Native Instruments has followed up its teaser trailer earlier this week with the official announcement of Razor, a new synth for Reaktor 5 and the freely downloadable Reaktor Player.

Designed for "contemporary music production" and developed in collaboration with electronic musician Errorsmith, it certainly looks and sounds impressive, and could be the additive synth for musicians who've never really 'got' additive synthesis before.

The official press release is below, but there's also the tutorial video above that has been put together by macProVideo. This does a fine job of explaining what Razor is and does.

Native Instruments Razor press release

Native Instruments today introduced RAZOR, an innovative and highly distinctive software synthesizer designed together with forward-thinking electronic artist Errorsmith. For use in REAKTOR 5 and in the free REAKTOR PLAYER, RAZOR uses powerful additive synthesis to create intense and profoundly modern sounds for contemporary electronic music production.

Berlin-based producer and renowned REAKTOR instrument designer Errorsmith is dedicated to the "expansion of the sonic horizon through digital sound synthesis". RAZOR realizes this credo through the additive synthesis capabilities of the latest REAKTOR 5.5 generation, which were used to develop a high-resolution synthesis engine with unconventional sound shaping features and a unique real-time 3D spectrum display. The pristine and extremely dynamic sonic character of additive synthesis allows RAZOR to generate a wide and very distinctive array of energetic, hypermodern sounds, ranging from expressive basses and leads to complex, futuristic soundscapes.

RAZOR utilizes up to 320 partials for its sophisticated sound shaping algorithms. The dual oscillator section provides a wide arsenal of timbres, ranging from typical analog-style waveforms to unconventional models like "Primes", "Sick Pitchbend" and "Hoover Sync". The two filter sections offers 20 different filter types including innovative formant, vowel and waterbed models. A further section provides an arsenal of unique "Dissonance Effects" that further contribute to the unmistakable, charismatic sonic footprint of the instrument. RAZOR even integrates a high-performance 34-band vocoder that can also be used to process external audio signals of any type.

The user interface of RAZOR builds on familiar concepts of subtractive synthesizers, providing especially efficient and intuitive control for the underlying highly sophisticated synthesis engine. RAZOR also includes a library of 350 carefully selected presets with a focus on cutting-edge electronic sound aesthetics, accommodating both contemporary club music genres like Dubstep and Techno as well as modern film and game scoring applications.

RAZOR is available for download purchase in the NI Online Shop for $79/69 EUR.