Omnisphere on a Receptor 2 (standard)

[johnnyjd]

I'm thinking on purchasing Omni, but how well will it run on my Receptor2 -standard. I've got OPX-PRO2, but with2 instances of that running my unit starts to choke. Anyone running omni on a regular Receptor 2

[JayVee]

There's no way your Receptor 2 should be anywhere near 'Choking' with 2 instances of OPX Pro II.
Something's wrong.
Omnisphere runs well, except for a very annoying, constantly 'blinking' user GUI.

I'd get to the bottom of what's going on with your settings, before taking on Omnisphere.

[Meo]

There's no way your Receptor 2 should be anywhere near 'Choking' with 2 instances of OPX Pro II.
Something's wrong.

Yeah, no kidding!

[gary@museresearch]

Actually... The reason that we do not fully support OPX Pro II is for this reason. It is very cpu hungry on the Receptor 2. From the tests we did with the software you could only run 1 instance of OPX Pro II at a time.

I know it seems kind of strange, but Omnisphere will run better than OPX in this instance :/

Thanks,
Gary
Muse QA and Support

[johnnyjd]

Ok Good to know Gary

[fedde]

I have the same experience. I tried to run the demo of OPX on my Receptor 2 Pro and it did not run ok even with a single instance (32 samples latency) for some patches! Pity, if it were better optimized I might have considered to buy it as I liked the presets.

Fedde

[Wind Surfer]

I'm also considering Omnisphere for using on a Receptor but I want to hear about the experiences of others who are using it today.

What is the so called flashing GUI issue that Omnisphere has on the Receptor? Has this been fixed?

Is it realistically possible to use the GUI to modify the patches through Receptor?

If not, then can the patches be modified on a PC installation and then somehow ported to the Receptor?

Does the licensing allow Omnisphere to be concurrently installed on both a PC and the MUSE receptor at the same time (assuming of course that the same licensed user will run either one)?

I am just afraid about losing a good part of the usability of Omnisphere because the Receptor can't properly run the GUI to allow tweaking of the sounds.

Please share your experiences.

Thanks,
Wind Surfer

[JayVee]

Omnisphere on Receptor 1...

Might be very taxing on the hard drive, that would be your serious issue to confirm.
I do all my patch editing via Receptor's remote and the Omnisphere GUI.
The GUI problem is a blinking on/off on particular sections.
It's hard on the eyes and really just frustrating, but you're able to do everything you wish.

[hopkihc]

I'm replying to this thread in case it helps others.

I'm running Omnisphere 1.5 on a Receptor 2 Pro Max (upgraded from Rev 1C), OS 1.9.

I followed the install, upgrade, and patch update instructions to the letter and had no issues. Sure, those disk copies took a while (!!!), but it installed just fine.

Running one instance of Omnisphere at 128 samples, 44.1KHz, with a complex multi, I'm yet to see the CPU meter go much past 25% (if that). In my experience it runs extremely well. I have not played it live yet, so I can't comment on stability, but it has never caused a spontaneous reboot or otherwise glitched in practice.

There is some delay in loading large sampled sound sources from disk, but that was true on my Mac laptop as well. I've since put an SSD in my Mac and moved the Omnisphere samples there. Patch loading is near instantaneous, even for the large sample sets. I imagine an SSD-powered Receptor would be fast as well.


To answer your other questions:

- You can install Omnisphere on multiple machines. The software is registered to YOU, not to a device.

- You can move patches from your PC/Mac install to your Receptor. There's a knowledgebase article about this.

- Agree that the Receptor-based GUI editing is do-able, but the flashing is annoying.

As for Receptor owners "speaking up" about this, I'm wondering what form that should take. Forum posts like these? Help Desk tickets? It would be cool to be able to let Muse know via Plugorama which plugins you use the most. I guess the "Favorites" feature does this to some extent? Regardless, we could assume a lot about how Muse decides to prioritize support certain plugins (technical challenges, requirements of major touring acts, customer feedback, etc.). I can only hope that Omnisphere is high on the radar for improved support, because it is freakin' incredible.

-John

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

I'm also considering Omnisphere for using on a Receptor but I want to hear about the experiences of others who are using it today.

What is the so called flashing GUI issue that Omnisphere has on the Receptor? Has this been fixed?

Is it realistically possible to use the GUI to modify the patches through Receptor?

If not, then can the patches be modified on a PC installation and then somehow ported to the Receptor?

Does the licensing allow Omnisphere to be concurrently installed on both a PC and the MUSE receptor at the same time (assuming of course that the same licensed user will run either one)?

I am just afraid about losing a good part of the usability of Omnisphere because the Receptor can't properly run the GUI to allow tweaking of the sounds.

Please share your experiences.

Thanks,
Wind Surfer

Hi Wind Surfer

The flashing of the interface has to do with the particular graphics libraries that Omnisphere is designed for. We run libraries that are of the Windows XP vintage, and we do this because it runs almost everything. Omni was designed particularly for Win 7, and the flashing is result of the library differences in how they handle drawing. Yes it is annoying, and we asked the brilliant engineers at Spectrasonics if they would do a build that had XP graphics enabled, and the answer was no, they wouldn't. So since this is the only plugin that exhibits this kind of behavior, we're reluctant to support Win 7 graphics, since that would in turn likely break other plugins in the process...

So... if you can live the the disco graphics, then the GUI _is_ fully functional, and if you can't, you can program using MuseTools RECEPTOR viewer which actually ameliorates some of the issues (at least it slows down the flashing) as an alternative, or you can create programs in your PC and transfer them over. We hope those are acceptable alternatives, especially since most owners use their Receptors for playing more than programming, and once the presets are saved at the Source level, you never really open the GUI, at least not while playing.

I wish we had an easy fix for it; we actually have spent a ton of time trying different work-arounds but none really fixed the issue, and we are extremely reluctant to switch over to Win 7 graphics since that will introduce plenty of other issues.

Alas, there is a reason you can still run B4, Atmosphere, and other "vintage" software plugins on Receptor, and not on your new Mac or PC... we try to support the broadest range of compatibility possible, and unfortunately that means some things aren't optimized... Omni graphics being a particularly painful example.

Okay, give me a minute to go put on my asbestos chainmail armor, and you guys can start hurtling the hate my way...

Bryan

[ndurant]

Seems like a sensible engineering decision to me. The flickering is annoying, but it's far preferable compared to the risk of introducing instabilities that could affect this and other plugins.

Apart from the flickering, I've found Omnisphere to be absolutely rock solid on the Receptor, and surprisingly efficient from a CPU usage perspective. I would say those are the things that matter the most.