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.