Omnisphere 3

[SamDi]

149 $ at the moment 50 $ cheaper than the Omnisphere upgrade. Seems a no-brainer to me.

Yeah Falcon is a no-brainer. But to be fair, Falcon comes with a very thin factory library so you would need to add the price tag of the Sonic Bundle to your comparison to bring Falcon in the realm of Omnisphere and then you still wouldn‘t have the source samples to base your own stuff on it. They are completely different beasts.

[cake builder]

Falcon certainly does not have the most user friendly UI, but even so, I still prefer working in it over Omni 2. That said, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, and I hope people have a great time with the new update.

For me personally, I just don't see $200 worth of value for my uses.

[SLiC]

Falcon certainly does not have the most user friendly UI, but even so, I still prefer working in it over Omni 2. That said, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, and I hope people have a great time with the new update.

For me personally, I just don't see $200 worth of value for my uses.

I think its really about the new rompler content (I don't mean that in a demeaning way, its truly excellent and the diversity and originality is a labour of love I think).

I bet it all sounds amazing, hard to resist but I will happily wait for some user feedback.

[zerocrossing]

I know literally nothing about Omnisphere. Can it be a good choice for someone who wants to make their own sounds, or is it really all about the presets?

I personally find it very easy and fast to make my own sounds with it, and I don’t rely on their presets, though I do sometimes browse them for fun. Watch some tutorials on it to see if the right-click-modulation-assignment method works for you. I find it clear and intuitive to use.

[zerocrossing]

Depends: I would say it's more about browsing and layering the presets or make sounds from the sound sources and adapt what is there. You can import own samples, but not as multi-sample and you can not import own wavetables. It's more good for musicians, who wanna get a sound of a certain quality quickly and then beeing able to adapt it to their needs.

Of course you can make own sounds from scratch, but it's not as much fun as in Serum, Pigments, Phase Plant IMHO because the GUI is pretty cluttered and convoluted and nevertheless there are many limitations or features missing I would wanna count on (e.g. only one polyphonic LFO, no remapping of modulators, no side-chaining of modulations, etc.)

Thanks that's very clear and really helps me. I think perhaps it's a pass for me.

I am going to have to disagree with that assessment somewhat. While it can be true and there can certainly be some truth to that statement in reality it also misses the mark

The main guy behind Omnisphere is named Eric Persing. He has been the main driver in some of the most famous and best selling synths of all time going back to the 1980s when he was at Roland and was the driver behind the D50 and then the JV, JD, and XV line before he left to found Spectrasonics the company that makes Omnisphere

All of those Synths have the same paradigm as does Omnisphere. You take a sample of something cool, and run it through a synthesis engine and add some effects to make it even cooler than a sampler alone could do it. Then layer that with other things to make cool sounding patches you can't really make elsewhere

So with Omnisphere 3 you will get a sample library with tens of thousands of samples in it. Some are very plain vanilla like say a cello, while others are wild and crazy and not found elsewhere like a Piano sampled while it was on fire and thousands of other sounds that were made just because they sound cool when run through the Omnisphere synth engine

In addition to that Omnisphere comes with a VA engine and a Wavetable engine. Are these the best in class VA and Wavetable Synths ever made? Probably not however it would seem with version 3 those have been improved so maybe they are.

The idea here is that you can layer those elements along with the sample and synthesis sounds

I also own Serum, Pigments, and Phaseplant, in addition to UVI Falcon, HALion7, and pretty much every other "flagship synth" plugin on the market

If my goal or musical idea is to make a Wavetable sound when I sit down in my home studio I am probably not going to fire up Omnisphere 3. I would probably choose Serum, Pigments, Vital, Microwave, or something else

If however my goal is something that VA or Wavetables can't do, something that only sample manipulation can accomplish I will reach for Omnisphere every time. Why? Because it comes with a super vast library of factory samples and has a synth engine and effects engines designed to transform those samples into some pretty amazing things, things that Serum can't do, things that Pigments can't do, and things that Phase Plant also can't do

Omnisphere is also not intended to compete with or replace samplers like Kontact. While there can be some overlap if you goal is to make your own multi-samples and have them play back in a realistic way, Omnisphere is not the tool for that

