Omnisphere 2.5: Hardware Synth Integration and double voice architecture

[Dewdman42]

Well I'm definitely not going to buy an expensive synth just to control Omnispheres. On the other hand, I already have an iPad, I think Lemur will be great for this task. Earlier someone posted that they wish Spectrasonics would make the "macro" programming available through GUI additions to Omnispheres so that from the software panel you can at least control the software the same way that some synth owners will be able to. I do not ever see that happening, but it should be no problem at all to map the controls to any controller you want to access the same underlying "macros"...ie the new sounds and performance capabilities. It will take some time for people to figure out what the midi controls are, but it will all get sorted out.

Hey, if I had one of those synths...which I am not likely to ever have, but if I did, I would definitely be looking forward to controlling Omnispheres with it also...should be a treat for you.

Personally I think its neat that Eric Pershing can have all those hardware keyboards to play around with and some of you do too, and certainly this update will tightly integrate those boards with it...which is pretty cool if you have noe.

but I suspect the vast majority of Omnispheres2 users do NOT possess such hardware.

[noiseboyuk]

interfaces for Lemur or similar which essentially mimic the front panels of those 20 hardware synths

If you are happy with that, sure thing it will work..

I am more looking forward to the nostalgia of real knobs... and an analogue feel

Heavens yes, that is massively better. All we're really talking about here is how to make things as good as possible without the hardware. And, after all, very few will try and collect every single hardware model (remembering that the 20 models named thus far are just the start), so it could be handy for everyone on this limited basis.

Really, all this is useful for is getting a feel for tweaking a sound (at a pinch programming one from scratch) consistent with a particular hardware model. That's all I'd use it for, it's nothing like as good as real controls which are instantly responsive. But on the other hand, it's really nice to be able to have what will likely be dozens of profiles that you can get a decent taste for all these hardware synths.

I just took a quick A/B at a couple of the boutique synths from Roland, and for the most part the midi implementations are quite different. The exceptions are all the standard controllers like CC1 and LFO mod depth, plus the VCF section looked the same. Anyway, that was more for my own curiosity - you couldn't really use a common template and modify, you'd need to program each from scratch.

Dreamkeeper - thinking about it, what would make most sense is not a VSTi but a midi effect. That would be pretty elegant.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

interfaces for Lemur or similar which essentially mimic the front panels of those 20 hardware synths

If you are happy with that, sure thing it will work..

I am more looking forward to the nostalgia of real knobs... and an analogue feel

I'm in no position to start buying hardware, and certainly not all the hardware options that they will eventually be offering. I do have an iPad running Lemur, though. And while I know the "real knobs" thing would make it that much better, possibly having 1:1 compatibility with multiple profiles all existing within the same Omni-verse is still very exciting to me.

Anyway, this is all just a huge amount of conjecture at the moment. Even more-so considering I'm yet to upgrade to Omnisphere 2

[noiseboyuk]

Anyway, this is all just a huge amount of conjecture at the moment.

Actually not very much conjecture as far as I can see. There's no magic alternative method of the synths communicating with Omni except with controller data, AFAIK. The likes of Lemur can output the exact same data. I can't really see any way this wouldn't work, it's just the boring task of mapping each synth's controls (obviously easier if there's a publicly available midi implementation table). And on that, I'm guessing there might be the possibility of a collaborative KVR effort to get it done?

[Dewdman42]

Well there is a possibility that some of them are using sysex. Those situations will be more complicated and some controllers, including software-based, wouldn't be able to handle that very well. But I would think most modern synths have them outputting CC of course they would, also so that they can be easily automated via midi.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Anyway, this is all just a huge amount of conjecture at the moment.

Actually not very much conjecture as far as I can see. There's no magic alternative method of the synths communicating with Omni except with controller data, AFAIK. The likes of Lemur can output the exact same data. I can't really see any way this wouldn't work, it's just the boring task of mapping each synth's controls (obviously easier if there's a publicly available midi implementation table). And on that, I'm guessing there might be the possibility of a collaborative KVR effort to get it done?

Well, you're more clued up on what it would or wouldn't take to get it done, so I'll take your positivity as a good thing. The standard mapping would not be difficult, I was just imagining some proper voodoo shit with the instantiation of fx etc. (Been at this shit long enough to not be such a noob )

Anyway, if it were to prove to be that simple, I reckon there would be a ton of hands-on-deck to make it a reality.

Nice one, Eric

[dreamkeeper]

Dreamkeeper - thinking about it, what would make most sense is not a VSTi but a midi effect. That would be pretty elegant.

Yes, of course, that's what a VSTi with MIDI-out actually is... In most cases anyway - there's also MFX in Sonar/Cakewalk and MIDI-FX (forgot how they're called) in the Cubendo world. Maybe Logic or ProTools have their own format too, I don't know.

