What's new

Omnisphere - disappointed

I had the same reaction when i got it finally a few years ago after all the hype. I was afraid that I would never use it. But I kept trying to find sounds and got to know the interface and now I do use it. I wouldn't say that I am the super-fan that many here are, but I have grown to appreciate it and I am glad I got it. there is just an overwhelming # of sounds so can take a long, long time to find something that you want to use.
 
Omnisphere doesn’t have a sound….it’s a tool to create pretty much any sound you want.
(First of all, i like Omni – since Atmosphere)

One point to consider is the sound of Omni's filters.
They are for sure not in a similar ballpark as u-He's filters (or Falcon's filters).
When exposed [usually in combination with Resonance], they do have indeed have a sound, which reminds me a bit of the sound of plastic. This is an area where i think it would be a good thing to get a substantial update.

However, in all those years it never was an issue for me in real world situations. Inside of a mix they usually work absolutely fine.

Besides, with Omni is often a good thing to modify the effects (i often disable quite a lot of them).
 
To me, Omnisphere is kind of like a (high-quality) Swiss Army knife. Whatever type of sound you need will probably exist in some form within the Omnisphere default patches, but you may have another more specialized tool that does that particular sound better. u-he synths are a good example - the Diva filters are legendary (so I hear), and Omnisphere can't match that. But if you don't have Diva, Omni can still give you some very smooth analog sounds, very much good enough to my ears.

I would encourage you to search through the presets using the tags, search bar, and similar sounds capabilities, and try a bit of tweaking or even patch building yourself. I personally find that many of the stock presets are attention hogs; on the other hand, I have been lucky enough to land all of the Luftrum soundsets via a contest, and find them to be quite inspiring yet a lot more subtle. It's easy to make entire tracks with a single soundset...

As many have said, Omni is very powerful and allows for lots of possibility. It's probably worth some dedicated experimenting and browsing before you give up on it. However, in the end you alone can decide if it is right for your workflow/style - it is quite an expensive tool to be collecting virtual dust!
 
I tried to recreate a beautiful patch from my OB6 with a virtual synth. Zebra couldn’t come close, Diva got kinda close but it sounded very flat and 2 dimensional. Omnisphere came incredibly close and was better in some ways. I was blown away.
I’d recommend exploring the sampled oscillators from real hardware synths. Some very interesting colours in there. But be sure to randomize the sample start function when using them.
 
To me, Omnisphere is kind of like a (high-quality) Swiss Army knife. Whatever type of sound you need will probably exist in some form within the Omnisphere default patches, but you may have another more specialized tool that does that particular sound better. ********************************

As many have said, Omni is very powerful and allows for lots of possibility. It's probably worth some dedicated experimenting and browsing before you give up on it. However, in the end you alone can decide if it is right for your workflow/style - it is quite an expensive tool to be collecting virtual dust!
Nicely stated. Interesting perspective. Heading into vast, unknown territory ...... does one choose versatile, capable Swiss Army Knife, limited-purpose single weapon, cumbersome set of alternatives ?
So far, 'SAK' (Omni 2.8) feels comfy. 😆
 
It’s a brilliant synth and greatly adored by many because of it so I hate to say that I never got on with it either. I much prefer having the simpler UI and restrictions of Repro or The Legend and baking my own synth sounds from scratch, or mangling samples in Kontakt.
 
Edit: The default patches in Omnisphere, not in the Undercurrent extension.

To my ears u-he's stuff sound so much better.
It's interesting you make the distinction between Omnisphere's stock sounds and the new Undercurrant library, as it seems that these new sounds are still built within the same engine as you have access to, albeit with sound-sources sampled specifically for the set. And while it's true that these new sets are multi-sampled, I don't think that's at the core of what makes other synths sound different. It's more down to, as someone else noted, the filters etc. But those Omnisphere filters are the same, it would seem, in these new sets.

I won both Omnisphere 1 and Repro, and I think that repro does generally sound better within its various limited niches. Omnisphere doesn't do specialist, but rather takes a good stab at everything. I think there is a very good case to be made for combining the flavours in the same template.

If anything, we've just started to get a glimpse of a much richer side of Omnisphere. Good times, ahead. With time, perhaps your buyer's remorse will fade and the hype forgotten.
 
Last edited:
giphy.gif
 
I felt the same way for over a year now but I'm slowly starting to warm up to it. The problem is the vast sea of patches and wildly variable levels of quality. Put on a filter by author and check out, as mentioned earlier, The Unfinished. Those patches really sing and have thoughtful modwheel effects. The Unfinished also sells third party sets which seem to be just as carefully crafted. Then when you find something close to what you like, if it's not *quite* the perfect fit, my suggestion is to hit the sound lock button and search for similar patches. That started to open up some new possibilities for me
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom