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omnisphere... opinions?


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Never really intrigued me.

 

I see it as a mess of manipulated samples with no distinct own sound (Rompler.), reminds me of big workstation synths of late 90s and early 2000.

And frankly, audio demos on the page sound exactly like that anyway. Either stereotypically dark and ""cinematic"", or cheap.

 

On top of that, Alchemy fills that gap very nicely, and it has the added bonus of being more flexible, in terms of synthesis.

 

Kinda like "jack of all trades, master of none" type of thing. But that's the same quip i have with Alchemy, and I don't like Omnisphere for very similar reasons. Except Alchemy is free, and I liked Camel Audio (personal bias)

 

Frankly, for 500$... There's other things i'd go for. But that's just me :D

 

edit: I also absolutely 100% don't get sampled "classic" synths.

"Hey, lets take something everyone does better anyway but cram it in for the f*%@ of it."

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Never really intrigued me.

 

I see it as a mess of manipulated samples with no distinct own sound (Rompler.), reminds me of big workstation synths of late 90s and early 2000.

And frankly, audio demos on the page sound exactly like that anyway. Either stereotypically dark and ""cinematic"", or cheap.

 

On top of that, Alchemy fills that gap very nicely, and it has the added bonus of being more flexible, in terms of synthesis.

 

Kinda like "jack of all trades, master of none" type of thing. But that's the same quip i have with Alchemy, and I don't like Omnisphere for very similar reasons. Except Alchemy is free, and I liked Camel Audio (personal bias)

 

Frankly, for 500$... There's other things i'd go for. But that's just me :D

 

edit: I also absolutely 100% don't get sampled "classic" synths.

 

"Hey, lets take something everyone does better anyway but cram it in for the f*%@ of it."

 

i hear you, and i forgot to add alchemy to my plugin list; i do use it.

 

i keep coming back to this: i've barely exhausted the synths i own. i also change things up a couple times a year (i've owned SO many synth plugins over the last decade)... so maybe not something i need. and am back where i started. will revisit this again (without posting here) in a few months... when i again itch for something 'new'.

 

thanx ppl!

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I only have the original Omnisphere, and never upgraded to v2 - it comes with such an arsenal of sounds, and has some neat features. And it's fun to play with, going through the presets and seeing what the modulation does in each patch.... But i just don't use it for actual music creation, it's a bit of a time waster for me... scrolling through presets to find inspiration that never really comes.

 

The sounds that it does, really, i quite like to build myself using separate simple instruments and effects and get to where i want to be that way. Many of them are too big to start with that it makes me a bit cloudy.

 

When i think Omnisphere, i think of broken pianos with choirs coming in on the mod wheel - which sound awesome when you first hear them all, but after a while a lot seems to have the same flavour... a bit like eating many meals that have the same seasoning(?).

 

Great if your doing soundtracks though. Maybe a must have for that type of production?

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it's not insulting, it's an accurate analogy. Some billboard are made from MIDI Loops, lot of scores are from symphobia "loops" (for the lack of a better word), so i fail to see the insult here, i didn't imply throwing something together from loops is bad or illegitimate...

 

I did imply its a lesser craft, but that's also not wrong, or is it?

 

on top of it, i said personally which implied a completely biased and subjective take on it, in an open discussion about omnisphere. Feel free to disagree.

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I remember this bitten-off attitude among the regulars here the last time I switched over to Logic, and I see the people and the attitudes have not changed. I guess every forum suffers from some form of haughtiness from the old guard... people say MOTUNation is the same way.

 

I’ll just leave all opinions to the experts. “Objective,” my ass.

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surely this isn't a life & death issue? we all use the plugins, sounds we chose to use, and no one's wrong; really, everyone's right; whatever works for us... works.

 

am sticking with my current setup (i think i consider omnisphere twice a year); am also looking a bit at falcon. but honestly, nothing is missing in my current setup, i just get inspired by 'new'....

