Omnisphere - worth $500?

[hibidy]

You're preaching to the choir. I'm all for it! Just saying, it's been years in the making even if it is true!

[pdxindy]

So Omnisphere is both worth the $500 and not worth it, depending on how much you have a Do-It-Yourself ethic towards sound creation as Vortex said. For myself, I prefer to get wavs and resynth through Harmor and Absynth, but I realize that this is a lot of work for maybe not superior results so I can see why others might just get Omnisphere instead.

It s not just a matter of DIY... If you want a sound that does not happen to be in the Omni library, you cannot add it. If the Omni library happens to have a bunch of sampled sounds that are not really the sort of sounds you are interested in, then that whole fancy well crafted library isn't exciting the way it may be to someone who happens to want those particular sounds. Neither of those people are wrong for how useful they find it.

You can do all sorts of stuff in Alchemy or Harmor that simply cannot be done in Omnisphere.

If Omnisphere happens to have sounds you like, then get it, but it is just a synth and your music is not going to be more 'pro' because you bought it. Omnisphere is just one of many quality synths available today... It is not more pro, high-end etc. It has some qualities it excels at. Various other synths excel in ways Omni cannot match. Omnisphere cannot touch the raw Minimoog sound of Monark... or the Buchla-esque tones of Aalto... and so on.

[Sampleconstruct]

Please combine all these deja-vu-Omni-debates into one thread and make that one a sticky, all new threads iterating the same debates should then be redirected to that sticky.

[sacer]

I think it also depends to music style, for techno or minimal the videos haven't convinced me. Trilian sounds very cool, but as sampler it wouldn't give me much options to tweak.

[noiseboyuk]

Please combine all these deja-vu-Omni-debates into one thread and make that one a sticky, all new threads iterating the same debates should then be redirected to that sticky.

Nah, who doesn't love pointless repetition on touchy subjects?

Speaking of pointless repetition (and in a shameless bid to help fulfil my own prophecy of double digit page counts whilst doing so), I'm going to be fantastically egotisical and re-post my original reply way back on the wide-eyed page 2, knowing that most folks read the first and last posts and nothing in between. I isolated specific reasons why Omnisphere is for me (and I suspect many of us) the incredible product that it is, without once mentioning the word "rompler", "reviews", "Jordan Rudess" or "demo". It tries to take all the banal emotive terminology and cliches out of the debate and look (mostly) factually at what makes Omni unique.

That's a KVR click bait title if ever there was one. Of course the discussion has been done to death, but every few months its due another airing. Perhaps the fact that one synth released so many years ago still does this tells you something.

Here are the reasons why I think Omnisphere is the one true truly revolutionary VI synth. Bear in mind most of what I do is media composing, so I'm often working at speed and need to be able to pull anything off at the drop of a hat. Also it really benefits from being run off an SSD where the vast majority of patches load almost instantly, but there is a lite loading option when browsing for those with older drives.

The UI. Most soft synths borrow their UIs from hardware, either specific models or general principles (some have more experimental UIs which can be impenetrable). This generally I think is a mistake, and leads to the eternal quest for the perfect emulation in particular or perfect general soft synth. No-one will ever get there for a really fundamental reason - computer software is not hardware. The way we interact is fundamentally different.

Spectrasonics broke that mould completely with Omnisphere, and its something that other developers (and plenty of users) still haven't really grasped. They made something truly intuitive to use from a computer perspective. The idea of having a simple page where many of its elements can be drilled down into for deeper programming is a simple as it is brilliant.

The sonic range. Omnisphere can't do everything, but it can do more than practically any other single synth. It expands its boundaries way beyond conventional synthesis by the huge sample library full of acoustic sources and the legendary psychoacoustic sources and textures. But even its pure synthesis element is very well developed, and benefits hugely from the aforementioned UI. Both Trilian and the Moog expansions add immeasurably also.

The browser. Nothing else comes close, even those that have their own tag browsers such as the NI range. The trick is that Spectrasonics use musically useful terms like "warm" / "airy" / "aggressive". You can usually get close to where you want to be in seconds. Sadly, the majority of 3rd party patch suppliers do not follow their conventions which messes things up, and I have to edit them (in my experience The Unfinished is the most consistent and superior by far - I never need to touch them as they slot right in correctly).

The patch / soundsource range and quality I have 5,000 patches from the inbuilt library and another 3,000 third party. Forget scrolling through them one-by-one, you'll lose a life. Instead, make use of the aforementioned browser and quickly you'll be working with a relevant more manageable subset each time you approach the synth to do a job. Although the instrument has a star rating system I never use it, because each time I go to it looking for something different - what was wrong one day might be right the next. The quality (of their own patches) is universally good, there's no filler or padding (not always true of 3rd party of course, though some are terrific and cover different ground to the factory library - kudos to Plugin Guru's excellent Toxic bank).

