What workhorse synth would you buy if you couldn't get Omnisphere?

[bermudagold]

I am surely missing something here. Can an "Omnisphere advocate" point me to any material that would help prove me wrong ?

I asked the same thing years ago and I was sent here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVapN3zbhRk

these two guys go through most of the patches...excellent product, especially if you like what has been described to me as the "Roland" sound ethos, but I remained agnostic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVt3D63 ... KQdXFXXL18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEvOmH ... groBvfg32e

[Gam456]

I believe we already said everything about Omnisphere

...

Well, if by any chance you were answering to my question just before your post... It doesn't answer it...

There is nothing to prove with any specific video.
You can show me any Avenger video I will always have a negative opinion.
I just don't like it. A waste of money for me.
I believe Omnisphere. It's not for you.

[eLawnMust]

Old Atmosphere was pretty good too, so what about omnisphere? So what?!... It's good, many good ones out there old & new or if you are crafty forget using just ONE synth on a track combine 3-4 much more CPU friendly from different developers synths now mixing up their own special presets-settings also making modwheel & pitchbends very interesting unlike any other SINGULAR synth out there now or ever...

Fat & heavily modulated 'soundFX' does not music make... If it did then bluegrass, dixieland, folk, classical, etc would be considered ultra-crap music when just the opposite is true nowadays. And best not talk 'genre's' with over 1,500 known types most are junk made to satisfy someone's dopamine hit I'm sure there's a genre for someone just beating on a garbage can lid with a tennis racket...

With ultra power computers that can spit out synthesized soundFX in rich fashion one needs to ask-

"If we are drowning in rich thick synth sounds why are we starving for meaningful music?

Test yourself take all FX off your tune just leave note values & percussion dry how does it sound? does it standalone or does it sound playskool?

[Jac459]

Old Atmosphere was pretty good too, so what about omnisphere? So what?!... It's good, many good ones out there old & new or if you are crafty forget using just ONE synth on a track combine 3-4 much more CPU friendly from different developers synths now mixing up their own special presets-settings also making modwheel & pitchbends very interesting unlike any other SINGULAR synth out there now or ever...

Fat & heavily modulated 'soundFX' does not music make... If it did then bluegrass, dixieland, folk, classical, etc would be considered ultra-crap music when just the opposite is true nowadays. And best not talk 'genre's' with over 1,500 known types most are junk made to satisfy someone's dopamine hit I'm sure there's a genre for someone just beating on a garbage can lid with a tennis racket...

With ultra power computers that can spit out synthesized soundFX in rich fashion one needs to ask-

"If we are drowning in rich thick synth sounds why are we starving for meaningful music?

Test yourself take all FX off your tune just leave note values & percussion dry how does it sound? does it standalone or does it sound playskool?

That is a very interesting take on music creation.


Now I am joking. It is crap .

Sorry mate, but it is simpler than that. Many people, many different tastes and room for many genres. We don't need another "good old rock vs shitty new electronic music" debate...

[Jac459]

I believe we already said everything about Omnisphere

...

Well, if by any chance you were answering to my question just before your post... It doesn't answer it...

There is nothing to prove with any specific video.
You can show me any Avenger video I will always have a negative opinion.
I just don't like it. A waste of money for me.
I believe Omnisphere. It's not for you.

With such an in-depth analysis, you totally convinced me.

Thanks mate.

All Omnisphere users are like you ?

[Jac459]

....
these two guys go through most of the patches...excellent product, especially if you like what has been described to me as the "Roland" sound ethos, but I remained agnostic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVt3D63 ... KQdXFXXL18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEvOmH ... groBvfg32e

Thank you mate! Indeed, I particularly like some sounds of the last video.
Not enough to differentiate with the very large number of synths I already own but I understand the appeal.
Cheers.

[Gam456]

I believe we already said everything about Omnisphere

...

Well, if by any chance you were answering to my question just before your post... It doesn't answer it...

There is nothing to prove with any specific video.
You can show me any Avenger video I will always have a negative opinion.
I just don't like it. A waste of money for me.
I believe Omnisphere. It's not for you.

