Steinberg has announced the immediate availability of Absolute 4, a collection of standalone and plugin instruments for VST, AU, and AAX hosts. The updated collection comes with 100 GB of sounds and virtual instruments, Groove Agent 5 and more.

• You need to factor in the cost of a new hard drive these days with the size of instrument libraries. IK Multimedia’s SampleTank 4 comes in at 250GB and Native Instruments Komplete Collectors Edition racks up something in the region of an eye-watering 900GB. Steinberg is having a go with the update to their Absolute instrument bundle but 100GB seems positively light in comparison – which is of course ridiculous.

What’s important is that there’s a lot of new stuff in here. Absolute 4 Absolute brings together all the full versions of Steinberg’s current virtual instrument roster. It’s largely based around HALion 6 and much of the 100GB is taken up with instrument content for that. HALion 6 features a deep sampling and sound design system. You can build your own instruments with the Macro Page Designer. Alongside is HALion Sonic 3 which is the more synthy version focusing on deep-sampled instruments and synths. Then we have the brand new Groove Agent 5 plus Prime Cuts and Rock Essentials.

Familiar titles such as The Grand 3, Padshop Pro 2 (expanded with Granular Guitars), Retrologue 2, Dark Planet, Hypnotic Dance and Triebwerk. And some less familiar ones such as SkyLab, Auron and HALiotron.

Absolute 4 is a celebration of the best synthesizers and workstations that Steinberg has to offer, unleashing infinite creative possibilities with 10 state-of-the-art instruments alongside thousands of presets and samples. Spanning more than 100 GB of first-class sounds, Absolute 4 lays the foundation for some of the finest software instruments available today.

With HALion 6, Absolute includes an extremely powerful sampling and sound creation instrument hailed by discerning sound designers and producers. At its side stand HALion Sonic 3, the brand-new Groove Agent 5 virtual drummer, The Grand 3 with its many beautifully crafted piano emulations, and the granular synthesizer, Padshop Pro 2, as well as the classic virtual analog synthesizer, Retrologue 2. And the list just goes on: Prime Cuts and Rock Essentials Style expansion sets for Groove Agent, Granular Guitars for Padshop Pro, Dark Planet, Hypnotic Dance, Triebwerk and more are readily available to add even more content to the massive arsenal of sounds. Key Features • More than 100 GB of sounds and virtual instruments • NEW! Groove Agent 5: The very best in electronic and acoustic drums • NEW! Granular Guitars expansion for Padshop Pro • NEW!

Prime Cuts expansion for Groove Agent • NEW! Rock Essentials Style Expansion for Groove Agent • NEW! AAX support for all plug-ins • NEW! HiDPI support for all plug-ins • HALion 6: Ground-breaking virtual sampling and sound design system • Build your own instruments with the Macro Page Designer in HALion • High-end synthesizers the likes of Retrologue 2 and Padshop Pro.

If search results are not what you looking for please give us feedback on where we can/or should improve.