I will say however that Omnisphere costs less than Kontact will once you start buying a sample library or two

Only you can answer if you have need for a wild and wonderful sample library filled with wild and weird things and wish to transform them into wild and weird things. If that interests you Omnisphere is a sound design playground like no other

Beyond that Eric Persing is a world class sound designer and oversees a team of world class sound designers and just like he did with the D50 and JV, JD, and XV lines he has included tens of thousands of really cool presets. So if you are a preset tweaker Omnisphere is a true sonic playground like nothing else, especially with the new Global Controls and Hardware Integration and the mutation feature

This is my take on it too. Omnisphere doesn’t really do anything that couldn’t be done with other software, but that misses the point of its exotic sample library. Could you buy or make a bunch of your own exotic sample libraries and bring them into Kontakt and get a similar output? Sure, but the nice people at Spectrasonics did it for me, and much better than what I could do.

[zerocrossing]

Falcon certainly does not have the most user friendly UI, but even so, I still prefer working in it over Omni 2. That said, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, and I hope people have a great time with the new update.

For me personally, I just don't see $200 worth of value for my uses.

I can see that. I’m also feeling similarly, though I actually spoke with Eric on the Omnisphere Facebook group and convinced him to see the benefits of MPE, and he did add it, which makes Omnisphere a lot more useful for me. If the new filter drive sounds good, it may be worth it to me.

[bmanic]

Yeah Falcon is a 100% no go for me due to it's abysmal workflow and UI. It's the only synth that I kind of regret buying as it's clear the developers are not interested in ever enhancing the basic workflow.

While Omnisphere isn't all that great either in terms of UI/workflow, it's still miles better than Falcon.

[MachineClaw]

wondering how the Trillian sources in Omni 3, as well as Keyscape will be updated or work with new Omni 3. Eric and team sure once they get a little breathe from the Omni 3 roll out and some quick bug fixes they will turn to those addons. very happy that old patches will work and that there is continuity from Omni 2 to Omni 3.

I never got any of the Sonic Expansions, planned to but never did. Omni 3 seems more of more so the upgrade 3 has me intrigued as they have added new/more EDM sources in Omni 3. the new Omni 3 effects seem way more than the Sonic Expansions so seems moot to purchase the Sonic Expansions now. although Omni 3 with the Sonic Expansions well that could be more fun wit the new Omni 3 features and effects.

I for one am glad that Omni 3 is not a new UI, that would take a lot of learning curve for something I have used and depend on for a long time. will love that I can use my NI Kontol mk2 and my old Oxygen 49 knobs with Omni finally that's a nice plus. the FX rack usable as VST super added bonus.

looking forward to the upgrade. is it for everyone, probably not. but me and those that rely on and use Omni 2 welp seems like we are getting Christmas bit early this year.

[noiseboyuk]

I got Falcon several years ago, so it's a free update for me. I despise the GUI so much I use it as a preset machine

Same. It's worth it for the Simon Stockhausen expansions, basically.

[davidka]

It seems they added effects from sonic extensions, but gave it other names.

I am also wondering how the new version would interact with the Sonic Extensions, and how much of overlap would exist there on patches and devices. Also sent a mail to Spectrasonics with my question.

The answer I got:
Thanks for reaching out about Omnisphere 3!

Regarding compatibility –
All Sonic Extensions and third-party Omnisphere libraries are fully compatible with Omnisphere 3. You will be able to load them up the same way as before, AND the Sonic Extensions FX that you have can be loaded in the Omnisphere FX Rack. Omnisphere 3 contains brand new soundsources and FX that don’t overlap with Sonic Extensions.

Also -
Omnisphere 3 is fully backwards compatible with version 2 projects and patches and all of your projects/patches will load the same as they did with Omnisphere 2. : )
When installed, the Omnisphere 3 upgrade replaces the Omnisphere plug-in file in your projects automatically and updates the sound library. It is not a separate plug-in from Omnisphere 2, and will replace Omnisphere 2 in your sessions. It contains all of Omnisphere 2’s library!
Can’t wait for you to experience Omnisphere 3!

Seems fair to me.

[Caine123]

It seems they added effects from sonic extensions, but gave it other names.

I am also wondering how the new version would interact with the Sonic Extensions, and how much of overlap would exist there on patches and devices. Also sent a mail to Spectrasonics with my question.

