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

[BBFG#]

Those players often rely on about 10 presets though. Which is far less than 1%.

Can you explain why that would even matter? That keeps on being thrown around as if it is some kind of negative thing, but nobody who makes that statement ever articulates why if that statistic is even true is an issue

Not a negative, except in your perception to see it as such.
Just my experience and observations.
Since you missed the majority of that comment, I suggest it's better to just ignore my posts as I try my best to ignore yours.

[IvyBirds]

Bedroom musician on Soundcloud is less likely to unless their hobby is very much going to benefit from it and its style of sounds.

Omnisphere doesn't really have a style of sounds

It actually represents a tremendous value for hobbyists because it can create a very large and diverse pallet of sounds

Want a piano? Got it. Want any orchestral instrument? Got it. Want vintage synth sounds? Got it want world instruments? Got it. Want modern aggressive VA? Got it. Want Wavetable?

If I go on soundcloud and listen to what the average bedroom producer is making, I find it nearly impossible to find anything there that Omnisphere couldn't do

Omnisphere does dreamy atmospheric pads and ambient sounds very well. Many of these sounds are difficult to make or find elsewhere so there are a lot of YouTube videos showcasing them

But watch the videos on the hardware integration and how Omnisphere can emulate dozens of hardware synths

[IvyBirds]

Those players often rely on about 10 presets though. Which is far less than 1%.

Can you explain why that would even matter? That keeps on being thrown around as if it is some kind of negative thing, but nobody who makes that statement ever articulates why if that statistic is even true is an issue

Not a negative, except in your perception to see it as such.
Just my experience and observations.
Since you missed the majority of that comment, I suggest it's better to just ignore my posts as I try my best to ignore yours.

I didn't miss anything, you say it's not a negative so why bring it up at all? I asked you why that would even matter you didn't answer

Again you and others in this thread keep on bringing up the percentages of presets people use in Omnisphere

That's obviously an important statistic to you, so I asked you why that matters

If you don't mean it in a negative way awesome , then explain why it's important to you, explain why what percentage of presets people use is somehow relevant

[BBFG#]

Maybe someone should add cogentin to their "mix"...

[Synthman2000]

I've just had an idle half an hour, and been marveling at it afresh.

Found a patch based round a South American guitar. Added an Arp, delay and some Innerspace to make a pad layer. Then I sound-locked the Arp and FX, Sound Matched my current selection and started browsing through other similar patches.

What a way to get inspired. AFAIK, nothing else can do this.

Hehe... that's the same feeling I get from Omnisphere. There are two synths that for me I can never use without walking away with more presets than I started with opening a session: Vital and Omnisphere.

Probably a negative for a composer though ? And better for a preset designer ?

Other synths don't have arps and delay and reverb / granular effects ?

If you have many synths you probably do not need Omnisphere. It comes across as a workhorse for people who have a big impulse it is something they need.

Maybe it is rather black and white whether you need it.

Maybe Omnisphere makes you feel more pro, that can be a thing.

I am sure if I had it I would love it, enjoying a day messing around with it would be fun for anyone I am sure. Not needed for me though it would be pure luxury.

[Synthman2000]

Bedroom musician on Soundcloud is less likely to unless their hobby is very much going to benefit from it and its style of sounds.

Omnisphere doesn't really have a style of sounds

It actually represents a tremendous value for hobbyists because it can create a very large and diverse pallet of sounds

Want a piano? Got it. Want any orchestral instrument? Got it. Want vintage synth sounds? Got it want world instruments? Got it. Want modern aggressive VA? Got it. Want Wavetable?

If I go on soundcloud and listen to what the average bedroom producer is making, I find it nearly impossible to find anything there that Omnisphere couldn't do

Omnisphere does dreamy atmospheric pads and ambient sounds very well. Many of these sounds are difficult to make or find elsewhere so there are a lot of YouTube videos showcasing them

But watch the videos on the hardware integration and how Omnisphere can emulate dozens of hardware synths

I heard some of the orchestral is not great in 2024, surpassed, same with guitars. It probably does a bit of everything. It probably does not excel at everything, I would be really surprised if it did. Otherwise everyone would own it and nothing else.

And sound even more the same. I always get an impression it is an ambient composers dream synth. Though there are many synths that can do ambient well and there are a vast number of sound design types and feels for ambient. It's a wide ranging genre.

[IvyBirds]

.....
The very DNA of Omnisphere goes right back to the D50. You create layered patches which can either be 100% samples, 100% virtual waves or a blend of the two. It has a GIANT sample library which has samples of pretty much anything you can think of. Along with the giant sample library comes a powerful browser to help you make sense of it and find what you are looking for
.......

I think because that is the foundation and the DNA on how Omnisphere works if you don't want to work that way Omnisphere becomes frustrating

I don't often agree with you, but I concur with Guy, this is an excellent post.
I myself though I have been a Spectrasonics and Omnisphere user from Day 1 never thought of it this way, but yeah I think you are correct.
rsp

Thanks, I get the feeling from watching and reading various interviews over the years, that Eric had always wanted to create a synth like Omnisphere, that when he created the D50 and the JV/JD/XV that Omnisphere was what he had in mind but the technology that existed in the late 1980s and 1990s made that prohibitively expensive

[IvyBirds]

I heard some of the orchestral is not great in 2024, surpassed, same with guitars.

Absolutely you can go buy Kontact and then some expensive libraries and have far better Orchestral and Guitars timbres

But you will end up spending way more and that investment is only for a single purpose and very limited timbres

If you are the average bedroom producer making music for sound cloud which is what I was talking about, why would that make financial sense?