[noiseboyuk]

(ahem) I'm not that clued up myself. If someone who Really Knows About These Things says "ah ha, no so and so uses SysEx, then that might get more tricky, but even there probably Lemur could do it in theory? From a casual scan of the Boutique synths though, everything looks present and correct with midi CCs, and I think that's all there is to it (ditto the DSI OB-6, the magic numbers are at the bottom of the manual here - http://2048ln27dggo3horm847q86q-wpengin ... Manual.pdf ). All the really clever stuff is done internally in Omnisphere, it just takes the controller inputs and won't know or care where they came from.

One other thing that occurred is some parameters are things like Waveform. Presumably that means controller value 1=sine, 2=saw, 3=square etc. That would be extremely difficult for a hardware generic controller to handle, but I think Lemur could do this ok - looking at screenshots it looks like you can have little menus, which would be ideal I guess.

My thinking at this point is that I'd prefer to have larger controls on multiple pages than try to cram everything into one, which would look cool but probably be very hard to actually use. The simpler synths would fit ok on 1 or 2, but the bigger beasts might take quite a few pages. It's just the limitations of using a tablet instead of lovely big hardware.

BONUS THOUGHT / QUESTION - I don't suppose Omni is set to send data? Would be great if Lemur reflected the real state of Omni's controls, but that might be beyond how they've got it set up. Most hardware synths are one way travel I guess... does System 1/8 have illuminated displays with real values on them?

[rod_zero]

Didn't Omnisphere had its own iPad control app? it even had an Orb or as a macro control.

and LOL at people thinking about big workarounds in order to use a generic midi controller for a system made to avoid generic MIDI controllers: you can already MIDI map omni to your generic midi controller and get the same experience you would get if you make that huge workaround you are thinking about for using this new "templates" feature.

[noiseboyuk]

Didn't Omnisphere had its own iPad control app? it even had an Orb or as a macro control.

and LOL at people thinking about big workarounds in order to use a generic midi controller for a system made to avoid generic MIDI controllers: you can already MIDI map omni to your generic midi controller and get the same experience you would get if you make that huge workaround you are thinking about for using this new "templates" feature.

Both quite difference to this - you may need to watch the video and / or read the thread.

[dreamkeeper]

All the really clever stuff is done internally in Omnisphere, it just takes the controller inputs and won't know or care where they came from.

That's what I believe too. There might be even a whole scripting engine under the hood.

BONUS THOUGHT / QUESTION - I don't suppose Omni is set to send data? Would be great if Lemur reflected the real state of Omni's controls, but that might be beyond how they've got it set up. Most hardware synths are one way travel I guess... does System 1/8 have illuminated displays with real values on them?

Considering the fact, that the mapping isn't simply 1:1, getting useful feedback might be difficult or even impossible anyway. You can easily put Omni in a state, which cannot be reflected by the original (hw-)controls.

In the case one wants to make further adjustments directly in Omni, I guess one needs to accept, that it's a one-way street. So, leverage the original (hw or virtual) as a kind of 'focusing tool' for a certain look+feel and then taking it further - but losing the direct connection.

[noiseboyuk]

Makes sense, dreamkeeper, thanks.

One more observation - while all the basic controls seems straightforward, stuff like arpeggiators, unison controls etc don't appear in the midi implementation tables. Those might be tougher nuts to crack. In the case of arpeggiators I wouldn't mind too much if they weren't in Lemur, but stuff like mono / poly would definitely be nice to have.

[noiseboyuk]

So it was a quiet evening here... idle hands...

I got Lemur, to get a feel for what sort of UIs were possible. Can't say as I've scratched the surface, it's not super-user friendly, but I think it would do pretty much what we need. Don't look too closely as its a mess, but here's a JP-06 which seems to sit fine on a single page - this is Nexus 7-sized which is one of the default options, and this is the same as my Fire HD 10.



This fader size seems pretty comfy for operating on the 10 inch tablet, but wouldn''t want to go any smaller really. So most synths would need 2 pages or more. A few buttons - Unison, Solo, Poly - are optimistic as I'm not sure how to control those, but the rest should all map fine.

It's really boring to do, btw, but looks like it will get the job done, and I'm sure this can be made a good deal more elegant either with practice or Someone Who Knows What They Are Doing (ie not me).

EDITED for a slightly tidier screenshot.

[rod_zero]

I made a few Lemur templates in the past, one for hive for example:



The tricky part is getting the size of controls right so it is confortable to tweak.

Nevertheless dealing with the connection and configuring is a PITA so I no longer use it, maybe I should dedicate it more time.

[Richard deHove]

Touch screens are a poor substitute for knobs. I'd be amazed if one or more hardware manufacturers aren't already contemplating (or have begun) an Omni-focussed MIDI controller panel. I think this will be a big new product area: synth-layout controllers designed to fit a few of the most popular VSTis. Some of the early choices may be Pro5, Arp and Omni.

Soon you might soon be able to buy a perfect Jupiter-8 or Odyssey replica as a MIDI controller only, then link to whichever VSTi emulation you liked. It may be a great area for modular software synths as well since they could be made to fit a whole range of controllers.

When the iPad first came out it started an entire market segment. I think the Spectrasonics announcement will create a new synth hardware industry.