Albino 3 synth to be discontinued

Albino 3: still with us... but for how long?
Albino 3: still with us... but for how long?

It may have been released almost six years ago, but LinPlug's Albino 3 remains a favourite plug-in synth for many electronic music producers. Indeed, you voted it at number 12 last year in our poll to find the best VST plug-in synths in the world today.

It comes as something of a surprise, then, to learn that Albino 3 is going to be discontinued at the end of 2012. It's not clear exactly why this is, but a post on the KVR forum indicates that LinPlug has a new "classic subtractive synth" in the pipeline that will "accurately play back Albino 3 presets".

However, this statement has been contradicted by Rob Papen in the same thread. He claims that the new synth won't load his 2100+ Albino 3 presets and that he will "never allow" his presets to work in the new product.

There's further confusion surrounding the issue of support for Albino 3 once it's gone off sale. LinPlug states that it'll support it for "at least a year" (and offer a crossgrade option), while Papen claims that LinPlug has told him that it will be maintained for two years.

Clear as mud, then, but what we can confirm is that Albino 3 remains on sale at the LinPlug website for €149.

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.