Is omnisphere still king?

[A.M. Gold]

If Omnis added sample import, they wouldn't have to cater to anyone's interest because then it would be up to each to meet their own needs or not.
As it is they do cater to interests, but then add the fact you have to cajole for it like an infant wanting sweets.

I don't see them adding import because Spectrasonics has always done their own sound sources. I'd like to see them add a deeper resynthesis architecture to their sample content, but I don't know what form that would take. I don't really know how Iris works but maybe something along the same lines. Some very ingeniously implemented way of accessing and modifying/modulating the harmonic structure of captured waveforms.

You can import your own in Iris as well as Alchemy, Synthmaster, WusikStation, Harmor and others. In this regard, Omnisphere is sorely behind the times.
Again, you have to ask the 'parent' please and hope they will get enough requests to consider it. The rest, you just go out and sample it and import. Spectra has designed a system to make you dependent on them only. That psychology is called 'Infantilism'.

Ok, email them about it or don't buy it.

[ATS]

No Nexus is still the king!

[A.M. Gold]

OP should rename this thread 'Is ROMpler still king?'

[jeffb01]

It is a design choice not to allow it (at least up til now)... perhaps to keep the available material of a high quality, to control the market for sample based add-ons or ?

Content sales account for as much as 80% of total revenue in most cases. Most users buy the synthesizer with two or three add-ons immediately, then over time accumulate more add-ons as they are already "linked-in" to the whole system.

the thing is, omnisphere came out 5 years ago and they haven't released any add-ons except for a charity moog set. Trillian is it's own program that also came out 5 years ago, but you could think of it as an add-on...

[MachineClaw]

Omnisphere for me is just really fun and inspiring. It's my favorite software synth.

competes with my hardware Roland D-550 (rack Roland D-50), my Roland Fantom XR and my Yamaha Motif 6 keyboard.

I have Nexus and Korg M1, Korg Wavestation, everything Native Instruments has put out, MOTU Mach Five 3 Camel Audio Alchemy etc etc.

Omnisphere's syth engine is really deep, interface is easy to follow and for me one of the few synths I have that I can dig into and program really quickly, and I'm not into programming. I get lost in a lot of hardware and software synth programing. it's not really that enjoyable for me. Omnisphere is the one synth I have I'm not afraid of.

I went to Guitar Center and played with Kronos, Motif 8 and a bunch of other high end expensive keyboard synth/romplers whatever - came home and played with Omnisphere for 3 hours and realized I didn't need one of those high keyboards for what I do/like.

all this software and hardware is meant to inspire you to be creative and make music or in my case just a lot of noise. to have fun.

I will never understand the KVR bashing that Omnisphere or Nexus receives in the forums. they are just software tools - pretty good tools at that. If they aren't for you go find something that inspires you and have some fun.

[hibidy]

Crud, now I lost that absolutely perfect post

I don't think I've gotten my 450 bucks worth of it, but it's a fine SYNTH

[mhog]

Omnisphere is the typical ROMpler, because inspired by the Roland D-50 (which was the first ROMpler in history, I guess). ROMpler means (well, meant?...): take a very small PCM sample (some microseconds) contained in a ROM/EPROM and generate a sound thanks to it (the "attack"). The rest is done in subtractive synthesis. Omnisphere and D50 are very similar: both have patches made of two mixable "tones" (VA and/or ROM PCM). I confirm that, I bought my D50 in 1987! Besides, I read somewhere that Persing was involved in the original D50 patches... The difference: D50 ROM was about 64 kb, not 50 GB

Yeah, and with that logic DX7 is an FMpler, and Waldorf PPG is a wavepler and Kawai K5000 is Sinepler... I rather call them all synthesizers.

Well, actually... yes: when you say "DX7" you mean "FM", when you say "PPG" you say "wavetable" and so on. It is the form of synthesis. D50="ROMpler" (before it did not exist). Maybe the difference is: I don't consider "ROMpler" a bad word, but just a way to indicate a form of "synthesis" (when the attack of the sound is made with microseconds time long samples). It works like this either with D50 or Omnisphere. The main result: atmospheric sounds ("sphere" stands for "atmosphere": infact Omnisphere is great for pads, soundtracks, cinematic and such).

Originally Rompler was the term for devices that plays back samples but can't record samples. It wasn't the term for devices which synthesize sounds using sample oscillators instead of other kind of oscillator. In that regard you could call Proteus a rompler, but not a D50. Also apart from Sample Transients, D50 uses LA synthesis. And Omnisphere has VA oscillators.

