Tracktion’s Abyss creates underwater sounds in an aesthetic fashion
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28.06.2021

Tracktion’s Abyss creates underwater sounds in an aesthetic fashion

Words by Sam McNiece

With interesting ways to browse and create sounds.

Tracktion, creators of interesting synths and effects, have launched the Abyss into the world. Created by Peter V, a mathematician, AI veteran and musician, the Abyss promises “a fresh and unique approach to both sound design and music production.”

What you need to know:

  • Abyss is a visual synthesiser that features minimal numbers on GUI as it focuses on the ‘art’ of music.
  • Vast tone colours are available to choose which form building blocks for patches.
  • Features routing options galore and MPE support for the modern producer.

Read all the latest product news here.

Dubbed a ‘visual synthesiser’, the Abyss represents its 2000 odd sound tones visually on a map. Each tone has a different colour from blue to green and everything in-between. They are meant to represent the different ways we use words to describe sounds, for instance warm, cool, dark, bright etc.

In addition to being able to select these tone colours, the unique part about this synth is the position selector. This looks very much like a gradient selector in image editing software which allows you to place the aforementioned tone colours along the selector. It will automatically create a cross fade between the two tones, which you can then modulate via a number of different sources.

There’s all the classic modulators, mod wheel, two ADSR envelopes, three LFO’s and also the new MPE system which is found in ROLI products. Throughout the synth there are 13 modulators and 23 destinations for them to modulate and this includes LFO’s modulating LFO’s. Two of these LFO’s can be used as step sequencers when the rate is brought down slower.

Effects on the Abyss resemble things that live underwater, which is a nice touch, but they are actually just common effects Shimmer, Delay, Reverb and Phaser.

Watch a demo of this interesting VST below.

Check out Tracktion for more on the Abyss.