Omnisphere 3

[DrGonzo]

Is it insanely more 'juicy' than Omni 2?

Not by itself. But a lot more combinations are now available. Before you couldn't for example have Granular and Unison active at the same time - now you can. It's not a crazy jump like Serum 1 -> 2 but yeah. In practice I think it will consume a lot more power.

[ononeandsome]

Thanks for the reply - Yeah - as I suspected.

I might try it anyway - if it is too juicy it will force me to use some other existing synths etc... as if we don't have enough synths etc in the world already!!

Limitations can be a good and creative thing!! (and cheaper than a new mac that's for sure!!)

[pokorny.dean]

After spending some time checking the details on Omnisphere 3, I’m starting to feel that the upgrade might be marketed a bit more aggressively than the raw content justifies.

From what I can tell, Omnisphere 2 had around 5,439 soundsources, while Omnisphere 3 lists about 5,590 — so that’s roughly 151 new raw samples, or about a 2.7% increase. Yet the marketing heavily leans on “thousands and thousands of new sounds.”

Now, if we’re talking patches (which combine layers, effects, and modulation setups), sure, there are tons of new ones

Spectrasonics has always called patches sounds however. Omnisphere isn't really intended to play back samples in a realistic way. While it can it's not intended to be a Kontact alternative where you have hundreds and hundreds of cello samples or hundreds of tuba samples.

It's strength is to transform samples into something else. It's strength lies in taking a Cello sample and transforming them into something else as a result it only has a handful of cello samples which is all you need to use the synth as it's intended

Analog Synths often have 5 or less waveforms do you also complain because many analog style synth plugins often ship with hundreds of presets but underneath them it's just the same 5 waveforms? Because that's your argument here.

The upgrade from Omnisphere 2 to Omnisphere 3 wasn't marketed as a vast expansion of samples in the sample library, it was marketed as having a bunch of new sounds which it most certainly has, it was marketed as having a bunch of new filters which is most certainly has (and they sound awesome) it was marketed as have global controls, MPE Support, new effects, a new stand alone effects plugin, new Wavetables, enhanced VA engine, mutator function etc

They used all of those things to make thousands of new presets and even the reworked legacy patches are new and sound great

Personally I couldn't be more happy that they focused on expanding the actual synth engine and enhanced it greatly

If you are upgrading from version 2, $199 seems like a really good deal considering all you are getting

If you are a new buyer well all of the samples are new to you on top of getting everything else

At the end of the day Omnisphere 3 ships with more samples and more presets than anything else

I am very familiar with all soundsources after more than 10 years. I was just expecting all new raw soundsources because I like new harmonic content and timbre to play with. For me it is not interesting to have new patches but same old remastered soundsources as I know them very well. I was just expecting all new fresh soundsources. Rather than remaster old soundsources they could record more new ones in the last 5 years.

[bermudagold]

if u understand it, then explain it to us then ...they clearly already have implemented it...doesn't trillian have keyswitches, release sounds, and legato controls?...how can they claim to be all about musicians first and not sound designers, yet leave all that expressivity control inaccessible?

It's a balance between control and usability. Apple is maybe the most clear-cut example of this with MacOS. Just like Linux, MacOS is based on Unix and is insanely capable, yet it leaves lots of deep settings and things completely locked away. It creates a walled garden with a certain level of customisation - yet easy to use. You want control over everything - go Linux and dabble with the code itself.

It took reFX Nexus 20 years to fully open up it's synth engine, and yet that didn't hinder it to become one of the biggest plugins for pop and dance producers. What could you do with previous versions? Change filter, envelopes and effect settings. This is what 98.98% of people need.

As much as I want to have access to everything in Omnisphere, I am definitely in minority. Most people who use Omnisphere are not sound designers but musicians, and all decisions should therefore always be with playing musicians in mind as the first, second and third priority.

/Carl

fair enough then...I wouldn't be surprised if ur right and the majority of existing users don't care...it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

[IvyBirds]

if u understand it, then explain it to us then ...they clearly already have implemented it...doesn't trillian have keyswitches, release sounds, and legato controls?...how can they claim to be all about musicians first and not sound designers, yet leave all that expressivity control inaccessible?

It's a balance between control and usability. Apple is maybe the most clear-cut example of this with MacOS. Just like Linux, MacOS is based on Unix and is insanely capable, yet it leaves lots of deep settings and things completely locked away. It creates a walled garden with a certain level of customisation - yet easy to use. You want control over everything - go Linux and dabble with the code itself.

It took reFX Nexus 20 years to fully open up it's synth engine, and yet that didn't hinder it to become one of the biggest plugins for pop and dance producers. What could you do with previous versions? Change filter, envelopes and effect settings. This is what 98.98% of people need.

As much as I want to have access to everything in Omnisphere, I am definitely in minority. Most people who use Omnisphere are not sound designers but musicians, and all decisions should therefore always be with playing musicians in mind as the first, second and third priority.

