omnisphere! criky damn this synth is just no words awesome.

[Bombadil]

Next time I'm there, I'll re-check.

would be quite something if you had missed the entire 'patch' library

i have another suggestion : watch any of these tutorials

http://www.groove3.com/str/omnisphere-explained.html

http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/omnisphere101

http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/trilian101

groove3 and mpv reguarly have sales, but also they both offer good value monthly subscriptions (sometimes also discounted). all you'd need do is choose a couple of other tutorials that you might find justify 25 sheets for one month, then watch the omnisphere one's also

before you slam me for suggesting something so ludicrous, know that i have actually bought a tutorial before for the sole purpose of evaluating a pluging (bought the mpv 'stutter' tutorial at a heavily discounted rate). it was a small investment which showed me that one day, when the price is right, i will likely buy the plug

Thanks for reminding me. I have plenty of MPV tuts for Logic, and there is a 50% off sale (ending today, I think). So, I just bought the Omnisphere tut for 50% off, plus the exchange rate between the greenback and the €. Downloading as I type. Probably comes to less than €20.00.

[ghettosynth]

So, cmon, share with us one or two of the interesting things that you learned, that's the kind of detail that many people want to discuss?

Well, it's kind of hard to sum up all the lessons I've learned from Omni. Let's see if I can pick a few highlights.
* Delaying the start of one soundsource (and a little HP filter) can add a gloss or sheen to a pad sound.
* The sounds with really complicated starting soundsources tended to do very little other than some modulation, filtering, and FX. I didn't really learn much from those.

Nice.

[bmrzycki]

At any rate, as a consequence, one of the first things that I want to do with any new synth is just turn the effects off and listen to the synth. Great effects can mask a world of sins. Here I'm largely talking about time based effects.

+1 A Naked sawtooth is what I start with. If that doesn't have some interest to the sound I'm wary of the rest.

Integration of layers only matters when really fast modulation is involved and there is potential to hear any doubling of the modulation across instances. Is this even possible in "Stack Mode"? Or is stack mode built simply around layering patches, i.e, there's not functional difference from what I can do in the DAW? All of my plugins are "sound sources." I can build an organ from some sine wave patches in Absynth and add key clicks with an instance of Sampler.

You have to be careful here when talking about the Omni engine. There's a good diagram in the user manual:

(That is one gripe I have about Omni, the user manual isn't available to the public. One thing I like doing is reading manuals before buying anything because the marketing people can't get their fangs too deeply into it and still describe the details.)

In this drawing from the bottom up describes the sound engine. Modulation sources are SHARED between layers. LFO1 in Layer A and B are the same LFO. Each Layer A and B can have up to 4 FX devices in a chain. There are also a set of 4 FX devices that are shared between the two layers. The Layer can either use a soundsource (fancy sample source) or a DSP Oscillator. The OSC supports multi mode so a single oscillator can get pretty thick sounding. There is absolutely no way to share a modulator across PARTS.

There are a total of 8 parts, each with 2 layers. These 8 parts are mixed together in what's called the multi. This multi also has up to 4 shared FX Busses of up to 4 FX devices each with send/return knobs for each of the 8 parts. You cannot modulate any of the Multi FX knobs, but you can CC learn them for DAW automation. Finally there is a master FX bus of (you guessed it) another 4 FX devices.

The real power of having all of this within Omnisphere, in my opinion is the Stack mode. This allows you to crossfade between PARTS using key range, velocity, or a CC controller. Makes real-time playing pretty fun.

All of these layers, parts, multis, fx chains are why I tend to think of omnisphere more in the same vein as complex workstations like the Kronos.

There are some good videos on vimeo talking through the details of the synth. It's about as close as you can get to a demo of the instrument and I watched them several times before deciding on the purchase:
http://vimeo.com/spectrasonics/videos
(Watch the ones titled Omnisphere Video Tutorials for more details like the ones above.)

[pdxindy]

The real power of having all of this within Omnisphere, in my opinion is the Stack mode. This allows you to crossfade between PARTS using key range, velocity, or a CC controller. Makes real-time playing pretty fun.

All of these layers, parts, multis, fx chains are why I tend to think of omnisphere more in the same vein as complex workstations like the Kronos.

Ableton Live is my workstation and Live's Instrument Racks can layer/split/crossfade using key/velocity/CC and I can use any synths and any fx...

[ghettosynth]

The real power of having all of this within Omnisphere, in my opinion is the Stack mode. This allows you to crossfade between PARTS using key range, velocity, or a CC controller. Makes real-time playing pretty fun.

All of these layers, parts, multis, fx chains are why I tend to think of omnisphere more in the same vein as complex workstations like the Kronos.

Ableton Live is my workstation and Live's Instrument Racks can layer/split/crossfade using key/velocity/CC and I can use any synths and any fx...

Yes, this is my point and based on bmrzycki's description, it is as I thought. I build in layers all of the time and I have no need for that capability built into a synth.

[Uncle E]

Zero-G is doing a 48 hour sale (probably around 30 hours left) on their Morphology library for $29.99 when you enter coupon code "MORPH". If you've got Kontakt, this is a nice budget alternative to Omnisphere:

http://zero-glimited.createsend1.com/t/ ... djiklwh-i/

[Kurdish Mayfield]

Ive had Omnisphere for 5 years now and still enjoy its sounds. Im wondering how to get around the limited sound selection when using the TR remote with the Ipad. Anyone know how to do this?

[Kurdish Mayfield]

I think I found this issue, best to uncheck Browser Syncronization,, then you'll see the 1st 75 per bank but changing banks is easier.

[Numanoid]

I think I found this issue, best to uncheck Browser Syncronization,, then you'll see the 1st 75 per bank but changing banks is easier.

Wow, after 5 years you nailed it

[Echoes in the Attic]

I never understood the browsing on the ipad app. What's the point of only seeing the first 75 or however many presets out of all those thousands? Is there some way to be able to see them all?

[Kurdish Mayfield]

I think I found this issue, best to uncheck Browser Syncronization,, then you'll see the 1st 75 per bank but changing banks is easier.

Wow, after 5 years you nailed it

Wow..thanks Captain Snarky. I said Tr Ipad app which is 3 years old and I've only had the Ipad a year. Hey but you're still funny and a positive contributor to life

[rod_zero]

I am very atracted to it, but the GUI puts me down, so f**king boring and convoluted.

[Phorous]

I am very atracted to it, but the GUI puts me down, so f**king boring and convoluted.

The GUI is one of the better parts of Omnisphere. Shows you everything you need in a section without taking up your entire screen, if you wan't to dig deeper you just the zoom icon on whatever part of the synth you want to work with. Not to mention doing anything with the GUI is always intuitive. Just one example, right click -> Modulate brings up a context menu letting you choose whatever source. It also shows you which parameters are modulated without looking at the list by changing colors / showing you the total range of the modulation source as well as where it is currently.