Absynth, Reaktor, & Reason, comparison Options

[FroBoy909]

i was wondering if anybody out there has any experience so far with either Absynth or Reaktor from Native Instruments. what exactly is the difference between the two programs? is one just more comprehensive than the other? and how do these programs compare to Reason? are they all basically the same (i.e. a soft synth program)?

[jamshark70]

You could describe the differences between reaktor (which I have to admit I haven't used) and reason in terms of analog synth components: reaktor is like having a roomful of Moog components (oscillators, filters, envelope generators, effects, controllers, etc.) that you can patch together into literally any configuration you want. Reason is more like the Prophet and later synths: it's based on a standard configuration of oscillator, filter, ADSR envelope, LFO, etc. All the parameters can be changed, but the basic configuration can't be altered. If you want to run the LFO into some parameter that isn't selectable from the front panel, with reason you're SOL. With reaktor, you just connect point a to point b -- true modular synthesis. That means the learning curve is steeper for reaktor... it's easy to get started with reason (which is why we hear so many reason tracks that sound so similar... there's less incentive to dig deeper and make it sound individual).

Of course, for modular synthesis (and especially algorithmic composition), nothing beats SuperCollider! But that's only if you like code that's more obtuse than C -- I love it!

James