Omnisphere - will it be worth the hype ?

[spectrum]

the Live Mode has excited me as well- something that I have missed since my EPS' layer buttons- you can change patches WHILE PLAYING and held notes will keep playing the original patch while you add in the new sound- or you can layer them in and out on the fly smoothly they way you want to-

you can see a good example of that at the 5:00 minute mark here

I can just imagine all those gigs of samples abstracted by granular/FM/RM and complex arpegiations being layered in and out in live performance and free flow composition!

Yep!

This will for sure be Omnisphere's most underrated feature. It's super-useful and inspiring.

Something we'll be focusing an Episode on later in the year for sure.

[Touch_the_Universe]

**wowsers** sure do... like i said about the golden wave forms ideas i have for future spectrasonics updates in omnisphere.... the mod manipulations and matrix etc.. is alll f**king arbitrary u know.. everyone and therei mother can flip that swithch.. but the unique presets will come when unique waveforms become availbe... and i have f**king fabs ideas for that eric***

[Touch_the_Universe]

*of course its all very theoritical.. and lots and lots of things have to go right before we can even begin to phantom the possibilites... duh.. ya dig

[AKJ]

I am more in a less is more attitide these days. Anyway, the idea of a sample playback engine as a synth was never that attractive to me. A good compromise is imo Absynth. If I had not Absynth I would rather invest in this than in Omnisphere

Why do people keep referring to Omnisphere as a "playback engine" or ROMpler? It isn't. Its oscillators are capable of loading samples for normal playback, granular synthesis, or whatever you want, but it also has subtractive synthesis, FM, PWM, sync, ringmod, etc. In other words, it's capable of real DSP synthesis, among other things. It also has filters, LFOs, envelopes and all the other features you'd expect in any powerful synth.

If you're going to criticize something before its even out, maybe you should read up a bit about it first?

a bit late, but a reply still valid: I am aware that omnisphaere claims to be a synth (and I am sure it will be one of the better ones). But actually: all the hype and 7 video clips, but very, very little information on the actual synth capabilities. They talk about arpeggiators, preset brwosers and, yes, psychoacoustic sampling (which actually just ordinary sampling of weird stuff). And shipping the product with a 50 gig lib makes me think: they will make use of it in their sound design. So what I meant was: using samples as a basis is ok for a (real) synth. But they should not be the main part of sound design. I am sure - and other products proove it - that you can create a whole universe of excellent patches using a capable synth with just 100 mb of sample content (if you need them at all). I will rather use the 50 gig of hD space where it is useful: for real instrument samples like orchestra instruments. There are many graet synths with so many possibilities which a have (Absynth, Modelonia, Morphine, z3ta+) that I hardly can find a reason to get a monster synth like omnisphere wihich will fill up my HD. And I don't like companies which create a hype like this. But it seems to work out for them..

[bobbybland]

Hype is hype,but great is great,is this really even up for discussion? Omnisphere is gonna rock!

[Touch_the_Universe]

duh** weve moved past that already....

[musikmachine]

The tesla coil audio clip sounded pretty freakin fantastic. I understand what people have said about good music coming from the player but this is going to be a sound designers wet dream. Good sounds can be a great source of inspiration anyway and it's good to have something in your arsenal for producing those big sounds and i'm sure people like me are always on the lookout for something a bit different to complement the no doubt large number of vst plugins residing on their hd.

Anyway the demos sound amazing. It's definitely on my list now.

[cryophonik]

From the Omnisphere FAQ (which can be found quicker than it would take you post an uninformed claim that Omnisphere is not a synth):

"Omnispere is no rompler! It is a powerhouse synthesizer that competes with the finest hardware and software synths...has "real" DSP oscillators that allow Hard Sync, FM, PWM...Granular Synthesis, Timbre Shifting and Polyphonic Ring Modulation can also be applied to the sample oscillators..."

Please tell me that puts this discussion to end.

[bobbybland]

duh** weve moved past that already....

I was responding to the original topic of the thread,and not to you.The universe obviously does not revolve around you.. duh.. <-- Isn't that what a child would say? I haven't heard or saw anyone write that in years! No offense..Back to YOUR THREAD now sorry..