With such an in-depth analysis, you totally convinced me.

Thanks mate.

All Omnisphere users are like you ?

I already give you my analysis of what make Omnisphere unique
You already watched many video. Nothing will convience you.

[Jac459]

I believe we already said everything about Omnisphere

...

Well, if by any chance you were answering to my question just before your post... It doesn't answer it...

There is nothing to prove with any specific video.
You can show me any Avenger video I will always have a negative opinion.
I just don't like it. A waste of money for me.
I believe Omnisphere. It's not for you.

With such an in-depth analysis, you totally convinced me.

Thanks mate.

All Omnisphere users are like you ?

I already give you my analysis of what make Omnisphere unique
You already watched many video. Nothing will convience you.

Indeed, I owe you some apologies as I didn't notice you were the same person who took the time earlier to list the pros and cons according. My bad.

Anyway, I think we have very different tastes which is totally fine and healthy in this world, we don't have to love the same things.

Enjoy your weekend mate !

[Gam456]

Anyway, I think we have very different tastes which is totally fine and healthy in this world, we don't have to love the same things.

No worries
Taste is something way to personal.
The most important it's to enjoy our gear, soft and hardware and be creative.

[IvyBirds]

What percentage of your Spectrasonics plugins/patches/presets do you actually use though?

Not saying it's bad, but measuring "bang for the buck" is more relative to what we actually get out of them rather than what they burden us with imo. When you do that math, you can see it for what it is instead of what you sell it as. And loading times are okay, but I wouldn't say "snappy".
Not a bad set of plugins and a good company. However, I've learned to avoid the user community as much as possible. They're too cringe worthy for my time.

The sample library in Omnisphere was put together by Eric Persing. Eric has been in the game a long time going way back to the D50 days when he worked at Roland and is in my opinion one of the best if not the best in the world when creating samples for "Sample & Synthesis" (AKA Rompler) type Synths

When a lot of people think S&S or "Rompler" they think of bread and butter sounds. Here is a violin, here is a trumpet, here is a pan flute, here is a piano sample etc, and here are a bunch of presets that sound like a trumpet, sound like a violin, sound like a pan flute, sound like a piano

Omnisphere certainly has a bunch of those that can be very useful and sound really good. Those are one reason if I was starting all over again I would get Omnisphere as my first purchase

Beyond the bread and butter samples are Eric's very large collection of unique more esoteric instruments from all over the world. Again adding tremendous value

Beyond the bread and butter samples and the world instruments are the synthesizer samples and VA waves again a ton of options that add a ton of value

And then finally we get to the what I refer to as "Persing" sounds. What is a "Persing" sound you ask? We first saw a few of them in the D50 and Eric a few years later made the JD800 and JD990 to pretty much exclusively have them. These are esoteric and bespoke samples that are included because they just sound cool when run through the various synth engines. Of course you can mangle and twist the bread and butter sounds, the world instruments, and the Synthesizer sounds also, but the "Persing" samples are just cool and weird and sound amazing

Of course beyond the samples are thousands of presets that you can use as is, tweak and change into something, use as a learning tool to get new ideas on how to program sounds, it just ignore entirely

Omnisphere is a fantastic resource for people who want a very large, very high quality, very diverse sample library that they can then create all kinds of cool sounds with. It includes a bunch of very nice effects and multiple synth engines that can twist and mangle those samples in all kinds of cool ways, and you can create complex layered sounds that utilize multiples

Having said that if you just want to have analog synth sounds Omnisphere is the wrong tool

Or if you are looking for very specific samples especially for Bread and Butter Sounds a dedicated Kontact library and Kontact would be a better choice but that will of course end up costing more

But if you are looking for a very diverse and very large sample library that you can do all kinds of amazing things with, Omnisphere is a fantastic value

What genre of music are you doing if you don't mind me asking ?

Seems you need very complex/elaborated textures.... Are you in ambiant ?

