Spectrasonics Omnisphere Review

[Hades]

ok, I'm finished with the tutorial video's (or at least the ones they've posted uptill now, cause they will post more of them in the future) and I've gone through the reference guide (manual),
so I guess I'd like to call your attention to this fantastic new softsynth from Spectrasonics.

Part 1 :

Basically Omnisphere is Atmosphere's successor.
(for those who never heard of Atmosphere, in short : it's a great softsynth, that excells in atmospheric sounds)
But Omnisphere is a huge improvement on Atmosphere.
The biggest let down on Atmosphere was that it always felt like a basic sampler with a huge library of superb samples (sound sources in Spectra lingo). Although you had nice possibilities to create your own patches, in reality you usually didn't do much more than adjust the presets to your likings. In part because the presets were some of the best you could find on a synth, but also because you just weren't "inspired" as much to do so because the list of available parameters felt quite limiting at times.
Omnisphere changed all that.
Not only can you completely program every sample (sound source) to your liking, but you can also chose if you want to use a sound source or just a normal synth waveform as your starting point. Or use both by selecting a sound source in layer A, and a synth waveform in layer B.
Plus, whereas Atmosphere had only 2 parts per patch, and no "performance" or "multi" mode,
Omnisphere has multi's that can contain 8 patches each.
And since each patch has 2 layers, this means 16 oscillators or sound sources per multi, if you like.
(and in reality it's even a lot more, since you have harmonia and unison modes, but I'll get back to that later)

Plus they drastically improved the playability of Omnisphere compared to Atmosphere.
Cause after all, what fun would all these multi's be if you couldn't properly set up different zones for each of them ?
So they've made zoning possible for velocity, notes and CC !!
With crossfades if necessary.

But the biggest fun when it comes to playing Omnisphere is their so called "Live mode". There you can play all 8 patches at the same time if you want.
Or more or less, really...
Basically, you are playing the patch you last selected, but as long as you hold down notes when selecting another patch, the notes you're sustaining can still be heard while you play the other patch.
And you can even do this with 2 different MIDI controllers at the same time !
Plus you don't have to use your mouse to select another patch, you can also use a key on your MIDI controller or a MIDI CC message for selecting a specific patch of your list, or just scrolling through the list...
This makes Live mode an ideal mode for (ugh) live performing, but also if you want to lay down a rough idea for a song all in one go, without having to use your sequencer.
And with Omnisphere's patches, this is a lot of fun !!
Especially if you're into film scoring or making ambient.

[Hades]

Part 2 :

Oscillators

As said above, you can chose between a sound source (sample) or a synth waveform.

The sound sources were already great in Atmosphere (and since Omnisphere is Atmosphere's successor, all Atmosphere's sound sources and patches are included), but they are even better in Omnisphere.
They obviously had tons of fun making them.
Some examples :
Playing melodic phrases with an electric guitar, then slowing them down, reversing them, and playing them through an old 8 bit sampling delay unit. and then multitracking the result to create harmonic textures.
Or using a kids 2$ fan to fan (hit) a drumhead, and then recording the sound from inside the drum, and using that as an oscillator.
Or using an ebow on just about any instrument with strings.
Or scraping piano strings with a screwdriver.
Or using a bow on a metal clothes drying rack, that is acoustically coupled to 2 acoustic guitars.
Or setting a piano on fire and then play notes (mod wheel adds more of the burning sound).
Or...
And the fun part is they attached pictures to each sound source, so you can for instance actually see Diego Stocco (one of the sound designers) bowing the metal clothes rack with 2 acoustic guitars upside down attached to it, or any other weird but creative thing they did.
Not with every sound source, but definitely with the most outrageous ones.
Plus Omnisphere gives you the opportunity to change the timbre of your sound source with 2 different modes.
Timbre Crush mode can bit crush the sound source, and depending on whether you move the slider to left or right, you use an extra highpass or lowpass filter on it.
Timbre Shift mode transposes the mapping of the samples in one direction, and changes the pitch in the opposite.
And naturally, you can always change the sample starting point.