/Carl

fair enough then...I wouldn't be surprised if ur right and the majority of existing users don't care...it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

Honest question, (and say this as someone who has hundreds of GBs of homemade multi-samples), how many people are out there making multi-samples that would then want to drop them into Omnisphere? And if all you are doing is taking multi-samples from 3rd party libraries used in something else what would be the advantage of importing those into Omnisphere?

A better approach and a far more user friendly approach than multi-samples would be for Spectrasonics to develop its own Spectral Synth /Resynthesis Oscillator where all you do is drop in a single sample of something. That is one of my favorite features of HALion7, and is amazing in stand alone plugins like Dawesome Myth. In fact I often take samples made from Omnisphere and drop them this way into HALion7

[cryophonik]

.it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

Oh puleez, it’s not anti-customer to have limitations on a product or to compromise on its feature set to hit a target price and market. If Spectrasonics included every customer’s requests or demands, Omnisphere would be the Homer Simpson car of the synth world and if you think it’s expensive now, imagine what that would cost.

[bermudagold]

.it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

Oh puleez, it’s not anti-customer to have limitations on a product or to compromise on its feature set to hit a target price and market. If Spectrasonics included every customer’s requests or demands, Omnisphere would be the Homer Simpson car of the synth world and if you think it’s expensive now, imagine what that would cost.

we're saying the same thing...its a business decision to squeeze out more revenue...i understand that...cant blame them for the financial incentives...happens every day in every industry...like I said Kontakt is doing the same thing...but I still believe it's fundamentally anti customer because its not new functionality...it's already there they're just not making it accessible...its a bit of a moral/ethical hazard question...because ur essentially already paying for it...its the same with modern cars...instead of building separate cars, nowadays they are putting all the extra hardware in ALL the cars produced, but then turning functionality on and off with software based on trim level purchased...you already have the capability you just cant use it...it caused a huge uproar and quandary there that has triggered much debate

Ur analogy of trying to honor every user demand and feature request is not applicable...different topic that I'm not arguing for

[IvyBirds]

.it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

Oh puleez, it’s not anti-customer to have limitations on a product or to compromise on its feature set to hit a target price and market. If Spectrasonics included every customer’s requests or demands, Omnisphere would be the Homer Simpson car of the synth world and if you think it’s expensive now, imagine what that would cost.

we're saying the same thing...its a business decision to squeeze out more revenue...i understand that...cant blame them for the financial incentives...happens every day in every industry...like I said Kontakt is doing the same thing...but I still believe it's fundamentally anti customer because its not new functionality...it's already there they're just not making it accessible...its a bit of a moral/ethical hazard question...because ur essentially already paying for it...its the same with modern cars...instead of building separate cars, nowadays they are putting all the extra hardware in ALL the cars produced, but then turning functionality on and off with software based on trim level purchased...you already have the capability you just cant use it...it caused a huge uproar and quandary there that has triggered much debate

Ur analogy of trying to honor every user demand and feature request is not applicable...different topic that I'm not arguing for

So because Spectrasonics doesn't have a feature even you admit the majority of users don't care about you say they have ethical and moral issues

Spectrasonics is not a charity, and there is zero ethical or moral issues around them including or not including features. They make a business decision based on what they think will sell and at what price point

Should they make Omnisphere 3 more expensive and wait to deliver it until some point in 2026 or even 2027 just to include multi-sample import a feature even you say the majority of users don't care about?

[bermudagold]

if u understand it, then explain it to us then ...they clearly already have implemented it...doesn't trillian have keyswitches, release sounds, and legato controls?...how can they claim to be all about musicians first and not sound designers, yet leave all that expressivity control inaccessible?

It took reFX Nexus 20 years to fully open up it's synth engine, and yet that didn't hinder it to become one of the biggest plugins for pop and dance producers. What could you do with previous versions? Change filter, envelopes and effect settings. This is what 98.98% of people need.

As much as I want to have access to everything in Omnisphere, I am definitely in minority. Most people who use Omnisphere are not sound designers but musicians, and all decisions should therefore always be with playing musicians in mind as the first, second and third priority.
/Carl

it's just at the end of the day an anti customer philosophy that lowers the value proposition

Honest question, (and say this as someone who has hundreds of GBs of homemade multi-samples), how many people are out there making multi-samples that would then want to drop them into Omnisphere? And if all you are doing is taking multi-samples from 3rd party libraries used in something else what would be the advantage of importing those into Omnisphere?