[Touch_the_Universe]

wel well*8 i see now you are replying... and saying sorry.. and now i have to say sorry. and shit what the f**k.. a waster of oall our times... and now its holy whit... yeah right.. * omnsiphere roakcs the socks.. .dowh....dooo.. like homer simipshons says... ereeerehahahahahah

[musikmachine]

WTF?

[spectrum]

Why do people keep referring to Omnisphere as a "playback engine" or ROMpler? It isn't. Its oscillators are capable of loading samples for normal playback, granular synthesis, or whatever you want, but it also has subtractive synthesis, FM, PWM, sync, ringmod, etc. In other words, it's capable of real DSP synthesis, among other things. It also has filters, LFOs, envelopes and all the other features you'd expect in any powerful synth.

If you're going to criticize something before its even out, maybe you should read up a bit about it first?

a bit late, but a reply still valid: I am aware that omnisphere claims to be a synth (and I am sure it will be one of the better ones). But actually: all the hype and 7 video clips, but very, very little information on the actual synth capabilities.

Exactly...so is it really fair for you to be making conclusive statements yet about what Omnisphere is as a synth?

They talk about arpeggiators, preset brwosers and, yes, psychoacoustic sampling (which actually just ordinary sampling of weird stuff).

That's actually not correct. There's a whole lot more to our Psychoacoustic Sampling process than just "weird stuff".

Try sampling a simple Lightbulb or a clothes Drying rack yourself and check the difference with Omnisphere's core library. There's a whole lot more that we DON'T reveal in those videos you know.

And shipping the product with a 50 gig lib makes me think: they will make use of it in their sound design.

Yes, of course. That's the idea!

So what I meant was: using samples as a basis is ok for a (real) synth.

So since Omnisphere is a real synth, we're OK then...eh?

But they should not be the main part of sound design.

Well they aren't, but your statement is your opinion, not a fact.

If it was true, then these synths don't count as "real" synthesizers:

Roland JD-800
Roland JD-990
PPG Wave
Waldorf Wave
Korg Wavestation
Prophet VS

Because after all, these instruments ONLY have sampled wavetables....no "real" oscillators like Omnisphere does.

There are many great synths with so many possibilities which a have (Absynth, Modelonia, Morphine, z3ta+) that I hardly can find a reason to get a monster synth like omnisphere wihich will fill up my HD.

So you'd get rid of those synths if they had way more possibilities in their core library for manipulation?

That seems like a very limiting approach to me.

Here's some facts about why a large core library size is needed to produce the kinds of results that Omnisphere achieves:

• Compressed audio sounds way worse than uncompressed, so we use uncompressed.
• It's useful to sample certain sounds in Stereo
• Multisampling often sounds better than stretching single samples
• Multisampling allows for realtime Timbral Shifting techniques
• Velocity-switching often provides more expression than single dynamic sampling
• Higher bit depth provides better sounding results with signal processing and transposition
• More space = wider variety of soundsources for shaping and synthesis

In a nutshell: More variety, better sound quality, better expression and dramatically more possibilities.

Omnisphere is a true sound-designer's synth. Hard disc space is super cheap....so what's the problem?

I am sure - and other products prove it - that you can create a whole universe of excellent patches using a capable synth with just 100 mb of sample content (if you need them at all).

That's true, and I've been involved in developing many of those instruments and their wavetables. (read earlier in the thread for details)

But apparently you're claim is that there's a theoretical size limit on sampling creativity when it comes to core libraries in synthesizers with sample oscillators?

I would disagree with that wholeheartedly.

Imagine this scenario. Brilliant young sound designer on Spectrasonics staff approaches me and says:

Brilliant Young Sound Designer:
"Hey Eric, I created an amazing new soundsource by offline morphing multisamples of an acoustic piano with a cheese-grater scraping under a freeway overpass! When you put the final soundsource into the Omnisphere engine, the FM and Granular synthesis do all these incredible overtone shifts and it freaks out the polyphonic waveshaping to sound like Trent Reznor! It sounds unlike anything I've ever heard!"

EP:
"Can't wait to hear it. How big is the final soundsource?"

