Spectrasonics Omnisphere Review

Among its many virtues and singular strengths, Spectrasonics Omnisphere's crowning asset is its blend of power and ease of use.

Writing an audio review for millimeter presents an interesting challenge. You, the esteemed reader, are either a dedicated audio post professional or a video specialist who has good ears and knows that both your creative palette and billable services will expand if you learn to handle at least some audio chores on your own. Both groups share a love of sound and a sense of what makes a successful marriage between audio and the moving image. Knowledge of composition, sequencing, and keyboard technique, however, vary widely, and the trick for me is to review products that will appeal to all readers who share an interest in audio postproduction, regardless of their position in the industry.

The preceding paragraph is a preamble to a discussion of Omnisphere (MSRP $499), the latest software release from Spectrasonics now in version 1.1. Even the novice sound designer who applies himself to learning Omnisphere will be able to create sound effects and musical cues that perfectly match a wide range of visual images. Among its many virtues and singular strengths, Omnisphere's crowning asset is its blend of power and ease of use. If you've spent years working with hardware and software synthesizers and samplers, you will find yourself spending hours building new sounds from the samples and raw waveforms that ship with Omnisphere. If, on the other hand, you're faced with the challenge to create, say, 12 seconds of original music/sound design to personalize your company's logo and you're armed with nothing more than an intense curiosity and a willingness to roll up your sleeves and experiment, you'll emerge from the process creatively satisfied.

Several years ago, we took a look at Stylus, Trilogy, and Atmosphere, Spectrasonics' initial releases. For many composers, Stylus (Stylus RMX is the current iteration) remains the go-to drum machine module on the market. Trilogy is an outstanding collection of electric and acoustic bass instruments. Both are the brainchildren of Spectrasonics founder Eric Persing. He spent his early days at Roland, where he was heavily involved in the development of the D-50 and other classic synth/sample playback devices. (Atmosphere's roots can be clearly traced to the D-50.) From this through the release of Distorted Reality, a sound effects library that became the de facto exotica sound set in the mid '90s, Persing has shown an ability to tune nonharmonic elements in a way that grounds even the most jarring sounds in a profoundly satisfying manner. Now the Spectrasonics flagship product, Omnisphere builds on the work that went into these earlier designs and takes it into new realms.

A dual-platform software module, Omnisphere ships with 42GB of content, so make sure you've got sufficient acreage on your drive array. Although time-consuming (due to its size), the installation is simple. Check your computer's specs, though. Omnisphere places some heavy demands on a CPU, and Spectrasonics recommends that a Windows machine have at least a 2.4GHz processor (Intel Core2 Duo or higher if possible). My rapidly aging dual-AMD Athlon machine has a 2GHz processor, but I was pleased to discover that it was able to handle all of Omnisphere's functions. Like all of its counterparts, Steinberg Cubase has a Freeze function, and I'm sure that if I were using Omnisphere in conjunction with other plug-ins I'd use Freeze to free up CPU resources.

Omnisphere ships with a PDF manual, which Spectrasonics continues to develop and expand (check the website often for updates to the manual and new, downloadable content). But I highly recommend that you study the video tutorials that can be accessed through the site once you purchase the product. Spectrasonics has done an admirable job of placing power at your fingertips in a user-friendly fashion, but Omnisphere is complex. The tutorials will help you work your way through.

I'd suggest you start out by exploring the multiple browser views. On the most fundamental level, Omnisphere works like this: Samples are loaded into at least one of the two layers that form a Patch. (Think of Patches as the collection of elements—including samples, waveforms, and the changes you've made to Omnisphere's editing parameters—that constitutes a single sound.) Alternatively, you may choose to build a sound in either the A or B layer by loading and shaping a raw waveform. If you're in the Edit page, these two layers are clearly visible. Click inside one of them, and the Soundsource browser comes into view (provided you've selected Sample rather than Synth in the Edit page). A Soundsource is either a sample or a raw waveform.

But you'd like to explore the more than 1,000 Patches that ship with Omnisphere, so you click in the Browser window that sits in the middle of the Edit screen and bring the Patch Browser into view. Simple.

If you own Stylus RMX, you'll see that Omnisphere's Multi page borrows from this earlier ancestor. Head back to the Edit page and click in the Browser window that sits at the top of this screen, and you'll be able to load various Multis. A Multi is a collection of up to eight patches that can be stored as a single unit. Each patch in a Multi can access signal processors—reverbs that ship with Omnisphere, for example—in common with the others. Each of the up to eight different Patches in a Multi features its own level, pan, and effects settings. Multis are incredibly powerful, so make sure you take advantage of them.

Spectrasonics has done an admirable job of making it as easy as possible to get to know all of the sounds that ship with Omnisphere. Study the tutorial on Browsers, and learn how to use Tags (and create your own), and when you're under the gun looking for a sound, you'll find it easy to winnow down your search and find the most appropriate Soundsource, Patch, or Multi.