Mhh... are you sure? I used to call devices that play back samples but can't record (like the Proteus and such) "PCM players" or "sample players", not "romplers". ROMpler is more when you take a given (microseconds time long) sample (PCM) as the "attack" to build a patch (both the D50 and Omnisphere work like this). It was because of the ROM (or EPROM) which contained the PCM attacks. But I understand today is different, and people call "romplers" what I used to call "sample players" (hardware gear). Infact, nowadays, I call software products like Nexus and Omnisphere "romplers" (meaning: "based on samples"), even if I know they are much more complex than just this. Once (25 years ago) the concept of "rompler" was: a few KBs, great results (it was a question of menory). Nowadays memory (ROM, RAM, whatever) is not a problem anymore.

I guess the confusion comes from the "recording" element (vs "importing"). Once samples had to be recorded via a microphone (so the difference was: "sampler" = has a microphone, e.g. AKAI vs "sample player" = no microphone, e.g. Proteus). Nowadays, on the contrary, samplers usually "import" samples (see Kontakt). As a consequence, many people call samplers like Kontakt "a rompler" because "it cannot record" (like the old hardware gear). But this is misleading, IMO. A ROMpler is not a sample player/importer. It is more "a synth based on PCM attacks".

[gassle]

Omnisphere is the typical ROMpler, because inspired by the Roland D-50 (which was the first ROMpler in history, I guess). ROMpler means (well, meant?...): take a very small PCM sample (some microseconds) contained in a ROM/EPROM and generate a sound thanks to it (the "attack"). The rest is done in subtractive synthesis. Omnisphere and D50 are very similar: both have patches made of two mixable "tones" (VA and/or ROM PCM). I confirm that, I bought my D50 in 1987! Besides, I read somewhere that Persing was involved in the original D50 patches... The difference: D50 ROM was about 64 kb, not 50 GB

Yeah, and with that logic DX7 is an FMpler, and Waldorf PPG is a wavepler and Kawai K5000 is Sinepler... I rather call them all synthesizers.

Well, actually... yes: when you say "DX7" you mean "FM", when you say "PPG" you say "wavetable" and so on. It is the form of synthesis. D50="ROMpler" (before it did not exist). Maybe the difference is: I don't consider "ROMpler" a bad word, but just a way to indicate a form of "synthesis" (when the attack of the sound is made with microseconds time long samples). It works like this either with D50 or Omnisphere. The main result: atmospheric sounds ("sphere" stands for "atmosphere": infact Omnisphere is great for pads, soundtracks, cinematic and such).

Originally Rompler was the term for devices that plays back samples but can't record samples. It wasn't the term for devices which synthesize sounds using sample oscillators instead of other kind of oscillator. In that regard you could call Proteus a rompler, but not a D50. Also apart from Sample Transients, D50 uses LA synthesis. And Omnisphere has VA oscillators.

Mhh... are you sure? I used to call devices that play back samples but can't record (like the Proteus and such) "PCM players" or "sample players", not "romplers". ROMpler is more when you take a given (microseconds time long) sample (PCM) as the "attack" to build a patch (both the D50 and Omnisphere work like this). It was because of the ROM (or EPROM) which contained the PCM attacks. But I understand today is different, and people call "romplers" what I call "sample players".

Device that stores samples in a ROM chip instead of RAM. I meant devices that can't sample or load samples in RAM yet their purpose is playing samples. Not using sample oscillators while synthesizing sounds. A synthesizer is not solely an oscillator but sum of all functions to shape sound. In D-50 sample attack transients is one aspect to create a sound. Same in Omnisphere you can use sample oscillators instead of synth oscillators and then shape the sound with filters, granular synthesis, timbre shift etc. Also just from creative point of view, using high quality samples as part of creating new sounds is a rewarding one. I personally love messing with samples with filters, effects and modulation etc.

Also technically speaking the samples in Omnisphere are stored in your harddrive and in RAM during the performance of a sound, even though you can't use your own samples with it. But anyways, even if Omnisphere allows user samples one day, that won't make it more of a synthesizer.

[aciddose]

And Omnisphere has VA oscillators.

Actually if this is how you've decided on use of the term, which is obviously incorrect, the vast majority of "VA" oscillators are in fact using wavetables identical to those used in what you'd call "ROMplers",

What is a "VA oscillator" ? Can you define this? Does it make sense to include this as a disqualifier in the definition of "ROMpler" ?