BYSD:
"150mb"

EP:
"Wow! That's after careful looping and memory optimization?"

BYSD:
"Yes. The original version was over a gigabyte. 150mb is as small as I can get it without sacrificing sound quality or what it sounds like in the STEAM engine."

EP:
"Gee, that's too bad. I'm afraid you've violated the theoretical size limit on sampling creativity as posted on KvR. Aren't you aware of those limitations? We can't use that great work you did, because if we do then some people will think that we didn't make a real synthesizer and that we don't know what we are doing."

BYSD:
"Whoa. I thought musicians and synthesists were supposed to be more open-minded than that."

EP:
"Yes, I know. But I'm afraid it's the universal law of sampling creativity that you've violated."

BYSD:
"Why don't people just get a larger drive? Aren't they insanely cheap now?"

EP:
"Sorry, but the law of KvR dictates that drive space must only be used for traditional orchestral samples. Weren't you aware that any sort of creative use of drive space is verboten?"

BYSD:
"So what do we do?"

EP:
"Well, we have two choices:

1. We can compress the snot out of it at a low bit rate, in mono, with no dynamics or velocity switching. It'll be very limited and sound bad, but at least we'll be within the KvR sampling regulations.

OR

2. We can choose to not include it at all. Maybe this is best, since we don't want to offend anyone by offering more than what we did 15 years ago on hardware synths."



Here's the thing:

If Spectrasonics staff can be involved in making a 1980's hardware synth for 6 months with a core library of only 8mb, then why is it that we suddenly can't make a really great synth in 2008 if we worked for 6 years to make a core library of 40+ gb?

After all, you are talking about the same people in your argument.
(The Spectrasonics' sound designers all come from many years in the hardware synth world, working within those tiny megabyte limitations. So you're not telling us anything we don't already know. We tend to view the current state of technology as a liberation of our creative ideas.)

And I don't like companies which create a hype like this. But it seems to work out for them..

Huh?

I'm really not following the argument that we somehow did something wrong or "too much" in our marketing of Omnisphere.

What's exactly is wrong with being excited about telling people that we worked really hard for a long time to create something special, powerful and different?

We announced Omnisphere early in January because we needed to show our longtime users where we were headed. After no news for 6 years on Atmosphere, I'd hardly call that being "hype-meisters".

We needed to let our customers know about this major new direction, especially with the situation of Atmosphere not working on Intel Macs.

So with 9 months until the launch, we thought it would be fun to make some video episodes showing a little of the behind the scenes of the creation of the instrument and why we are excited by it. Sure, it's marketing. But hopefully we also made them educational and fun too.

The overwhelming response to the video episodes was very positive and people enjoyed the synth history stuff we did, the free Omnisphere loops we provided, the Remix contest was a big success and people liked the preview of seeing a little of what Omnisphere could do when it would be released on September 15th.

We placed a few magazine ads in the last month and did a few interviews from interested magazines.

This is what we did from the company. It's not really all that different marketing-wise than what other major developers do.

The rest has come from enthusiastic users on forums like this.

Cheers,

spectrum

[musikmachine]

Has a price been set for the uk/europe?

[Casar1973]

One thing that impresses me is how Mr Persing puts intelligible effort into rebuking reactionary comments.

I just checked a much longer version of the NAMM demo thing and well, this product will surely quiet any witchcraft spells and other assorted voodoo tricks aimed at the chosen few.

One can only hear a little of the native omnisynth sounds and the audio is crap but I get a great and inspirational vibe regardless. In any case this company is stamped with quality assurance so there's not much of a debate.

Spectrasonics will have to do a very hard job to avoid sales and happy customers, as I think this synth will be rich and famous.

[alexfalcao]

We announced Omnisphere early in January because we needed to show our longtime users where we were headed. After no news for 6 years on Atmosphere, I'd hardly call that being "hype-meisters".

We needed to let our customers know about this major new direction, especially with the situation of Atmosphere not working on Intel Macs.


spectrum

Hi Eric,

I'm OK with that, I (And I guess lots of Atmosphere owners) Just would like to know when the upgrade price will be revealed.

Peace.