TECH TIP: Record Window in Absynth

Hello all! Here is one of my favorite Absynth tricks.

You may not have even noticed the little button that says "Rec" at the top of the GUI when running Absynth in standalone mode. This is tied to an internal audio recorder in Absynth that you can use to do all kinds of nasty things. To begin, all you need to do is run Absynth in standalone mode (i.e. not as a plugin).

Pressing the "Rec" button will launch the Record window—now you can record any of Absynth’s output. I suggest clicking the "wait for note" button before starting, so the record process will only begin when you press a key (this ensures everything will be cut nice and tidy). Press Record and play a sound of your choosing. When you're done, hit the Stop button.

Now, the cool thing: you can overdub as many passes as you want (make sure the Overdub button is pushed). And, each successive pass can be a totally different Absynth patch, so you can create some pretty amazing things rather quickly. The result is actually being recorded to RAM (not your disk) until you hit the Save button. Absynth will then save a WAV or AIFF file of your final performance to the location of your choosing.

This may already be enough for many of you, since you might not have known the Record button was even there But let's use this feature creatively: why not make the World's Most Disturbing Pad. Absynth can use samples instead of conventional oscillators as a sound source in the Patch section (choose Sample in the Synthesis type drop-down, and point to the file you want to load). So, using the Record window, record yourself holding down a key on one of your favorite soundscapes, overdubbing multiple sounds if you want, and then bring the result back into Absynth for further processing! Here's a hint for maximum payoff with minimum investment: after creating your recording, select a soundscape you already like in the factory patches (or anything with some wild programming already on it), and just change the sound source in the Patch window from whatever it currently is to your recording. Then you can leverage an existing patch to get awesome results without even having to do any programming. This works best if your Absynth recording has tons of harmonics and crazy stuff in it. You can then record the output of that result, and bring it back in for more mangling...recycle it as many times as you want until you have something that would make Hollywood jealous!

You may have also noticed that the Record window has a "Fixed Length" button. Pressing this will allow it to start and stop recording on perfect loop boundaries; you can even select the number of bars. This is a cool way to immediately “print” a loop for use in a sequencer for example. If you want to be really tricky (and you know you do), you can even overdub a few different loops before rendering it to audio so that you have a nice fat layered beat by the time you go to print it. As before, the loops will be perfectly cut so you don't have to do any additional work outside Absynth.

One final note: because you can overdub as many times as your RAM will allow, you can use the audio recorder to create entire pieces, and render them to audio when you're ready. Absynth is really good for building impromptu jams or noise pieces this way (hint: disable Undo in the recording options and this will double the available record time). Create a nice little impressionistic piece before going to bed without even having to fire up your DAW...you'll be surprised at what you get.

Have fun!

Josh

 

Nice one, Josh =)

The recorderbox has been a secret weapon of mine for quite a while. However, I usually take it a step farther and import the recorderbox output (if it's short enough) into Virsyn's Poseidon and resynthesize the sample. I record that using Poseidon's recorder, and import it back into Absynth...

ew

 

Nice!

 

Thanks Josh.
I was aware of the record button (never used it, though), but I didn't know that you can overdub and fix the length of a recorded sound. Time to play a bit with it.

 

I've not used the overdub yet as just having neat waves from a single Absynth sound output then imported to Live is great.

If you Browse the sounds in Absynth you must use the Rec feature just to catch some tinkering.

Great for instant atmospheric pad loops for example.

A pity this Rec feature is not made more of from NI's point of view. It could be quite a nice selling point.

And don't forget the'mixer' located under the Overdub button. Not exactly flexible but could be useful.

 

Thanks Josh!

 

Many thanks for this fantastic tip! I wasn;t aware of this function

Tips like this are very useful....my time is limited (1 year old son, work, DIY nag list, partner etc) so when I do get time to 'play' I just play music and try and avoid scouring manuals for these sort of things. So, once again....many thanks.....this is a killer function.

best wishes
Adam

 

awesome! thanks heaps josh.....now i can treat Absynth like i do reaktor.....this is going to be fun

 

I would really like to record, but I don't seem to have the record button. How do I get Absynth into standalone mode?

 

?

Start Absynth up as a standalone app- the standalone's automatically installed.

ew

 

Does Absynth normally start in standalone mode? Do I have to be in a particular window to record?

 

Absynth can be used as either a standalone or as a plugin. If you aren't calling it up from within your host, it's standalone.

And no, you don't. Just press the Rec button on Absynth's GUI to bring up the recorderbox, change the available time for recording in the options if you want to use more or less than three minutes, and hit the record button.

ew

 

I'm using standalone, but I can't find the Rec button and there isn't anything about recording in the options.

 

Update to the latest version (4.0.5). The recorderbox wasn't put back into Absynth 4 until one of the updates (it was always a part of Absynth 1-3).

The options I'm talking about are in the recorderbox itself.

ew

 

Thanks, ew.

 

I was aware of Rec. But had not mess with it to know about all these very nice features. But, why not having more than one track on to record?

Say i record them on
rec 1
rec 2
rec 3
and having some mute/solo buttons to tweak the sounds while hearing the other recorded sounds. Maybe this leads to new DAW made by NI.

I wonder why NI doesn't come up with its own DAW.

cs

 

At last I got the mighty Absynth4 with the Komplete5, and with those superb tips by Josh, it's double fun!

 

Desperately need this in Kore

 

very intresting new solution creativity in real time from absynth 5

 

thanks very much.