The editing tools You can learn the synth to incredible depth with scores of filters to choose from, boundless modulation options, drag in midi to envelopes etc, but the genius is in also giving tools right at the other end of the spectrum. The Orb is a giant playground where you can just see where a patch takes you almost blind.

I have lots of other synths now, but the feature set above means that almost invariably I go to Omni first and then try others when I'm struggling (not that often). It's earned its money a thousand times over. If lost every other synth I owned tomorrow I'd shrug my shoulders, but if I lost Omni I'd go on a violent rampage.

Is it worth it? Hell yeah.

[Synchanter]

It s not just a matter of DIY... If you want a sound that does not happen to be in the Omni library, you cannot add it. If the Omni library happens to have a bunch of sampled sounds that are not really the sort of sounds you are interested in, then that whole fancy well crafted library isn't exciting the way it may be to someone who happens to want those particular sounds. Neither of those people are wrong for how useful they find it.

You can do all sorts of stuff in Alchemy or Harmor that simply cannot be done in Omnisphere.

If Omnisphere happens to have sounds you like, then get it, but it is just a synth and your music is not going to be more 'pro' because you bought it. Omnisphere is just one of many quality synths available today... It is not more pro, high-end etc. It has some qualities it excels at. Various other synths excel in ways Omni cannot match. Omnisphere cannot touch the raw Minimoog sound of Monark... or the Buchla-esque tones of Aalto... and so on.

True, thanks for clarification.
Alchemy and Harmor, now those are superb tools that do not confine your creative choices!

[ghettosynth]

I think it also depends to music style, for techno or minimal the videos haven't convinced me. Trilian sounds very cool, but as sampler it wouldn't give me much options to tweak.

True dat, but, if you make amazing styles like progressive rock, trance (or tarnce), or film, then you just gotta preach from the good book of amazing patches that is the omnisphere, knowwhatimsayin?

[palle2]

The next product will be "Kalimbatron". A SonicExtension for Omnisphere 1.6

[Caine123]

im no synthexpert but what i can tell ya!

if you want a VA synth, get synth1 or if you wanna pay for something get any recommended synth in this field, sylenth1 etc.

if you want a simple rompler with not so amazing sounds like hollywood and much more, get halion etc.

if you want granular synthesis get Alchemy

if you want an AWESOME package with all sorts of sounds and a great synthengine with slight granular synthesis too get omnisphere. this is one of the very few products i can say this is worth the full price that much.

if you got omnisphere then you will LAUGH at sample logic which have only overpriced single products!

[Lotuzia]

Sure Omnisphere is a rompler (with synth possibilities). A little thing should probably not be forgotten, its that some of the *sample sets* themselves, besides brilliant sound design, are derived from quite rare synthesizers (And I know this because one of friends was partially in charge of that). So despite the custom samples people are sorry to be unable to load in it, one will not get Omnisphere content without getting Omni itself, except if they live in a synthesizer museum, are good at designing sounds on the original synths, then sampling them accurately, then have a lot of free time, and then are also equally good at redesign the final instruments based on the sample sets.

Then there are a lot of other synths that allow people to import their own samples ( like basically all the sample readers like Kontakt, Reaktor, etc), or resynthesize them, with additive, or WT features, or else. Wich leads into a different workflow, and different results most of times ( because if this is not the case, just import your samples in a free or commercial sampler, and thats it)

On top of that, Omnisphere, like similar HW workstations, have more/less editing possibilities, and more/less pure synth capabilities.

So yes its mainly a rompler, full of great *ready to play* *unique* *presets*, no you won't get these presets if you dont have it, and in the end, I dont ask an FM synth to do WT, sampling and additive at the same time. Sothat, in short, I prefer to refer to a synthesizer for what it can do, rather than for what it could do if ..... and if ..... and if....... My guess is that its the same approach that make a lot of Omni lovers happy

[Dewdman42]

Omnisphere is an interesting tool and plenty of people still think its worth $500 because they keep buying it, years after it came out. So I guess it is worth it.

I have not bought it, because I have a hard time with the price personally. it is super good for what it is, but for me would not be worth $500. You get sound design from one of the best sound designers ever, Eric Pershing. And the sound design in there is certainly top shelf, but its also rather cliche sounding to my ears by now. While it does have quite a bit more sound editing capability then some are portraying here, certainly as good as many hardware workstations; it does not hold a flame to some of the other synths that have been mentioned in terms of capability to synthesize new sounds. But when you buy omnisphere you will not be being that engine, you will be buying the sounds and samples designed by Eric Pershing and his team, pure and simple. They are great stuff no doubt about it, but cookie cutter at this point.

[holdebolder]

For what it offers, it is worth the price. There are a lot of pro's but also a few con's and it depends on what you want to do.