Programming early synth/sample players was very difficult, particularly because the LCDs on these modules were small. As a result, they required you to scroll through multiple pages to get at the parameter you wanted to modify. Once you got there, you had to use forward, backward, and up and down arrows to affect the sound. Many users ignored the edit functions entirely.

Omnisphere, on the other hand, is a real pleasure to edit. Head over to the Main page if you want to make only some basic parameter changes. Here you can solo, mute, and pan individual layers, turn on the Arpeggiator (a fantastic extension of a decades-old feature), adjust the Master Filter, and perform a few other functions.

But the Main page is just a point of departure. When you're ready to do some serious work, slide on over to the Edit window. Take a moment and study this screen before diving into it. Did you own a classic synth, maybe a Roland Juno-60? In the bottom right quadrant of the Edit page, you'll see the Envelope section, with the attack-decay-sustain-release (ADSR) sliders that were common to all of these dinosaurs. Even if you've never experimented with these controls, you'll quickly notice the effect they have on a sound. Make sure you load only one sound or waveform, though; we want to pinpoint how the various edit functions affect a single sound.

Without getting too techy here, Modulation, the routing scheme that determines how one or more sculpting tools changes a sound, is one of the most critical aspects of any synthesizer. Be glad that the Spectrasonics team cut its teeth on the early analog synths. These giants required the programmer to make physical cord connections, patches, to change a sound. All software synths and sample players incorporate the concept of patching. Spectrasonics has done an outstanding job in this area. Master Modulation, and you're well on your way to becoming a seasoned sound designer. While we're on the subject of classic synths, the quality of all of the included sampled sounds, including many synths from the '80s and '90s, is stunning.

Based on word-count limitations, we're going to gloss over Ominsphere's Filter and LFO sections, but when you start working with the program, make sure you explore these areas of the Edit page fully. We really don't have time to cover the Oscillator fully either. But let's suppose you have an inexpensive MIDI keyboard attached to your computer and a digital audio workstation. Sure, you can play a musical line by slowing down the tempo and poking around with one finger, and then quantizing the resultant masterpiece. But it's just not, well, big enough.

Do you see the last "button" on the right side of Oscillator screen, the one labeled Multi? Click on it, then select the Harmonia option. Omnisphere has just given you four more oscillators to work with! All you have to do is select the pitch relationships of each one to the original, and in an instant you've built a mammoth sound from a single line part. There's much, much more to the Oscillator, of course, so spend some time with it.

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To place the Edit functions in perspective, let me say that in terms of technical knowledge I'm squarely in the middle of the Omnisphere target audience. I did have experience with multiple hardware synths and samplers before tossing them all out and moving over to software, and I have a reasonable knowledge of the attendant functions (and jargon). Real synthophiles, however, have spent much more time with this technology, and have far more impressive results to show from their efforts. Still, I was able to set a task for myself—the creation of a bass guitar sound that would work well in a heavy-metal-influenced track—and have the satisfaction of achieving my goal. If I can do it, so can you.

Omnisphere's effects are stunning; they're worth two to three times the price of the plug-in itself, in my judgment. They borrow heavily from Stylus RMX, which leads to a suggestion. Wouldn't it be great if Spectrasonics created a shell that all Spectrasonics plug-ins could inhabit? That way, if you wanted to put a flanger on your electric bass (Trilogy) and snare drum (Stylus RMX), you could load said effect on a send bus. Ah well, another discussion.

But wait, let's keep going. Stylus RMX can import samples to be used alongside its own, but Omnisphere lacks this capability. Spectrasonics is mum on the subject, but the company has let out hints that it might open up the platform in the future, which would be great. Given its tremendous sound-shaping flexibility and outstanding effects, Omnisphere could easily become the premier synth/sample playback module on the market. There are a number of issues to consider in this regard, however, including the potential loss of prestige that could come if Omnisphere's current status as an elite plug-in were altered. Spectrasonics may also feel that, given the huge library it ships with, Omnisphere already covers a vast sonic territory. True, but there is an identifiable Omnisphere identity and a common thread to this material, and it's a persuasive argument that opening up the platform to material conceived and recorded by others would be advantageous.

Staying in the here and now, Omnisphere establishes itself as world-class sound module out of the box. Highly trained keyboardists and sound designers will lose themselves making sounds with this plug-in, and with time, even the most modestly prepared audio lover will be able to construct soundscapes that add depth and dimension to film and video images.

Company: Spectrasonics
www.spectrasonics.net
Assets: Great sounds; highly complex functionality dressed in an easy-to-absorb interface; outstanding price/performance ratio.
Caveats: None, save the closed architecture of the system.
Price: $499