Atmosphere, Morphology, Vapor, Altered States (etc)

[zircon]

Has anyone here had experiences with these libraries/instruments, or any other similar ones? If so, what are their pros and cons? Any words of warning? I've already read various reviews on a few of them (like devonb's), but I'd like to know more, since they all seem to cover the same general range of sound.

[al2k1]

I have Atmosphere, Morphology, and Vapor. For song use, I think Vapor is the best choice. Atmosphere comes in a close second. Morphology I find to be more of a one finger wonder kind of instrument - suited for film rather than your average song. But then again that's just me and I am sure others will have different opinions.

[kevvvvv]

I was using Atmo yet again the other night. It's one plug that I keep using.

It's unique strength is its string pads which are the best I've ever heard, bar none.

But then anything Spectrasonics make is always uber top notch.

Like al2k1 says, Morphology is more limited.

I don't have Vapor, but suspect I wouldn't mind owning it if I saw one going cheap.

al2k1 ... what is it about Vapor that you particularly like?

[original flipper]

HI

I have 'Altered States' - it is a massive library of almost 5 GIG'S, TBH I have not had time to trawl it's depths but it has a lot of everything - loops, hits & evolving sounds, so in all fairness I don't think you can call it a one trick pony.

I will be using it more now that I have Kontakt V2 that makes browsing large libraries easier.

But it is quite expensive although not overly so for what you get.

Flipper.

[ProSounds2]

Nevermind all those big ROMplers. Pick yourself up a PS-1 VSTi from Pro-Sounds. We've had quite a few customers compare our synth to atmosphere and say they like ours better! (thanx to those who have said this, it's very flattering ). It will cost you half the price of atmosphere too!

Sorry, shameless self promotion, couldn't help myself.

[al2k1]

al2k1 ... what is it about Vapor that you particularly like?

I think for me what I like about vapor is it comes with a ton of presets - a total of 1154 according to the documentation. There are 504 pads many of which I find to be useful for many different kinds of music whether it be pop oriented or electronic based. There are 126 fx patches that are rather interesting (and perhaps some overlap with Morphology). The arps, basses and leads I don't really use that much but they have some interesting presets anyway. Also, there are like 316 multis already set up which is where I think this library really shines. Morphology has 0 multis. If you like making your own sounds, that is ok but if you're like me, I prefer to use presets and then tweak to taste. The interface is the same Kompakt interface as morphology so the same programming features are available and of course, if you have the full version of Kontakt you can load the patches and do some more tweaking. The last selling point for me (assumming I was going to pick between Vapor and Morphology) is cost. I paid $99 for Vapor and almost $200 for Morphology. Hope this helps.

[zircon]

Interesting - so Vapor is actually MORE comprehensive in terms of the amount of patches than Morphology, though Morphology costs less.

Regarding Altered States, how much of those ~3500 patches are 'musical' pad sounds? As opposed to atonal stuff, ambient effects, chord pads, soundscapes, and so forth.

[lsd]

Altered states is a "collection" of Zero-g's Cukooland Series. Alot of it is "atonal", more bizarre, than anything. I love it, but I just got vapor and it is more suited for what you are looking for.

[Genetic_Junk]

I like morphology because it comes with raw high quality smaples of wav forms. These can then be mangled. There is acutally some cool stuff you can do with modulation and the effects aren't pristine, but they are definiftly useable.

As far as ready to use "musical" patches vapor is you best bet. The pads are plentiful as that is what the name implies it specializes in.

Though if you have reead reveiws then you know some of this already.