If you take a synth waveform as a starting point, you can look at Omnisphere as a normal softsynth.
But (and that's a big "but" !!)... Omnisphere has a lot more options than most normal softsynths.
For instance, one of the waveforms you can chose is called "sawsquare". This is cause you can change your waveform from saw to square, and anywhere inbetween.
It reminds me of NI's Massive, where you had a comparable thing.
But Omnisphere sounds way better than Massive, if you ask me.
(cause I gotta give it to the guys at Spectrasonics : the overall sound quality of their software has always been outstanding!!)

What else ? You got FM, Ring Modulation and Waveshaper options.
FM with a hidden oscillator that serves as your modulator.
And you don't have a sine waveform as your only option, but also triangle, saw and noise !
Same for your Ring Modulation, which is polyphonic, so you get a lot more musically useful results since the pitch isn't fixed.
The waveshaper comes with 4 different algorithms, which range from adding small distortion to big chaos.

And then you still have Unison mode. But again with more options than you usually have.
You can for instance select different settings for the phase of the extra oscillators (always fun for instant bigger sounds).
You got a spread control to pan the extra oscillators across the stereo image.

You also got Harmonia mode.
At first glance, it just looks like adding extra oscillators (but within your same layer !!) so you can make chords or whatever.
But it's actually more detailed than that, cause you can set the level and panning of each extra oscillator, plus (and this is in my opinion a big plus) you can also chose different waveforms for each extra oscillator !!
Plus you can change their shape (remember the sawsquare waveform ?), symmetry, or adjust how much the separate hard sync oscillator affects them.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that one, right ? Hard sync is possible with, again, a separate hidden oscillator !

And I'm still not finished, cause you also have basic Granular synthesis options !
Each grain can have its own duration, amplitude and envelope, so you can "create a layered ‘soundscape’ of overlapping tones", as they say in the manual.
In all honesty, I didn't like this part for the full 100%.
Plus once you've gone through a lot of the patches, you can hear they used it a bit too often in their presets, if you ask me.
But that's just me of course, cause it's still one fine extra option to have, even though to me it's possibilities seemed rather limited.

And that's only the oscillators, I still haven't mentioned the 6 LFO's, 4 mod envelopes, Dual filters, and FX
(but that might be for another day or the mrs and little miss will start feeling neglected...) :occasion9:

[Yoozer]

A few things:

1) congrats!
2) where are the videos?
3) could you add a few spaces in your gearlist so it doesn't stretch the table?

[Hades]

thx !
I'm still gonna review the rest, but that'll probably be in a few days.

there are the normal teaser video's, which used to be on the spectrasonis site, but I'm not sure they're still there since these were mostly meant to make pubilicity prior to the release.
they were absolutely not showing much at all, and it took ages to load them too.
the good video's are the tutorial ones that are only available for registered users.

since mr vintagesynth goofed up our post counts, and I lost another 2000 posts next to the more than 2000+ posts I already lost in 2004 when the new forum began, I figured I'd finally add a gearlist (contrary to my personal belief that whatever gear you have doesn't matter)
Turns out I had to leave out quite a bit just cause there wasn't enough "space".
and now you're asking me to put in "spaces" ?? :blob4:
ok, I'll try...
(maardasdanalleenomdadetzoschoonvraagt)

[crystalmsc]

hey, that was fast Hades..that should put you among the first Omnisphere user. after watching all those videos, seems like this synth is of a very hi quality sound. How is it quality compared to the XV-88? I didn't expect it to blow the hardware, but expect a bit of hardware quality of this latest generation synth. anyway, congrats for the great new addition.

