ABSYNTH 6 FROM NATIVE INSTRUMENTS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
It was an overcast day on the first of October here in the UK, when music industry journalists and other invited interested parties gathered online for the last Native Instruments insider briefing of the year.
Billed to attendees as a Traktor & Synth event, I suspect the room was split equally between DJ’s and traditionalist instrument advocates.
Putting myself as a part of the latter camp, it was that second half of the presentation along with copious black coffee that kept me and the rest of the eager synth heads wide awake and salivating, apparently a new synth was coming, although some of us were already tipped off that the red carpet had already in fact been laid out in honour of the return of a much loved absent king!
Then came the moment of the big reveal, although no cheers or applause could be heard via the globally muted microphones, the big news was that Absynth was coming back to the Native Instruments portfolio, after being dropped from Komplete 14 back in 2022, having been commercially available for some 22 years, which is an incredible run for a software instrument by any standard.
In these two decades, wars had been won and lost, governments have risen and fallen, and babies have grown into adults!
Absynth 5, the final iteration, had plenty of fans, due in no small part to the sheer creative flexibility of this synth, it could produce sounds way ahead of it’s time, and straddled so many genres, from pop, hip hop, dance, trance, game & sound design, and film scoring, in fact it could capably handle the lot and still manage to sound fresh and unique even by the time of it’s eventual departure.
The campaign to bring it back never stopped, whilst not quite an organised petition, there have been no shortage of comments in industry forums, and it was quite apparent that there was still plenty of life yet in this old dog of synths!
Absynth creator Brian Clevinger whilst initially admitting his disappointment at this apparent end of life decision, never took it to heart and entirely closed the door,instead focusing on a new synth Plasmonic under his own Rhizomatic Software Synthesis company.
Windows users have still been able to use Absynth 5 thanks to continued VST2 support, however MAC users running silicon processors had the door closed as the newer M processors only supported VST2 under Rosetta mode, which somewhat defeated the object of the newer processors. thankfully we now have a fully VST3 compatible virtual synth resurrection in the guise of Absynth 6.
ECLECTIC SYNTHESIS
Having Received some major notable updates in it’s long history, by the time Absynth reached version 5, it boasted several forms of synthesis, which suggests a large part of it’s broad appeal and sound versatility.
There are few synths that can offer traditional subtractive synthesis alongside FM (Frequency Modulation), Wavetable, Granular Synthesis, Ring Modulation, Sample Synthesis, and wave morphing all under one roof.
Personally, I was fairly late to the party, first obtaining Absynth around 2013, this was of course prior to the existence of Komplete Kontrol, and Absynth like all of Native Instruments products was frustratingly inaccessible at this time, when Komplete Kontrol was still at the blueprint stage.
, good access did still exist in the form of Hotspot Clicker scripts for JAWS, created by Steve spamer, who did a fantastic job in bringing this synth to life for blind & visually impaired users on the Windows platform.
Crucially, we were able to load our own samples into the layers, add various fx, and even use the random button to auto generate our own presets, which is something that Komplete Kontrol did not offer even in 2022.
ABSYNTH 6 IN 2025
So what can we hope for in the re launch of Absynth 6 in these closing days of 2025?
The truth is that at this moment it is difficult to tell, commercial deadlines and time constraints as we know often mean that accessibility becomes less of a priority, however the good news is that Absynth 6 has been ported to run within JUCE, and as many will know, this has arguably good potential for making things screen reader friendly, we only need to look at Surge XT as a shining example of what it is possible to achieve.
If JUCE can allow us access to the user interface, then there is the poss ability to access the browser, and thus load in or choose our own samples. From here the world could be our oyster provided that the sound design and shaping tools that Absynth 6 contains are also accessible.
Making as many of these UI parameters available for host automation would also be a welcome start, as this would at least give us access either via Komplete Kontrol or a DAW parameter list.
In fact given the new JUCE build, Komplete Kontrol or NKS does not actually need to be the central means or driving force behind Absynth 6 accessibility at all.
NEW FEATURES
Absynth 6 is backwards compatible with previous versions, meaning that any third party preset sound sets already invested in, will still work, right back to version 1.
Furthermore, all of the favourite features that contributed to it’s popularity are firmly still in situ, along with some new tricks.
With over 2000 factory presets there is plenty to explore, including all of the old favourites alongside many new presets from designers such as Ocean Swift.
A 68 point envelope generator, and the classic mutator is still in place, along with those aforementioned randomiser buttons.
Full MPE polyphonic aftertouch, surround sound and micro-tuning, and like the original there is an FX version of the plug-in included.
THE NEW RELEASE
Having been testing Absynth 6 since late October, in terms of accessibility we can only hope that things will improve dramatically with updates over time.
As things currently stand there remains only the two pages of NKS macro controls that came with Absynth 5, and this is also reflected in the parameters that have been assigned for host automation, meaning that Kontrol MK3 keyboards will not reveal any additional goodies, so at the moment accessibility remains in parity with Absynth 5.
Unfortunately it seems that the commercial release deadline for Absynth 6 which did get pushed back from it’s original release date, has meant that the requested accessibility wish list has regrettably needed to take a backseat at least for the time being, so this review has not been quite the fanfare and fireworks I had hoped for or anticipated.
The implementation and porting over to JUCE does leave it in good shape for the future though, so let us hope that future updates also bring forth some meaningful access improvements.
CONCLUSION
Windows users keen to get the new presets may still wish to jump onboard, however at this point Absynth 6 will most likely appeal to MAC users who have longed to get this classic back in their palette.
Otherwise some may wish to hang on until the Komplete 16 software suite is released in late 2026 where it will finally again take it’s rightful place back among the other Native Instruments synths.
Absynth 6 is available from Native Instruments website for £179.00, loylty pricing may apply, log into your account to see if applicable.
Absynth 6 product page:
Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
9th December 2025
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About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
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