The Steinberg Absolute 4 VST Instruments Collection (Boxed) is a huge VST instrument library of the best in-house virtual instruments with over 6800x pre-sets and more than 100GB of content. The latest VST technologies and advanced sound design tools make this software package the perfect solution for music production, composition and live performance. Whatever your genre, Absolute 4 offers outstanding audio quality and a wide range of possibilities in every area. On board are HALion 6 & HALion Sonic 3 (Samples & Workstation), synthesizers such as Padshop Pro, Granular Guitars, Skylab, Auron, Trium, Voltage, Triebwerk, Hypnotic Dance, three pianos (Raven, Eagle, Grand 3), a Model C and HALiotron organ, Hot Brass, Drums & Percussion VSTs (Groove Agent 5, B-Box, World Percussion, Prime Cuts, Rock Essentials) and instruments for film music (Studio Strings, Dark Planet, Symphonic Orchestra, World Instruments).
The main features of the Steinberg Absolute 4 VST Instruments Collection (Boxed) include:
System Requirements:
Described as "Boxed" - Took about 4 days to receive a fairly large box. Inside that was packing material and another small box labelled as "Absolute 4" and inside this box was a 10cm square card with serial number and sticker! Could the serial not have been in an email?
Installation took quite a while even with a high speed connection. There is a vast amount of data and a lot of applications to learn. Initially every plugin I tried froze my DAW (Studio One 4 Professional) requiring me to end the application process. This was worrying! I initially installed using the software eLicenser but I happened to have a eLicenser USB dongle lying around and only when I moved my licence to the dongle did everything start working flawlessly.
!!!!! An eLicenser USB dongle is not included in the "Box" but I would highly recommend getting hold of one to install this software !!!!
I was primarily interested in Groove Agent 5 but this is proving time consuming to learn as it really isn't very intuitive. I am quite disappointed with how few Grooves are included that are not in 4/4 time signature. It would seem that additional expansion packs are required to be purchased if I want access to more odd time signature grooves.
A large investment in time is required to get the most from this software but there are good tutorials available on YouTube and many of the sounds out of the box are excellent. The user interfaces to the plugins may not always be the most intuitive but the level of functionality included is at a professional level and appreciate this is not easy to simplify.
For the price I am very happy with this product.
My tracks now sound professional and I'm saving a huge amount of time as the instruments sound great as they are and don't need much tweeking, best investment so far