Steinberg

Although best known for the venerable
Cubase – now well into its fourth decade –
Steinberg are, these days, much more than just
DAW developers. Of particular note amongst the
company’s current crop of products is their
collection of virtual instruments, as well as the
vast library of content – expansions, sample
packs, patches, and what-not – that Steinberg
have curated to complement these instruments.
Versions of these instruments, and elements of
the libraries, come with Steinberg’s DAWs, but all
are available as individual products too, and will
run on any VST-, AU- or AAX-compatible host
(some instruments can run standalone too).
Kitting yourself out with all of the fully-featured
versions of these instruments, and stocking up
on content for them, would be quite painful on
the wallet if it weren’t for the Absolute collection,
the latest update of which is now available.
Super samplers
A big chunk of Absolute 5 is given over to
HALion, Steinberg’s advanced sampling and
sound design platform. The collection includes
both the fully featured HALion 6, which we
looked at back in
243, and HALion Sonic 3.
While both are built on the same core
technologies, HALion Sonic acts only as a host
for HALion-compatible instruments, allowing
you to play them and work with their control
panels, whereas HALion itself allows you to
design and build those instruments and control
panels too. Including both in the Absolute
collection makes a lot of sense, giving a
phenomenally powerful instrument creation
workshop to create sounds, and a more
lightweight player with which to create music.
The library of HALion instruments included in
Absolute 5 includes everything from the
previous version of the collection, which
includes all of the HALion and HALion Sonic
factory libraries, a number of diferent
analogue-style and pure digital synths, the
excellent Eagle and Raven grand pianos, and
S t e i n b e r g
Absolute 5 £429
The latest edition of Steinberg’s über-collection adds new plugins,
instruments and expansions, but is it absolute hero, or absolute zero?
HALION 6 is a
powerful, fully-
featured instrument
design workshop
GROOVE AGENT
is an excellent
drum sampler and
groove player
CLASSIC ELECTRIC BASSES
Emulate them with this blend of
samples and modelling
HALION INSTRUMENT
Based on a rare Hohner
Electra piano
RETROLOGUE 2 is a
flexible, vintage-style
three-oscillator
subtractive synth
DETAILED EMULATION of three grand
pianos, an upright and a classic electric piano
much more besides (the full list is available on
Steinberg’s website). New to Absolute are
Amped Elektra, sampled from a rare and fully
restored Hohner Electra electric piano, and
Electric Bass which combines samples and
physical modelling techniques to deliver
convincing emulations of classic Jazz, Precision
and MusicMan bass guitars.
If beats are more your thing then Steinberg’s
excellent drum and rhythm workshop, Groove
Agent 5, is for you. We looked at this in
266 so
won’t retread too much ground, but the
headlines are that Groove Agent is a massively
lexible, multi-engined drum sample and pattern
player that’s as happy working with
contemporary sounds and beats as it is creating
realistic articulation-based acoustic drum
sounds and grooves.
All of the Groove Agent libraries and kits that
were included in Absolute 4 are here, such as
Rock Essentials, Raw Power and Prime Cuts. A
new addition to the collection is Future Past
70 / COMPUTER MUSIC / December 2021
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