Omnisphere.....who's using it?

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Came across this video of the Spectrasonic's Omnisphere 1.5 update that implements the ipad as a control surface.  Is it as good as it sounds.  I have resisted so far.  Perhaps it is futile to do so.
http://vimeo.com/20020519

[petekelly]

Just watching the video now, sounds cool.
But 8000 sounds ? It seems some companies are adding 'value' with oodles of presets. I've just downloaded Native Instrument's Massive demo and there are indeed a massive number of presets !

Somewhat off-topic, but I've got NIs 'Prism' and 'Razor' and (IMHO) they are great synths for ambient /sound-design.

[APK]

I'm a fan of Razor too ... I've always been attracted to additive synths.

I think Omnisphere really does have excellent sound quality and variety. Plus its very tweakable, has excellent sound layering, and a useful set of interfaces to get at things. Its a lot of money for a softsynth but its head and shoulders above most of the stuff out there.

[LNerell]

We have it here at work, all the film composer students love it and swear by it. The instructors want it on every workstation, they ask for it above everything else out there. My opinion? I hate it, to me its cheating. I love making sounds, Omnisphere does it all for you so no reason to make any yourself. I can understand why film composers love it, sounds great and  its quick and super easy to come up with complex evolving sounds that pop in a soundtrack, but to me it takes all the fun out of making sounds.

On a side note I have to add, Spectrasonics is one of the most difficult company I have ever worked with. We have been trying to buy a bunch of copies of their products for a few years now. They have put up so many hurdles, the latest one, they won't take our company credit card for some weird reason. 

[mgriffin]

Razor looks interesting. I was considering another Komplete upgrade and it looks like Razor might be the only thing in the "Ultimate" package that interests me aside from what's in the normal ($300 cheaper) Komplete upgrade. I don't care about Alicia Keys or Abbey Road Drums!

[APK]

In response to Loren's post : yep, like Atmosphere before it, Omnisphere comes with lush expressive presets that you could pop straight in to a film score ... and sound like lots of other people using these presets. But it nevertheless is seriously tweakable once you get beyond the given setup and use the presets only as starting points.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

My opinion? I hate it, to me its cheating. I love making sounds, Omnisphere does it all for you so no reason to make any yourself. I can understand why film composers love it, sounds great and  its quick and super easy to come up with

This is one of the main reasons I have stayed away, too easy......its just every time I see these demo videos the seduction is quite powerful.   Mind you to grab at something easy once in a while is not always a bad thing

[mgriffin]

My opinion? I hate it, to me its cheating. I love making sounds, Omnisphere does it all for you so no reason to make any yourself. I can understand why film composers love it, sounds great and  its quick and super easy to come up with complex evolving sounds that pop in a soundtrack, but to me it takes all the fun out of making sounds.

Not that I have a problem with a tool that provides a lot of "help" for creating cool sounds and music (to me, Ableton Live's easy looping/mixing setup does the same thing -- I often feel guilty when I use it because it can be so easy to create cool, complex ambient textures), but in one of the Omnisphere demo videos I noticed something along the lines of what you're saing.

They're messing around with the light bulb sample, and the heavy guy plays a few keys and looks at the others, grinning as if to say "Look, I just made an awesome movie soundtrack by just holding down 3 keys!"

I remember when the D50 and the M1 and a few other sample-based synthesizers came out, there was the same sense of "just hold down a key -- instant movie soundtrack (or instant new age music)." Digital Native Dance, presets like that.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Eric Persing was the main programmer behind the Roland D50....some things dont change. Funny had my eye on a D50 for a while.

[mgriffin]

I really loved my D50 but I think I used it so extensively for so long, I've sort of worn it out.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Mike how is the programming...hard like the DX7?  I had heard it was not as difficult

[mgriffin]

No, it's not difficult. If you've programmed any of Roland's later synths like JV-880/1080/2080 it will seem very familiar.

One thing I don't like about programming the D50 is that if you use a software patch editor like Unisyn or Sound Diver (and I was very into Unisyn when I first got my D50), you can't easily send/save patches created in the patch editor into the D50 without pressing buttons on the D50. I found this very inconvenient because a big part of my creative process was changing, editing and saving many, many different versions and variations of patches. With most of my patches, this could be done easily from the computer interface, but for the D50 I kept having to go across the room to the synth and press a button. A minor thing, but it stuck in my memory as an irritation.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Yes I would find that irritating as well....breaking the creative flow.  Thanks for info

[Altus]

I've used Atmosphere for years, and when I heard about Omnisphere, I jumped on it as soon as it was released.

While Omnisphere has a lot of "single key" patches that play themselves, that's the tip of the iceberg of its capabilities.  It does have a wide variety of simpler, cleaner sounds that can be used for sound design.  It also allows you to build complex patches from multiple sources.  Each patch can consist of eight soundsources, be it sample-based or generated sounds.  I doubt anyone would want eight soundsources in one patch, but the fact that the option is there is nice.

It's a damn powerful tool, and can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be... you just need to dig down to find all the extra control it offers.  It's a shame that they promote it the way they do, because it's seen more as a toy instead of a serious tool.  FL Studio has the same problem, but that's a conversation for another day.

For me, while I do dig down once in a while, I like the simplicity of it.  I'm more interested in making music vs sound design, and it is a great tool for making music.  If you do plan on using it, just don't choose the easy patches and your music won't suffer from "I know that patch" syndrome.   And if you do use the easy patches, beat the crap out of it first and make it your own.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Good input on Omnisphere.  The video looks nice on the page Mike.  As it turns out I can not install Omnisphere even if I want to because of my ancient G5 system, actually it will run but its a waste of time performance wise.  NI software will not install at all.  Along with my howling fans thats be discussed elsewhere in this forum....its time for a major upgarde.  Couple of projects to finish first and then I will commit. 

[Scott M2]

As an alternative to Omnisphere, consider Alchemy. The price is lower, sound quality is very good and the programming possibilities so vast that I can't even consider adding Omnisphere to dilute my time further.

[APK]

Alchemy is by far my most used software synth.
It is excellent. Certainly worth looking at if you don't have it already.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Will definitely check out Alchemy.....thanks!

[sraymar]

I like the orb and the iPadlike interface with the latch feature. I'd like something like that for VAZ Modular which already has all the other features shown in the demo(and a whole bunch more). There will always be the people that like the instant soundtrack/composition angle which I believe stems from the old home organs from the 60s, then there will be the more adventurous types that just see these things as tools for further modifications(Pete Townsend running his Lowery organ into his ARP modular). 

[Julio Di Benedetto]

I remember seeing a video with Pete Townsend running an organ through an ARP.  I cant think of the track but I was surprised that that was how he got the sound.