A better approach and a far more user friendly approach than multi-samples would be for Spectrasonics to develop its own Spectral Synth /Resynthesis Oscillator where all you do is drop in a single sample of something. That is one of my favorite features of HALion7, and is amazing in stand alone plugins like Dawesome Myth. In fact I often take samples made from Omnisphere and drop them this way into HALion7

this is funny to me...u have spent pages arguing the supposed unique value attributes of omnisphere,...but yet question why people would want to use them to their fullest?
you could include them in the mutate function, you could want to use their osc fx on them...until this version you could have wanted to use the fx suite on them,...you could want to do your layering and wavesequencing in a single plug instead of having to create more complicated plugin racks and increased file and preset management...and ur missing the whole point of multisamples which is the extra detail and expressivity they bring over one shots

pcm is far superior sound design tool to all forms of resynthesis, so no one I know is asking for a NEW resynthesis functionality...they're just asking to use the pcm functionality that is already there

[JasonSpatola]

I don't think it's a moral issue, and I understand perfectly if they don't wanna do it, but I'd sure love it if they did indeed add it.

[IvyBirds]

this is funny to me...u have spent pages arguing the supposed unique value attributes of omnisphere,...but yet question why people would want to use them to their fullest?
you could include them in the mutate function, you could want to use their osc fx on them...until this version you could have wanted to use the fx suite on them,...you could want to do your layering and wavesequencing in a single plug instead of having to create more complicated plugin racks and increased file and preset management...and ur missing the whole point of multisamples which is the extra detail and expressivity they bring over one shots

pcm is far superior sound design tool to all forms of resynthesis, so no one I know is asking for a NEW resynthesis functionality...they're just asking to use the pcm functionality that is already there

I think you miss my point entirely so let me break it down for you

You are correct PCM samples works great for expressivity playing. But my guess is 99% of Omnisphere owners already can play back their PCM samples with expressivity in multiple plugins, so there really isn't much need for Omnisphere to do the same

That's why adding that functionality to Omnisphere is kind of pointless. Awesome you can import Multi-Samples you could playback in Kontact and a bunch of other things into Omnisphere. Great, who cares. Awesome you can play multiple different cello samples up and down the keyboard and have it sound realistic. Or you can do the same thing with Piano samples and even have different samples playback with different velocities

I have to say you seem extremely unaware, dare I say ignorant as to what Resynthesis is and does. It's far different from a one shot PCM samples. It takes your snippet of audio and uses a computer to analyze the sample using a variety of different methods and then reproduce it using synthesis. So your one shot sample isn't really a one shot sample anymore. It's 100% synthesized into the engine and you can play it up and down the keyboard with great expressivity

Beyond that however because it's synthesized you can modify the Synthesis engine in far cooler ways than you can with PCM. PCM is great is but it's been the same for decades

Using Resynthesis you can do all kinds of things you can't do with PCM. The goal of Resynthesis isn't really to play cello samples up and down the keyboard you can use PCM multi-samples for that. It's for transforming that into other things

Resynthesis in Omnisphere would open a massive world of sound design options that allowing user import of multi-samples would not

On top of that there is already a massive library of samples inside of Omnisphere already which would sound Amazing Resynthesized and transformed into something else

And that makes Resynthesis FAR superior than PCM samples for sound design

As is Omnisphere is a a fantastic PCM samples based plugin. It remains that even if you can't just use it to reproduce what you are already doing in other tools

So if Spectrasonics were to actually invest the resources into something new, rather than just duplicate Kontact functionality so you can play your cello samples up and down the keyboard with expressivity why not actually you know bring new synthesis methods to the party especially as doing so would have the benefit of enhancing the existing assets

Resynthesis also have the advantage of not being tedious. All you do is load a sample and unlike with PCM can be a sample of pretty much anything

Once if the largest barriers to good Resynthesis tools has been it takes a lot of CPU more than your average computer could do until recently. As a result PCM was a good compromise because it used less resources

[quantum7]

Is there a way to ONLY preview the new patches?

[aMUSEd]

Is there a way to ONLY preview the new patches?

Isn't everything in the new 'collections' a new patch (Analog Vibes etc)? That's what this menu seems to imply and also it says on the website 'Truly massive new factory collection of 18 stunning libraries of thousands and thousands of super creative and inspiring new sounds from the award-winning Spectrasonics Sound Design team.'

Screenshot 2025-10-25 at 20.01.30.png

[seafire]

Platform, add ons. Same as Nexus.

Same bullshit "Open architecture"

[FarleyCZ]

Isn't everything in the new 'collections' a new patch (Analog Vibes etc)? That's what this menu seems to imply and also it says on the website 'Truly massive new factory collection of 18 stunning libraries of thousands and thousands of super creative and inspiring new sounds from the award-winning Spectrasonics Sound Design team.'

It isn't. I'm pretty sure I've seen some VERY familiar patches there. It's a tag-based system marketed as a bunch of libraries. ...and with afwul AI pics for thumbnails.

This is my largest gripe with the upgrade. They clearly stated in the video "18 new libraries", yet for example all the old nylon and jazz guitar patches are in the supposedly new "Instrument Collection" library. I think I even seen some patches in more than one "library". It's not a library. It's a tag. The marketing video is close to being pretty decieving...