1/ samplebank: 9,5/10
This one is huge and has a lot of (processed) samples that you will not find in any other soundbanks. The soundbank is not being plagued by aging and the quality is very high. But if you are looking for piano's, strings, brass and other multilayered content, the soundbank is not the right choice imho. Same for drums. Very few of those in omnisphere. But still there are quite a lot of very good real life instrument samples on the other hand. I think the focus is there on guitar and flutealikes.

The soundbank is imho not intended in the first place as a rompler, but as a huge package filled with soundsources that can be edited on the oscillator level with a large variety of fully implemented synth engines, and then further can be mixed with real synth emulations that also are included in the package.
I guess i will never ever discover everything in the soundbank, and that is a very strong point for a database. But it is not omni in the sence that it covers everything.

The fact that it is not a sampler and the soundbank is what you get is a bit of a bummer, since the engine part is very nice. (see below) That being said. There is so many to explore, that it can be hardly regarded as a con.

2/ oscillators and engines: 9/10
The oscillators can be sample based or synth based. I think this is a very strong feature. You can use the synth engines for the samples. The real synth oscillators can't do everything that exists, but they do cover by far the most of what oscillators must do. The main strong point for the section is imho the workflow and the amount of synthesis techniques that are available. This engine is very fast to program and very quick for achieving quality results. Allmost anything you can think of can be done on the behalf of the synthesis engines. The granular engine is the weaker element in the product, but this does not mean that it is bad. Not at all. Graphically it could benefit from an update i guess.

3/ Usual synth components as filters, envelopes, LFO's: 9,5/10
Very hard to beat section. Everything is there and in a vast amount. Personally i would like a bigger interface and less submenu's, but that is a personal opinion.

4/ Effects: 8,5/10
Very nice effects, and very high quality. I would like to see some sort of multiband efx's though. (but they are bad for latencies)

5/ arpeggiator: 9/10
Very nice.

6/ modulation routine and ORB: 10/10
Crazy wicked stuff is possible with this type of functionality. But not for beginners.

7/ GUI: between 7 and 10/1O
What i do not like is the fact that there are only two layers in a synth that is made for programming on the oscillator level (and the other levels). Ok, you have 8 channels that can be combined and you have a live modus. It is a personal opinion, but i do not like that approach due to overly complex. More layers would have been nice.
That being said, the GUI of omnisphere is very very informative, logical, and obviously made by people who know how an interface should be made in the best way. The workflow is top notch. The GUI as a concept is without any doubt 10/10.
It is on my wishlist though for having a vst3 update with monitor filling at least, and if they would take a look at the new GUI of Halion 5, and maybe think a littlebit in that direction, that would be great! Detachable components (that can be placed over mutliple monitors) would make the interface even better.

So, FWIW.

R.

[Krakatau]

For what it offers, it is worth the price. There are a lot of pro's but also a few con's and it depends on what you want to do.

i'm impressed, that a hugely detailed analyse...

Please combine all these deja-vu-Omni-debates into one thread and make that one a sticky, all new threads iterating the same debates should then be redirected to that sticky.

+1

Intelligent advice, IMO

[MachineClaw]

most people that say Omnisphere is to high priced at $500 seem to not have a lot of hardware synths or use freebie or lower priced synths.

I know that is a generalization. but it seems to be somewhat true.

I bought a used Roland D-50 rack, the D550, and it was $400.
I bought a used Yamaha Motif 6 and it was $500.
I bought a Yamaha Motif MOXF 8 and it was $1200

If I had a ton of money I would buy a Access Virus and it would be at least $1000. at least, probably more.

my next hardware synth is going to be a Roland System-1 and that's $599. 4 voice with a lot of limitations.

if your into mono synths or Moog like modular knob turning devices then Omnisphere is probably not for you.

if your into making EDM, dubstepish Omnisphere can do it but there are probably cheaper synths that will get you there.

Omnisphere is a tool. a really great sounding, inspiring tool. is it worth $500? it is to me.

I own so many synths and they all serve different purposes sound wise. Omnisphere has never not inspired me when just loading it up and playing with it for a few hours.

I am not sure why there is so much hate for Omnisphere by some. the same old lines about it not loading samples is just silly to me. Rob Papen Blue II doesn't load samples. my NI FM8 doesn't load samples. My Korg M1 and Wavestation don't load samples. My Alchemy will only load samples in granular mode.

$500 for a quality synth is not unreasonable. for many $500 is a large investment. My Les Paul ProTop guitar cost $700. My microphone cost $300.

it's all relative. many musicians are creating quality music on a dime. some want other tools and are willing to pay for those tools.

I have so many DAWs it's crazy - Sonar X3, ProTools 10/11, Cubase 7.5, FL Studio 11, Reason 7, Ableton 8/9 suite. All for different purposes and to work with other different musicians.

I own all the Spectrasonic tools. Stylus RMX Expanded, Omnisphere, Trillian. they are quality tools.

It all depends on what YOU need to accomplish your goals as a musician and inspires you.

[billcarroll]

Don't forget Omnisphere's free iPad app

https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/ ... e-ipad.php