Cinematic Synthesizer Evolves

Dawesome has announced the release of Abyss II, which they describe as the next evolution of its cinematic synthesizer. This is what they have to say about it...

The instrument is built on a simple premise: people describe sound using the same words they use to describe colour and texture. Warm, cold, dark, brilliant, silky, lush: people describe sound using the same words they use to describe colour and texture. Abyss II applies that idea directly to sound design. Instead of oscillator menus, formulas, and technical parameters, musicians pick tone colours, place them on a visual gradient, and shape sound by ear.

Sound Design Driven by Taste, Not Math

Abyss II replaces traditional oscillator workflows with timbral exploration:

• Feed It Anything - Abyss II is not a sampler, but you can drop any sound into Abyss II, from a phone recording to a guitar snippet. The engine extracts its timbral character, tunes it automatically, and builds a visual "Palette" of tone colours to draw from.
• Combine and Explore - Layer multiple tone colours on a single gradient, or draw from thousands of built-in colours to build original instruments.
• Instant Character - Three new performance controls, BRUTE, VELVET, and SYNTIFY, shape a sound's character in one move.
• Creative FX Chain - Four effect slots and 20 "pedals" for shaping tone.
• Kinetik & Movement - A poly-rhythmic sequencer with independent step lengths for pitch, octave, gate, and velocity, for continuous, non-repeating movement.
• 400+ Presets - Over 200 new presets plus 200+ updated presets from the original Abyss.
• Workflow Updates - Mono-synth mode, a preset browser with tags and favorites, a preset name generator, undo/redo, drag-out of recently played notes as audio, and low CPU usage.

 

"Stop asking 'Am I doing this right?' and start asking "Does this sound interesting to me?" said Peter V, creator of Abyss and founder of Dawesome. "Your taste is your advantage. Abyss II isn't built around synthesis theory, it's built to expand what you can do musically."

Demo Available Now

A full-featured demo of Abyss II is available for download now at dawesomemusic.com. No registration or account is required.

Pricing and Availability:
Abyss II is available starting August 20, 2026 at www.dawesomemusic.com and through Tracktion, in VST3, AU, and AAX formats.

• Introductory price: $89 / €89 (regular price: $149 / €149)
• Upgrade from Abyss 1: $45 / €45 (regular upgrade price: $75 / €75)
• Grace period: Customers who purchased Abyss 1 in 2026 receive the upgrade to Abyss II at no charge.

More information:

• www.dawesomemusic.com

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