Omnisphere: First few moments
If you’re into digital instruments, you’ve probably heard of Omnisphere… It’s a new software synthesizer put out by Spectralsonics… It came out this past September.. and it’s something a lot of people have been very excited about.. Because the music I make often has a very ambient quality to it.. and because Omnisphere is sorta like.. there older Atmosphere.. all be it on steroids.. and this being a truly wonderful instrument.. if you’re into making ambient music.. well, you can see why I’d be interested..
Here’s a video to give you a better idea of what it’s like.
So far I’ve really only played with it for a couple of hours.. and I’ve watched all there instructional videos.. So.. I figure I have a pretty good overview of it.. enough to write a post on.. One that really won’t go beyond first impressions.
My current digital instrument library consists chiefly of Native Instruments Komplete… with Kore.. and then there’s Reason.. I say this because I think this is somehow coloring my perception. So far I’m sorta wandering around the application wondering what all the hype is about….
Basically.. out side of say Reaktor, I’d say this is probably the most powerful synth in my library now.. The modulation routing reminds me a bit of Massive, or even Reason’s Thor.. The envelopes are basically a take on Absynth.. taken some place else.. The patch browsing is like quite a bit like Kore.. I think I like Kore’s browsing better, but then I haven’t really adapted to Omniphere too much yet.. so maybe my feelings on that will change.
Programing sounds is a very modular sort of affair.. It sorta reminds you Kore in the sense that it’s as if you’re building a synth sound where in you could have multiple component synth sounds.. which is to say it’s sort of “super instrument esk”
Omnisphere features a number of different synthesis types.. or should we say oscillator types.. which.. well they go deeper then an instrument like Thor.. there are places where I could see them going deeper..
I would say my over all feeling is that there’s a hell of a lot of marketing hype around Omnisphere.. and it’s not totally clear to me how it relates to it’s hype.. I think I’m going to have to take some time to really program sounds before I really get a feel for it… but… as critical as I sorta am of it, at this point, I could very easily see this becoming my favorite synth.. so.. We’ll just have to see…
What I do really appreciate about it is some of the wild experimental approaches they’ve taken to develop of some there “psycho acoustic samples.”
Ok, well check out this video, right.. it’s like.. super “infomercial style” accept.. it’s like the coolest informercial I’ve ever seen.. I mean.. I mean it’s as if John Cage were a part of the informercial..
So.. I guess its sorta almost like.. on a philosophical level, that Omnisphere is so cool.. like a philosophy of sound design..