Loop Mangling in Native Instruments Absynth

Mangle, tweak, manipulate, wreck, smash, bash, cut, slice…there are a lot of things you can do with a sample once you get it into Absynth, and this helpful tutorial will show you a unique feature made specially for mangling sounds.

All you need to make good use of this feature is an audio sample of some kind and some experimental motivation. First, load your sound into the first oscillator module via the Sample option. When the sample is first loaded up, you will notice that the speed at which it plays back is tied to the notes on your keyboard. This is because it is automatically mapped to the default pitch value which is basically set to key track. So you will need to change this if you do not want the note played to have any influence on the way the sound is played back. Go ahead and change the Frequency option to Note and set the value to something that suits your project. In this example he uses middle C, or 60Hz.

Once your sample is completely defined, you can add a sample jump envelope. This only works for samples and needs to be set up through the envelope window. Click on New to add an envelope and choose Sample Jump from the Oscillator A options. After this is done, you can either use a template the came with Absynth or one you have created yourself. It’s really not an envelope, but the name used doesn’t matter much once you see what you can do with it.

This feature is a sample editor, with a twist. You can add, delete and move the audio slices however you want, giving you almost limitless options once you consider everything else Absynth gives you to process your sounds. You can move the sample around inside of the slice regions. You can even set the slices to loop between markers. All of this is done through a simple and intuitive click and drag process. So you do not have to be a sample manipulation genius to create seriously awesome new takes. And if you want to take things one step further you can assign a controller, such as a mod wheel, to certain parameters or actions.

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Cheers,
OhmLab