If you knew what a "VA oscillator" was you'd quickly understand it makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever.

All "ROMplers" are capable of using single cycle waveforms and effects like PWM if programmed correctly. Are you now going to describe the function of an underlying system based upon how it is programmed, what content it comes loaded with?

So now you also call all Wavetable synthesizers Romplers?

Yes, because they're the same thing. Unless you can load your own wavetables in which case they're samplers.

Only we don't care so much about that fact and focus instead of the fact they are synthesizers. Although in my particular case I would focus on the wavetable aspect, and call them like you have: wavetable-synthesizers. I place this in a more important location than synthesizer as I do not consider this type of oscillator to have achieved parity in the majority of implementations.

Wavetable-rompler-synthesizers, but since rompler is inherent to wavetable (actually sampler is, of which rompler is a more common variation) we don't need to say it.

[mhog]

FYI I own both (Omnisphere and D50) and I find many similarities, expecially in the way you build a pattern (what were called the two "upper" and "lower" mixable parts in the D50 are called "A" and "B" in Omnisphere). The final result was a patch made with them (the first, the second or both parts together). The same you can obtain in Omnisphere (but at the nth degree). Atmosphere worked like that, too.

What you (mainly) get: atmospheric sounds. Sometimes "realistic" (but NOT SO realistic as in a sampler). More often they are "original", "beautiful", "weird" etc.: they have a (typical) "character". Why? Because of the different synthesis (a sampler plays recorded looped samples, on the contrary a rompler just exploits a very short sample in order to emulate the attack of a certain instrument). The results are strange, very rarely "realistic" (even if at first this was the aim of Roland engineers, I guess?). Of course, nowadays things are not so "linear" and things are mixed (see Kontakt, which can be considered a synth, thanks to its efx chain, filters, etc.).

[lionscub68]

I'm thinking of taking the plunge with omnisphere,I have tons of VA and real analogs so I'm catered for in that area but I need some bread and butter sounds and omnisphere looks like the right one to go for,is omnisphere still the best option for strings,pianos,flutes,brass,etc

To answer the primary title of the string:
Yes.

To answer the original post:
Yes, Omnisphere has all of these things (plus I use it for primary orchestral strings as well). PLUS about eery other sound you can imagine is in here. If you aren't satisfied with the 8000 or whatever the count is for the factory patches, I recommend "The Unfinished" Omnisphere patches. I use those all the time.

Omnisphere, when compared to any hardware synth currently available, is a complete bargain at $499. (If you can find a better, more versatile $499 hardware synth, let me know.)

[lionscub68]

This sound here is nearly all instances of Omnisphere.
The only thing that is not Omnisphere?

The piano (that's PianoTeq Stage 4).
But the thing is, I use Pianoteq with some custom piano tweaks.
If I hadn't had PianoTeq called up already when I recorded this, I could have called up a "Dream Piano" variation (one of the patches in Omni) and then used this song for an Omnsphere-only contest.

https://soundcloud.com/robertdorschel/g ... t-november

[mhog]

"Bread and butter sounds"? Omnisphere?!

Misleading, IMO. Omnisphere stands for "every atmospheric sound" (weird, strange, cinematic, sci-fi, pads, leads, electronic, vintage etc.). Of course you can find guitarish, pseudoethnic, fakeorchestral etc. But they are not exactly "bread and butter"!

[lionscub68]

"Bread and butter sounds"? Omnisphere?!

Misleading, IMO. Omnisphere stands for "every atmospheric sound" (weird, strange, cinematic, sci-fi, pads, leads, electronic, vintage etc.). Of course you can find guitarish, pseudoethnic, fakeorchestral etc. But they are not exactly "bread and butter"!

You can make simple bread-n-butter sounds using the built-in synth engine by itself, without any sample sources.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I don't see them adding import because Spectrasonics has always done their own sound sources.

Not totally true. Stylus RMX got sample import. Unfortunately it was via rex files though, which is admittedly much less complicated than melodic sample sources where people inevitably want velocity regions for multi-samples, then they want round robin etc, etc. Basically people want a full blown sampler as soon as there is sample import. Just look at Alchemy's history of feature requests.

So I can't blame them for jumping into that rabbit hole. But I'd love to see sample import as well. Even single sample if they could smooth out their granular function, would be cool.