Peter Vorländer, the spiritual father of Abyss, in conversation.

Beat / How did the idea for Abyss come about? Peter / It all started with the idea of making sound design more accessible and intuitive. Sound design can be so much fun - but sometimes it feels more like „programming“sounds rather than an artistic process. The second starting point was my desire for an instrument that combined the organic sound quality of natural samples with the flexibility of a synthesizer. At some point, this evolved into the idea of representing sounds through colors ... and from there it was not far to the concept of Abyss.

Beat / Can you explain the concept of the synthesizer?

Peter / In Abyss, sounds are represented by colors. To create a sound, you select some basic colors and can arrange them via drag and drop into a sound-color gradient. So, depending on where you are on the gradient, you‘ll hear a different mix of the basic colors - and this position can be modulated by anything to make the sound lively. And then you have typical synth sound shaping with filters or even FM.

That sounds totally simple, and that‘s exactly what it is! You very quickly get a feel for how color and sound are related; however, pure, monochromatic sounds would be quite boring - it becomes more vivid when a sound changes over time. In Abyss, you choose basic colors and arrange them on a gradient. In this way you can, for example, create a time sequence or control the sound development using the modwheel.

Beat / How does the development process of a synthesizer work in concrete terms?

Peter / First you develop a theme: What do you want this synth to do particularly well? During the entire process, this is like a guideline because you can ask yourself, for each feature, whether it contributes to the theme or not. Then, prototypes are created: on the one hand for the sound engine, on the other hand for the user interface. The sound engine cannot be used properly yet, the sounds are really programmed here, that is, described by software code. The user interface is first designed on paper - so you can work quickly and then refine it in Photoshop. Once the basic concept is in place, you start with the actual implementation. It‘s very important to have something you can make music with as early as possible. It lacks any comfort and all kinds of features, but you can give it to artists to get feedback. And then, it‘s improved and completed step-by-step. At some point the plug-in is finished, but it‘s still not a product: you still need factory presets, a manual, installers, beta tests, intro video; you need to get it running solidly on all DAWs, and so on. The whole process from the first idea to the release takes between six months and two years, depending on the scope.

Beat / Can you give our readers some tips on how to get the most out of Abyss?

Martin / The most important thing to realize is that sound design doesn‘t have to be exhausting and take a long time; it can also be playful and quick. If you can create a great, inspiring sound after just two minutes - all the better! For expressive sounds, it is recommended that you give the gradient a „direction“- for example, at one end the sound is sharp and bright, at the other end soft and dark. This creates a natural field of tension for a well-playable instrument. This can then be refined as needed with the three FM controls and the filter. Really stark results are quickly achieved by layering. With two or three instances of Abyss, you can create extremely dense, massive soundscapes in no time at all. Or you can layer other instruments with Abyss - I like to layer Abyss over an analog (hardware) synth to add some texture and organic noise.