I do a lot of Ambient stuff yes, I also play live in classic/progressive rock bands

Omnisphere works great for both

[pchase]

I like to get a sense of the sound and ability of a synth by listening to a good preset designer's demo songs for it, because
- they are likely to be able to get the most out of it
- the demos are often well-written pieces of music that show the synth in context
- the demos usually use only that synth
- the sound designer probably has a somewhat consistent style which allows you to compare similar sounds across all the synths they work with

For example, Luftrum and The Unfinished have many Omnisphere presets.

Only downside is it gives you no impression of the factory library, which is a pretty much the USP in Omnisphere's case.

[Jac459]

......
......
Omnisphere works great for both

Thanks for the very informative and rich explanations.

Many things I didn't know (Persing in particular).

I can see the appeal. I am following myself Kevin Schroeder, did some crazy soundest for Dune, Avenger and now Legend HZ (I think he is the synthesist of Zimmer).

If I understand well your description and what was said before, it seems to be more of a Falcon killer (and certainly with a better workflow).
I am a big lover of UVI soundware, except maybe World Suite 2, which is just ok. I am pretty sure Omnisphere is better on that aspect, but indeed, as you guessed it isn't really what I am looking for.

[Jac459]

Anyway, I think we have very different tastes which is totally fine and healthy in this world, we don't have to love the same things.

No worries
Taste is something way to personal.
The most important it's to enjoy our gear, soft and hardware and be creative.

100%.

If you still have 25 seconds, you can watch this video STRICTLY from 12.50 to 13.15. the guy is very upsetting and can be counted as a reason not to buy Avenger, so don't lose time watching the rest but this part shows a very interesting usage of granular and spectra synthesis.

https://youtu.be/9_tv_ZWwemA?si=AzcMS0bmoounGXnT

[Gam456]

I can see the appeal. I am following myself Kevin Schroeder, did some crazy soundest for Dune, Avenger and now Legend HZ (I think he is the synthesist of Zimmer).

If I understand well your description and what was said before, it seems to be more of a Falcon killer (and certainly with a better workflow).

Indeed Eric Persing is a legend know as chief sound designer for Roland on many product and the owner of Spectrasonic.

Here the presentation by Eric of the 2.5. It was in 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BypwhO0IDy0

Omnipsher and Falcon are more complemenatry synth rather than competitor.

[Ah_Dziz]

Old Atmosphere was pretty good too, so what about omnisphere? So what?!... It's good, many good ones out there old & new or if you are crafty forget using just ONE synth on a track combine 3-4 much more CPU friendly from different developers synths now mixing up their own special presets-settings also making modwheel & pitchbends very interesting unlike any other SINGULAR synth out there now or ever...

Fat & heavily modulated 'soundFX' does not music make... If it did then bluegrass, dixieland, folk, classical, etc would be considered ultra-crap music when just the opposite is true nowadays. And best not talk 'genre's' with over 1,500 known types most are junk made to satisfy someone's dopamine hit I'm sure there's a genre for someone just beating on a garbage can lid with a tennis racket...

With ultra power computers that can spit out synthesized soundFX in rich fashion one needs to ask-

"If we are drowning in rich thick synth sounds why are we starving for meaningful music?

Test yourself take all FX off your tune just leave note values & percussion dry how does it sound? does it standalone or does it sound playskool?

I don't really agree with the premise that people are "starving for meaningful music"

The same CPUs that let people generate walls of digital noise also allow anyone who is interested, to plug in a microphone and record a performance on the instrument of their choices and then polish/ produce it with tools as nice as anything that's ever existed into a finished song. It's made amazing music more accessible than it has ever been as a consumer and as a consumer that enjoys walls of digital noise and folk music and damn near anything else that's aurally stimulating, that's spectacular.

These synthesis tools are just tools and they (especially something like Omni sphere) are very niche tools. For someone that has a job that requires a large output of music, omnisphere and other "workstation synths" are useful as they cover a ton of ground that works in many many styles. For someone who writes "songs" as a way to express themselves artistically these tools may be overkill in price, options, and content.

I definitely don't really see it as good or bad. From my own perspective more options are better but that's not for everyone.