Review: Spectrasonics Omnisphere 1.0.2

Feb 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Geary Yelton

           
 

BELIEVE IT: THIS SYNTH IS EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD

BONUS MATERIAL
More Building Blocks, Timbral Territory
Download the Spec Sheet as a PDF

A few years after I had begun using synthesizers, I wondered what the ultimate synth might look like. I wanted abundant polyphony, complex oscillators, a ludicrous number of filter types and modulation routings, and infinite patch memory. Eventually the list grew to include user-programmable arpeggiators, studio-quality effects, and a variety of synthesis types. When soft synths came along, it occurred to me that what I had imagined might someday become possible. And now that Spectrasonics has launched Omnisphere, that day has finally come.

Bonus Material

Master Class on Omnisphere

Omnisphere is the brainchild of Eric Persing, a man who has contributed as much as anyone to the state of electronic sound design. Persing first attracted attention as a sound designer for Roland, eventually founding his own company — Spectrasonics — and developing sample libraries that have helped shape the direction of popular musical genres, from rock to rap and from movie soundtracks to electronic breakbeat. Indeed, many of Omnisphere's sounds originated in earlier collections such as Distorted Reality and Heart of Africa.

In 2003 Persing's company launched three software instruments — Trilogy, Stylus, and Atmosphere — incorporating a customized version of French developer UVI's sample-playback engine. Atmosphere was an especially versatile synthesizer based on a 3.7 GB sound library, with samples taken from the entire lexicon of vintage hardware synths, from the Minimoog to the Matrix-12. In September Spectrasonics discontinued Atmosphere and included all its content in Omnisphere, which in total features a 42 GB sample library — perhaps the largest of any dedicated soft synth, and many times larger than that of any hardware synth.

Welcome to My World

Omnisphere runs as a plug-in in AU, RTAS, and VST formats; a standalone version is not available. The software comes on six double-density DVDs. After installation, you authorize it with an online challenge and response and then download the latest updates from Spectrasonics' Web site.

I ran the AU version in Apple Logic Pro 8.0.2 on a dual 2.3 GHz Mac G5 with 4 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.4.12, and the VST version in Ableton Live 7.0.10 on a 2.3 GHz MacBook Pro with 2 GB running 10.5.5. I had to clear some space off my laptop's hard disk to make room, leaving me wishing I didn't need to install the entire 42 GB library of multisamples (called Soundsources). I could have installed them on an external disk if I'd wanted, however.

Steam Powered

At its core is a proprietary sound engine (developed in-house) called Steam (short for Spectrasonics Team). Despite its somewhat cutesy name, the Steam engine is an extremely well-designed framework for sound synthesis. If you're familiar with Stylus RMX's groove-focused SAGE engine, you'll have a head start finding your way around Omnisphere's graphical user interface.

A multitimbral setup (called a Multi) comprises as many as eight Parts. All of Omnisphere's settings are presented in the context of a Multi, whether you're working with all eight Parts or only one. Each Part contains a single Patch, and each Patch consists of either one or two Layers. Each Layer has its own oscillator, one or two filters, and envelope generators for filter and amplitude. The two Layers (which can be linked for simultaneous editing) share four modulation envelopes, six LFOs, and up to 24 modulation routings.

FIG. 1: Despite its functional complexity, Omnisphere maintains an intuitive user interface throughout. 
Clicking on the magnifying-glass icons opens additional pages for deeper editing.

Omnisphere has numerous views you select by clicking on tabs and buttons, some of which allow you to zoom in on certain functions (see Fig. 1). The top of the screen displays the current Multi's name and buttons for switching between the eight Parts, a Multi mixer, and system preferences. A pop-up Utility menu lets you save and clear Multis and Patches, copy and paste Parts and Layers, and access MIDI Learn and online help; practically all that's absent is an undo function (which I frequently wished for).

If a Part is selected, four buttons beneath the Patch name switch between four pages: Main, Edit, FX, and Arp. The Main page offers three views: Visualizer, Info, and Controls. The Main Controls page shows the most useful collection of real-time buttons, sliders, and displays for making quick changes. The Edit page (whose GUI resembles Atmosphere's at first glance) affords deeper access to oscillator, filter, and modulation parameters. A pair of tabs let you toggle between Edit pages for Layer A and Layer B.