[Hades]

I'd say it sounds quite a bit better than my XV88.
The overall sound quality of Atmosphere was already quite good, but I got the feeling they've even improved it with Omnisphere.
You can't help but having a sort of "blown away" effect.
Like you're sitting in a movie theatre, that kind of being "blown away" by sound.
I haven't used it in any songs yet, but the times I've just layed a quick beat underneath a patch, it made the beat sound very dull soundquality wise.
So I can imagine it's gonna be rather hard to make it "blend in" in a mix.
It's by far the best softsynth I've ever heard when it comes to sound quality.
And since it's possibilities are so huge, it looks like it's gonna be my alltime faouvrite softsynth for a few years to come.

Let's give another quick example of how well they designed this synth :
on your basic edit page, you see all basic parameters for each part of the synth. so you can always just quickly change the basic stuff. but with every part of the synth (ie filter, modulation,... ), you can "zoom in" to a dedicated page for deeper programming.
Ok ok, doesn't sound very new, I admit. But take this : for each envelope, you got the typical ADSR parameters on your edit page,
but when you zoom in, you find a fully programmable envelope, that you can draw to your liking. You can add curves, spikes, pulses,... And the genius part is they've linked them both. So it's not like once you've switched to complex that you can't use the ADSR scheme anymore. Nope, you can just quickly adjust your complex envelope by using the well known ADSR parameters on the front edit page, or you can dive in deeper when needed.
Plus if you decide to loop an envelope, you can have it changed by the so called "chaos" parameter automatically, each time it's being retriggered (which can of course simply be synced to song tempo). This means you get a completely new envelope every single time if you want.
All very simple idea's, but it gives you tons of possibilities to work with.
And it's all extremely user friendly.
For instance, you can save your own presets for each part of the synth. This means you can save your own envelopes, your own oscillators, your own LFO's, your own filters,...

I don't know if I'm that fast with having Omnisphere, since I don't really know when this got shipped out, and who bought this yet.
I bought Atmosphere used on ebay about 4 years ago. I discovered you can't use this used (which is if you think of it rather logical, but I guess I was just a little bit more naïve back then than I am now ), so I had to use a crack to get it running.
So when I switched to mac in january, I didn't have it anymore. Shortly after, I heard they were gonna release Omnisphere, so I waited till that came out instead of buying Atmosphere again.
I pre-ordered it at Music Store in Köln, where I always buy my gear (when I buy something new, that is).
So as soon as they had it in stock, they sent it out. I think I've received mine about 2 weeks ago.
In the mean time, I discovered you can resell your copy of Spectrasonics software, but this is only after getting permission from them, and I suspect the 2nd buyer must pay another fee to Spectrasonics to obtain his own PW or SN.
If I would have known earlier, and the guy I bought my copy of Atmosphere from would have played it legit, I could've gotten Omnisphere a lot cheaper, since there was a special price for people who upgraded from Atmosphere to Omnisphere.
But whatever the case, these guys deserve our money, that's for sure !

[crystalmsc]

I'd say it sounds quite a bit better than my XV88.

hmm, that's something. the atmosphere is great, but I can't say that it's better than the XV based engine quality, mainly the filter. so, this is supposed to be a major upgrade. how's the filter sounding?

[Hades]

I'd say it sounds quite a bit better than my XV88.

hmm, that's something. the atmosphere is great, but I can't say that it's better than the XV based engine quality, mainly the filter. so, this is supposed to be a major upgrade. how's the filter sounding?

hmm, I can understand your question.
However, it kind of feels like I'm talking about this new girl I've met, and how great she is.
really intelligent, great sense of humour, good in sports, creative, overall very sweet and caring.
and... (snare roll) she can even find her way on a map, she's a great (and even safe !!) driver, and even though she's got great clothing taste and looks fantastic, she doesn't need to go shopping twice a week !!! :blob4: :occasion9:
and all you do is look at me, and go "yeah dude, but how are her tits ?"

don't get me wrong. tits are great. they're fantastic, we all love 'em. tits make the world go round !!
in fact, they are very essential, but they can be overrated too. overall fantastic girls with ok tits will get you a lot more fun than whatever girl which doesn't have any real great qualities part from her superb titties.

but yeah, I do understand the question, so here goes...