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  • 1 month later...
I personally believe sound design is just as part of musical composing process as writing the actual note is, and scrolling through 14000 presets is like throwing together something from MIDI loops

 

It's so true!! Just like all those losers who don't grow their own food, make their own clothes, design their own cars or build their own houses. Just imagine living in a house that you didn't build. Philistines!! :mrgreen:

 

In other news: Still on Omnisphere 1. It used to be my desert-island synth, and maybe will be again once they incorporate MPE. Despite 'arguments' to the contrary, Omnisphere is no slouch in the sound-design department. It has a full synth engine that includes an incredible amiunt of diverse sources that can be used as the basis for sound design. And the included library of presets still offers so much more diversity than other instruments. It has very useable, 'musical' guitar patches, strings (orchestral) patches, and some killer choir stuff. Add in the Orb (Great randomiser/performance tool), and the ability in version 2 to freeze certain attributes to apply to patch-browsing, and new material can be easy to generate. Also, the included 'Atmosphere' library is still excellent.

 

And if you have any doubt about Omnisphere's potential for sound design, then check out soundsets by Matt Bowdler 'The Unfinished', and Stephen Baer 'Sonic Underwurld'.

 

http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/shop/

 

https://sonicunderworld.com

 

Having said all of that, if you are looking for just another synth it's not something I'd recommend. If you want to add more organic textures, world instruments, oddities and strange interpretations/fusions of instruments, to your arsenal, then it will be a lot more cost-effective than trying to buy a similar palette with Kontakt libraries.

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I personally believe sound design is just as part of musical composing process as writing the actual note is, and scrolling through 14000 presets is like throwing together something from MIDI loops

 

It's so true!! Just like all those losers who don't grow their own food, make their own clothes, design their own cars or build their own houses. Just imagine living in a house that you didn't build. Philistines!! :mrgreen:

 

In other news: Still on Omnisphere 1. It used to be my desert-island synth, and maybe will be again once they incorporate MPE. Despite 'arguments' to the contrary, Omnisphere is no slouch in the sound-design department. It has a full synth engine that includes an incredible amiunt of diverse sources that can be used as the basis for sound design. And the included library of presets still offers so much more diversity than other instruments. It has very useable, 'musical' guitar patches, strings (orchestral) patches, and some killer choir stuff. Add in the Orb (Great randomiser/performance tool), and the ability in version 2 to freeze certain attributes to apply to patch-browsing, and new material can be easy to generate. Also, the included 'Atmosphere' library is still excellent.

 

And if you have any doubt about Omnisphere's potential for sound design, then check out soundsets by Matt Bowdler 'The Unfinished', and Stephen Baer 'Sonic Underwurld'.

 

http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/shop/

 

https://sonicunderworld.com

 

Having said all of that, if you are looking for just another synth it's not something I'd recommend. If you want to add more organic textures, world instruments, oddities and strange interpretations/fusions of instruments, to your arsenal, then it will be a lot more cost-effective than trying to buy a similar palette with Kontakt libraries.

 

Yeah you know, there's a lot of little steps between growing your own food and going to McDonalds everyday, however, i didn't really give an opinion about it, but all you omnisphere people seem to think that there's something wrong with throwing together something out of midi loops.

I don't think it is. I just don't pretend i composed it if I merely assembled it.

As much as i don't pretend to be a synth-master for surfing presets.

 

Omnisphere's selling point isn't and never was (Since it began its life as a ROMPLER, and that's how it got its traction in the first place, REMEMBER?) V1 was just a different flavour of Nexus.

 

Omnisphere's selling point is 13000 PRESETS, and each and every version the most highlighted feature is how many gigabytes of additional crap it comes with.

 

Which, again, is not wrong on any merit, but Omnisphere isn't a sound-designers synth.

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I don't even like Hans Zimmer all that much, but if Zebra floats his boat, it probably wont sink mine :P

 

Ah, I missed the rule that you can only use one or the other :)

happy to remind you :P

 

just saying that while omnisphere gained synthesis capabilities in the long run, it began as a rompler and its focus is still largely there and for going the sound-design route, there are probably more approachable offerings.

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