Omnisphere absolutely is a dream synth for ambient composers and since I do a lot of that I use it a lot for that purpose, but it does a lot of other things quite well also

Your average bedroom producer could do a lot worse than getting a copy of Omnisphere. It's a very versatile instrument

[dj ray]

I can buy it. It's got loads of presets, some of which can be very inspirational, but it also takes up a shit ton of space on the hard drive, and is in no way essential if you're just a hobbyist (and not all pros use it either). It's also been around for years, so those lovely presets have been used quite a bit. Not that important really; sometimes that's just the charm, but putting it out there. Frankly, a lot of its appeal comes from that 'unattainable' (for many) price. If they started selling it for 50 bucks, I don't think it would carry the same 'mystique'.

Let me be the Dutch uncle here for our OP and offer the following advice: learn synthesis, get yourself the Triton VST when on sale, and maybe a good workhorse synth like the Viper (it emulates the Virus, which itself was originally designed to be a workhorse analog emulating all-rounder) and call it a day. You'll save tons of money (and hard drive space), and still be able to make all sorts of wonderful noises. You might even throw in a keyboard controller with some knobs, and still save yourself a wee bit. Watch some YouTube videos to see what those Omnisphere presets sound like anyway: there's going to be some you like more than others. Can you recreate them? Omnisphere started out as a pad synth; what's so unique about pad sounds? Are there drum loops? Go hunting on Loopmasters, and find some you like. Bass sounds? How many variations of Moog/303 do you need? Every synth has those, the ones in Omni aren't exceptionally out of this world. Ditto leads, sequences etc. It has some more esoteric sounds like a piano they set on fire, but when was the last time you really 'needed' that in a song? Use the Triton's piano instead.

Have fun making your own 'Omnisphere'. Or crack out the credit card (and get yourself a new hard drive).

[noiseboyuk]

I've just had an idle half an hour, and been marveling at it afresh.

Found a patch based round a South American guitar. Added an Arp, delay and some Innerspace to make a pad layer. Then I sound-locked the Arp and FX, Sound Matched my current selection and started browsing through other similar patches.

What a way to get inspired. AFAIK, nothing else can do this.

Hehe... that's the same feeling I get from Omnisphere. There are two synths that for me I can never use without walking away with more presets than I started with opening a session: Vital and Omnisphere.

Probably a negative for a composer though ? And better for a preset designer ?

Other synths don't have arps and delay and reverb / granular effects ?

I think you've missed the point. Which was - you can fix and arp and fx with the patch you are playing (or any other attributes you fancy), then lock just those parameters and switch to other presets which closely match the one you're on. That keeps the elements you want to keep. Instant variety and inspiration. So as you do that, you're not hearing those other presets as designed, they're bespoke to you.

Cos 10,000 isn't nearly enough, obvs.

And that's why it's good for composers, not just preset designers. There's no way you can so quickly change things around in other synths, zone in on one aspect you want to keep and switch out the others. You can be as random as you like there, load a totally different preset or use Sound Match for more subtle variations. It takes very little time, so you stay in the zone.

[IvyBirds]

If you have many synths you probably do not need Omnisphere.

Why not? I own many Synths. I own all the U-He Synths, all the Arturia Synths, all the TAL Synths, all the Steinberg Synths, UVI Falcon, all the NI instruments in Komplete and many many more and that's just software

I still use Omnisphere a lot, like really a lot

[BBFG#]

I heard some of the orchestral is not great in 2024, surpassed, same with guitars. It probably does a bit of everything. It probably does not excel at everything, I would be really surprised if it did. Otherwise everyone would own it and nothing else.

And sound even more the same. I always get an impression it is an ambient composers dream synth. Though there are many synths that can do ambient well and there are a vast number of sound design types and feels for ambient. It's a wide ranging genre.

Completely subjective to each user of course. Pianos were always a sticking point though, but with tweaking you could get a decent pop piano. Many thought the basses were lacking also, even though Omni has plenty of bottom end. Hence the addition of Trilian and Keyscape to bring it closer to its moniker. But that makes it closer to a $1300 plugin.

[noiseboyuk]

I heard some of the orchestral is not great in 2024, surpassed, same with guitars. It probably does a bit of everything. It probably does not excel at everything, I would be really surprised if it did. Otherwise everyone would own it and nothing else.

And sound even more the same. I always get an impression it is an ambient composers dream synth. Though there are many synths that can do ambient well and there are a vast number of sound design types and feels for ambient. It's a wide ranging genre.

Completely subjective to each user of course. Pianos were always a sticking point though, but with tweaking you could get a decent pop piano. Many thought the basses were lacking also, even though Omni has plenty of bottom end. Hence the addition of Trilian and Keyscape to bring it closer to its moniker. But that makes it closer to a $1300 plugin.

Yes, I agree there. There's a sorta piano in the factory library - dream piano - and it works great in some contexts but in no way is that a replacement for a proper acoustic piano library. Of course Keyscape is fantastic there. (And there's no electric or acoustic basses in Omni).

I've never seen Omni as a workstation. There's a ton of bread and butter missing that a GM set would cover. But that's not what its for. The samples are often esoteric, but really interesting. So there is that famous piano on fire.

[IvyBirds]

I can buy it. It's got loads of presets, some of which can be very inspirational, but it also takes up a shit ton of space on the hard drive,

Is anyone really worried about HD Space in 2024?

You can install the entire Omnisphere sample library on an external drive. You can get fantastic and fast external SSD hard drives in the 1-2 TB for less than $100 if you catch an Amazon Deal sometimes way less. Using USB C you won't be able to tell the difference using it on an external HD. It's also quite easy to install internal HDs

[noiseboyuk]

Is anyone really worried about HD Space in 2024?

Me when mobile. I got 2TB for the Macbook Air cos I like having everything right there, can't be doing with external drives. And that space fills up. I got everything Spectrasonics have done on there for 225gb which is actually not that horrendous. Pretty much the first thing that went on.