Part 3 :

Filters

Omnisphere comes with a dual filter structure per layer.
This means you can use 2 filters in serial or parallel.
There are 2 highpass filters, and 24 lowpass filters, plus 12 "specialty filters", as they call it...
Again, this is a lot more than Atmosphere, which only gave you one highpass and 3 lowpass filters, and no dual filter structure at all...
Some examples of the lowpass filters : gentle 6db, crips 12db, edge 12db, warm 12db, warm 24db, smooth 24db, all 3 lowpass filters used in the original Atmosphere,...
Some examples of the so called "specialty filters" : allpass, bandpass, colourful resophaser, dual highpass, dual stereo bandpass, metal pipe + and - ("a complex stereo comb-filter that produces flanger-like metallic overtones", says the manual),...

You have an extra gain slider which gives you the option to tame or overdrive your filter to your liking. Especially useful when using high resonance settings.
And you can chose if you want the gain control before or after the filter.
Plus all these filters are stereo, so with the spread control, you can "move the cutoff frequency in one direction on one side of the stereo field while moving it in the opposite direction in the other side of the stereo field".
In other words : the filter can be opening on the right side while closing on the left.
If you start modulating this spread parameter, you can have tons of fun !!

Naturally, you also have an "env" knob and "key" knob to control how much your filter envelope and keytracking is affecting your cutoff. But you can also invert them as well. That gives you negative filter envelopes, and inverted keytracking.
This is nothing new of course, but to my knowledge (it's been a year since I've used it) this was not available in Atmosphere.

And you also have an extra filter on your whole patch (a bit similar to what they did in Atmosphere). highpass or lowpass.
But these are more aimed as a quick way to change the timbre of your patch, not as a detailed sound designers tool.

So... how are her tits ?
I'd say they will most definitely pass, but they won't be the best you'll ever see/feel.
But since synths don't get jealous compared to girls, this is what I would do :
one of the next things on my to get list (which was once very long, but is now surprisingly small) is a sherman filterbank 2.
I figure this will kill all my need for titties
Especially since it's completely external, so I can route anything through it, and it won't even take me ages with my patchbays and mixer.
Omnisphere's filters will more than likely be satisfying for 80% or more of whatever sound you want to make.
Especially since they've included a lot of different filter types, and you can get a long way with their dual filter structure.
But you won't be going to Omnisphere for brutal filter mayhem.
And I think you'd be missing something if you'd judge this synth on its filters alone.
You gotta pick the right tool for the right job, so go to some real analog filter (be it in your RA or simply external) if you want in your face filter rawness.

anyways, I hope that covers the titties question

[Hades]

Part 4 :

LFO's

Omnisphere comes with 6 LFO's per patch.
That's right, per patch, not per layer. That's a shame, but the fact that you've got 6 of 'em should definitely soften the pain...
Again, as with filters and envelopes, you have some presets already there, and the option to save your own.

There are 9 available waveforms : sine, triangle, square, rounded square, ramp, reverse ramp, sample and hold, heartbeat and noise.
I really loved the heartbeat LFO, very fun stuff !

Their range is from 0 to 48Hz when sync mode is off.
And with sync mode on : 32X, 16X, 8X, 7X, 6X, 5X, 4X, 3X, 2X, 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/96, 1/1 dot, 1/2 dot, 1/4 dot, 1/8 dot, 1/16 dot, 1/1 triplet, 1/2 triplet, 1/4 triplet, 1/8 triplet, 1/16 triplet.

Naturally, you have your normal delay, rate and depth parameters.
Plus 4 different trigger modes : free (free running), note (LFO will restart with every new note), legato (LFO will not be retriggered when you play legato notes, only when you play staccato ones), and song position (LFO will track bars and beats of the song)

But the best thing is the Unipolar switch. This makes your waveform completely positive, instead of positive and negative, plus it doubles your amplitude.
An example ? If you'd take a triangle waveform to modulate your pitch, normally you'd have an LFO that modulates the pitch upwards first, then comes down to the normal value (1st half of the waveform), then goes down in pitch, and comes back again to the normal value (2nd half of the waveform).
When you press the unipolar switch, you'd have the pitch go up twice as high and come down to the normal value. that's all, no negative part any more, and twice the amplitude.
Very easy, very practical.
You want the same thing, but only negative instead of positive ?
Just hit the invert button in the modulation section.
And of course you can adjust the phase of each LFO too...