The answer I got:
Thanks for reaching out about Omnisphere 3!

Regarding compatibility –
All Sonic Extensions and third-party Omnisphere libraries are fully compatible with Omnisphere 3. You will be able to load them up the same way as before, AND the Sonic Extensions FX that you have can be loaded in the Omnisphere FX Rack. Omnisphere 3 contains brand new soundsources and FX that don’t overlap with Sonic Extensions.

Also -
Omnisphere 3 is fully backwards compatible with version 2 projects and patches and all of your projects/patches will load the same as they did with Omnisphere 2. : )
When installed, the Omnisphere 3 upgrade replaces the Omnisphere plug-in file in your projects automatically and updates the sound library. It is not a separate plug-in from Omnisphere 2, and will replace Omnisphere 2 in your sessions. It contains all of Omnisphere 2’s library!
Can’t wait for you to experience Omnisphere 3!

Seems fair to me.

i will install Omnisphere 3 on a different machine and will load up various projects and A/B them. will be interesting!

[MachineClaw]

Great to know! thank you!

(currently downloading and installing free Falcon 2026)

ahhh new toys!

[Morty-C-137]

Yeah Falcon is a 100% no go for me due to it's abysmal workflow and UI. It's the only synth that I kind of regret buying as it's clear the developers are not interested in ever enhancing the basic workflow.

While Omnisphere isn't all that great either in terms of UI/workflow, it's still miles better than Falcon.

Agree!

[machinesworking]

You seem to be confused

You are talking about DAW/Host Automation which is extremely robust with Omnisphere, as is MIDI Learn and can be configured to do whatever you want

You seem to want to only talk about cc automation and I get it, it seems that there's nothing like Ableton/Bitwigs or NI Kontrol S mk3 control surface support here, or you're not aware of it, we're talking different languages.

Plugin automation in many DAWs and with some hardware can be used instead of MIDI of course, where hardware controllers automatically map and bank to different parameters, often reordered by the plugin, or host to make more sense. No CC involved.

Nothing is being said by you that hints that Omnisphere is doing this on a global level, thats what I'm on about. CC automation is great when you're stuck, but it's far from ideal as you've pointed out with it's inability to bank to different cc values on the software side. Seems like an old Remote Zero would be the perfect tool for Omnisphere that way.

The hardware integration with Midi Controllers is just a simplified version of 8-16 controls preset to work with the default CCs your controller puts out with the default factory settings. Those controls are knob per function but are limited by the amount of physical controls you have on your controller

It has nothing to do with either MIDI learn or DAW/Host Automation which is extremely robust and can be used in conjunction with hardware integration

You can simply buy pretty much any controller on the market, even cheap ones, or use the hardware synth or controller you already have and with zero effort use it to control some of the most important controls across tens of thousands of patches

So yeah, it's probably more capable of host/plugin automation than what is being talked about here, it's just that we can't move past the CC automation part... For instance with Falcon, (an equally complex and possible mess of host automation if left without a solution), the solution is to map internally the host automation which presents itself 1 to 500 or some ungodly number. Then saving that preset, every time it gets called up those (bankable in hardware) parameters show up on your hardware controller in the order that you mapped them in. Sounds like maybe Omnisphere is using CC automation to do the same thing, but without host automations ability to bank the controller to the next 16-32 parameters etc. Is that how it works for you? Reading up it, looks like you can assign host automation, but it's per patch.

Falcon doesn't automatically assign the most used parameters in it's patches to macros, even if it has macros... I'm getting the impression that's the case with Omnisphere too. I really like the concept of Macros in an instrument, having the 8-24 most used parameters always available first to control surfaces is a smart idea, ditches NKS, Automap etc. It's IMO weird that 20 odd years later we're just finally seeing host automation being used to present macro controls to the DAW in plugins, it seems like it should have been that way back then..

[Uncle E]

Physical shipping can’t be circumvented.

When one gets the physical version, do they unlock download option after registration also? I mean at least for updates, they have to(?)

Confirming that you will get the download option after registering. In fact, the upgrade doesn't even come with a drive, it's just a code in an envelope that you will register to get the download. Sadly, we're still required to ship it.