will "get it" in no time and start making really ethereal (or nasty) sounds rich with harmonic info that will sound to many ears like samples you made while sneaking around a DARPA facility!

A powerful raw guts synth offering two distinctive new types of synth manipulation.

If your into pure sound design and sculpting this is the vst to get its a three oscillator granular synth and effects suite, offering two new forms of additional synthesis here such as Mutator and Aetherizer anyway envelops such as amp, frequency, pitch and modulation are displayed graphically and can be fully manipulated by two forms of easy insertions step and slope these waveforms can be further manipulated using the node insert method with a total of 64 nodes available for insertion in each individual waveform complex and articulate. The Mutator function lets you make new Absynth sounds you never knew exsisted before.. First, you choose an existing preset as a starting point, and then select some of the tags from the Browser database .First seen in Absynth 4. These comprise Instrument, Source, Timbre, Articulation and Genre. As you add further tags, your search is narrowed down to a list of presets whose parameters will be used as targets for your mutations.Once you're happy with the target list, you click on the Mutate button, and each time you do so, a new Mutation preset is generated that combines the attributes of the original and target presets. The Mutation Amount slider adjusts how far from the original sound you want to go, while the Random Amount slider defines how much variation there will be between mutations..If you don't like the current Mutation, click on the Retry button for another. Each one you do accept appears in the pop?up Mutation History window, where you can decide which you want to save as new presets and which you want to discard. You can further refine your new sounds by excluding various modules from future Mutations, and by tweaking one or more of the eight fine? tuning knobs that control parameters such as brightness, resonance and mod amount.You can spend a long time generating lots of mutations, and with a little practice your able to produce very acceptable results ranging from gentle variations on the original all the way through to radically new creations. While the results will never match the finely hand?crafted creations of professional sound designers, Sound Mutation is nevertheless far more intelligent than your average 'random patch creation' tool, and will be welcomed by many long?term Absynth users. Aetherizer Absynth 5 features the rather intelligent and very useful Sound Mutation section with Fine Tuning and History features, which finally makes it easy for the newcomer to create unique sounds next comes.Granular synthesis (where audio is chopped into short 'grains' and recombined in various ways to produce new sounds) has always been a core feature of Absynth, but the new Aetherizer granular delay effect goes much further. Each grain is sent to a random position in the stereo field and can be pitch?shifted before being fed back into the effect's input, while most parameters have a random control to generate more chaotic results. For instance, increasing the random aspect of pitch?shifting gives results ranging from gentle chorus to swarms of insects.The output of this 'grain cloud' can be band?pass or comb filtered, and a very clever twist here is that you can also quantise the filter frequency so that its tuning jumps between notes in various musical chords or scales. Once you turn up the filter resonance and random filter frequency parameters, your grains emerge in chordal groups. Mint! You really do have to hear the possibilities to appreciate how good the Aetherizer is, especially once its parameters are being modulated via custom envelopes and LFOs. From tuneful tonal clusters to total chaos, you  soon can generate plenty of sounds that youve never heard before. The animated graphic representation of the grain cloud below the other controls is also a huge help in understanding what each one does. Given that it can also be used as an effect on incoming audio, This synth is a sculptors dream a must have.

Exploring endless sonic possibilities with innovative synthesis features

Super impressed by this synth. I've recently purchased this over a week ago and have noticed such possibilities that come with this synth. You can morph additive synth oscillators with FM synthesis oscillators while ingeniously controlling every parameter of each waveform. Not to mention the waveshapers, filters, effects, granulization, and resampling that you can ALSO morph into your synths together. This thing is a mind fuck. And I am loving every bit of it!! Definitely worth the 200$, though I got it on sale for 100$ :) Cheers NI!

Native Instruments Absynth 5

Native Instruments is a German technology company that develops software and hardware for music production and DJing. The company was originally known for their software instruments, but has also expanded its product line to include various other music equipment segments in recent years. Current products of Native Instruments include software synthesizers, samplers and effect processors, sound libraries and emulations of acoustic instruments, groove production systems and audio interfaces, as well as various products for computer-based DJing that include DJ software, Digital Vinyl Systems, hardware controllers and specific DJ audio interfaces. Native Instruments was founded in 1996 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany, where its headquarters are still located. It also has branches in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shenzhen and London. The company also holds a partnership with the online music store Beatport.

Initially impressive now needs upgrade

As above, when I first bought it years ago it was one of the best but has been overtaken over the years and I rarely turn to it now unless it comes up in the list of patches in Maschine.

Haven't used this one in a while

Body can't be blank. It requires at least 40 characters and I'm too busy to write a whole review. I will get back to this as soon as I can. I have tracks to make!

absenta

Use that for pads primarily

Fm synthesis ability is nice

AMAZING SYNTH

probably one of the best and more inovative synth in the world...

Great PLugin

I kind of use Absynth 5 just for different back ground leads if their needed for a song, plus i do use it to make awesome ground surfing synths for songs I've made with it.

The alien of the Native Instruments VST brotherhood.