All in all, this gives you quite a lot of options. And since you can use the same LFO to modulate as many parameters as you have slots in your modulation matrix (24 by the way), your options are huge. Plus you can adjust the depth for each modulated parameter separately in your mod matrix if you chose to modulate multiple parameters with a single LFO.
Or have LFO's modulate each other or themselves !! 8)

[SWAN]

mmm for some reason Im not sure OmS and a Sherman will go together too well. A bit like if you took the intelligence of Carol Vordeman and stuck Jordans tits on her. Having owned a Sherman Filterbank I can tell you its quite a vulgar machine - though if you are very careful - you can make it sound sweet...

FWIW I have been using a SoundToys FilterFreak after my Trilogy Plugin and they work well together. Filterfreak is one of the best - if not THE best plugin filter IMO. You can configure a proper ADSR envelope on it for use with a synth...I also have the UAD Moog filter which rocks - but the functionality isnt so great...

This is what I plan on doing with OmS...

Nice review 8)

Interesting titty tangent

[Hades]

mmm for some reason Im not sure OmS and a Sherman will go together too well. A bit like if you took the intelligence of Carol Vordeman and stuck Jordans tits on her. Having owned a Sherman Filterbank I can tell you its quite a vulgar machine - though if you are very careful - you can make it sound sweet...

FWIW I have been using a SoundToys FilterFreak after my Trilogy Plugin and they work well together. Filterfreak is one of the best - if not THE best plugin filter IMO. You can configure a proper ADSR envelope on it for use with a synth...I also have the UAD Moog filter which rocks - but the functionality isnt so great...

This is what I plan on doing with OmS...

Nice review 8)

Interesting titty tangent

thx !

actually, I'm not planning on using Omnisphere with a Sherman. I know very well the Sherman can sound very agressive, that's exactly why I'd buy it.
I think combining both would be rather pointless.
If I'd do so, I'd only do it for pure fun, not with the thought of actually getting a useful sound.
The reason I mentioned the Sherman is cause I know a lot of people are just looking for a very fat/rough/whatever you wanna call it... analog sounding filter. And I think having a Sherman can cure that need, so that the question "how do the filters sound" becomes less of an important one with whatever synth you're looking at.
filters is like the first thing a lot of people look at when checking out a synth. (hence the analogy with titties since most men are looking at a woman's titties when checking her out, and both have 2 knobs for tweaking of course :-" )
I find that a shame, cause there are so many other great things to explore in sound design country...
And Omnisphere is not the synth of choice if you're looking for fat/rough/... filter sounds.
Nevertheless, I'm happy more than happy with it's filters, cause they suit Omnisphere just fine...

but that's enough about titties

so, you got Omnisphere already ?
any impressions ?

[crystalmsc]

thanks for the review, almost make me sick of titties that I usually like, but turn on the envy knobs though.

[Hades]

thanks for the review, almost make me sick of titties that I usually like, but turn on the envy knobs though.

no prob.
there's still more coming up. but that won't be for another few days probably.

[ned-ryarson]

i reckon hades is eric persing

[Hades]

oh, I wish,
then I'd have made tons of world-famous synth patches,
and I'd have tons of fantastic gear.
plus, I'd actually get paid for being in my studio all day. :blob4:
(but I probably wouldn't compare filters with titties)

back in the days of Atmosphere, they listed on their website the gear they'd used to create all the patches.
pretty much every legendary synth was in there, plus every unique modern day synth like the K5000, fizmo,...
and all the real expensive fx units.
and you could actually recognize the synths a lot of times.
the K5000 was dead easy to spot usually, especially with great sounds like the "creaturz" patch.