Native Instruments has quietly removed Absynth – the ground-breaking semi-modular software synthesizer – from its lineup.
The company has announced Komplete 14, and Absynth is missing in action.
Absynth had a remarkable 22-year run. Originally introduced by developer Brian Clevinger’s Rhizomatic Software in 2000, Absynth has been distributed by Native Instruments since 2001. The soft synth was in need of an update, though, since the most recent version was introduced in 2009.
Native hasn’t said anything about the demise of Absynth, but Clevinger shared the above statement via Youtube.
“I don’t know if it will be possible to continue Absynth outside of NI,” notes Clevinger. “But I want Absynth’s unique features to remain available to musicians. For years I’ve had major plans for Absynth, and although this is a disappointing turn of events, these ideas could manifest as new stuff from Rhizomatic. So stay tuned!”
Fans of Absynth may want to take a look at Clevinger’s Plasmonic. While a very different synth, it also features deep modulation, plus support for recent technologies like MPE:
Check out Clevinger‘s statement and share your thoughts on Absynth, and it’s demise, in the comments!
9/9/2022 Update: We’ve received confirmation from Native Instruments that Absynth is officially retired.
via Brian Clevinger, Angelos Dorizas
I was waiting for the Nintendo port.
Plasmonic is a great synth !
+1
Endless sonic fun.
I took no chance and redownloaded the Absynth installer from Native Access in case they would stop distributing it. It is now stored in a safe place.
The basement storage room at Trump’s Mar a Lago???
If Native doesn’t want to invest in it, the best thing that they could do for customers is to let the license go back to the developer.
I’d love to see an updated version with support for iOS. A touchscreen interface would be great for editing modulations.
Brian’s commentary was sweet and gracious. What a great attitude. His heart is absolutely in the right place. Now I really want to explore Plasmonic! That plasmonic demo track sounds gorgeous!
I’ve been aware of Absynth and all its amazing features, but I’ve never had access to it. It was interesting to hear how eager he would have been to do an update if NI had approached him about it. I wondered how that process was usually handled.
I completely agree with iMan, that NI should give back the licensing to the developer. Or, if there’s complications around existing licenses, perhaps NI could break it out of the bundles and shift the app/plug to an a la carte kind of thing.
NI also removed Scarbee Funk Guitarist (although it lives on through Scarbee).
InKomplete.
Well, they milked everything they could for 22 years. Now it’s time to release it as open source and let the redevelopment begin.