Omnisphere - How's it working for you?

[ggalen]

Well, I installed Omnisphere yesterday. I had cleared the deck of work for clients to prepare for the big day when the brown UPS truck came by at around 2:15 PM as it usually does on my street.Took over 3 hours to install, and I fired it up. I got pops and clicks and static on lots of sounds. (3.4GHz Pentuim and 1.5GB RAM. Windows said I still had RAM left to use as Omnisphere was popping away. But CPU was maxing out at times. The "Reference Manual" didn't tell me what the "Multi Browser was", what "Stack Mode" was. I couldn't find the intro video on Disc 1 they alluded to. Didn't see anywhere that if I didn't give the plugin a specific channel from Sonar, I got multi/Stack mode and ended up making huge layered patched that sounded cacophonous. I finally figured that out.That said, I am sure it'll all get worked out and it will be amazing.But Eric seems to be a genius who no longer can relate to what neophyte doesn't know...they need GREAT, step-by-step tutorials for this thing. And a real "getting started" manual for the new users.It'll come, I am sure. Spectrasonics is a great, good-hearted company.What have you found?

[hummingbird]

Got mine yesterday too. Took me about 6 hours to install it in fits and starts. Interface is similar to Atmosphere. On disc one, if you open the "readme" video it links to tutorials.Took me a bit to figure out the stack thing, but it is interesting that you can tell it to play different instruments for certain sections of notes.I created a piece just to play with it, and everything was going fine, and then suddenly all the patches changed... I was very frustrated with that... after an hour of fiddling (and trying to remember what instruments I'd chosen), I closed and reopened and the original stuff was all there. Not sure what I did.My one complaint is how long it takes for the interface to come up. I.e., I choose my filter - Omnisphere - and it takes 3 or 4 minutes to come up. Stylus is a bit slow too but O takes too long IMO. (I have 3.5 GB of ram, 2.2 Ghz)Anyway, here's what I came up with for my first late-at-night try-it-out track... the percussion needs work, it's off synch, but I kinda like this & will sort that out http://www.vikkiflawith.com/audio/VIKKI ... ppy_Yu.m3u

[hummingbird]

I installed the VST Plug-in to my plug-in folder for Tracktion.Then I installed the Omnisphere Core Library files (which are 50GB!), to F drive. It wasn't going to fit on E drive, where I keep all my other samples.I authorized it and then got to work

[matto]

Cool stuff John!! Really shows the versatility of it...Btw I didn't think the day would ever come when Ms Vikki got the latest greatest gadget before moi...

[hummingbird]

Sept 19, 2008, 9:58pm, matto wrote:Btw I didn't think the day would ever come when Ms Vikki got the latest greatest gadget before moi... ha ha, that's UPS Expidited for ya. OTOH, as you told me sagely last Rally... one can buy all the toys, but it's having the skill to do something with them that counts... that I'm still working on

[hummingbird]

Mazz, OmniVoices is very cool, ambient and sweet, yet kinda haunting too. Sort of Elvish in scope. OmniAmbient is eerie but has a sense of action too. Feels like it would be good for a war movie.I was playing tonight too, sketching something out to see what I could do. Had some fun. This is Omnisphere and Stylus. I called it "Deja Vu" because it's electronica with a bit of a retro feel. I think http://www.vikkiflawith.com/audio/VIKKI ... a_Vu.m3uPS - Glenn - I couldn't get your link to work

[ggalen]

Vicki,I just tried the link above and it did play for me.But it was just an early little idea, to show what Omnisphere can do quickly. I'm sure those who have Omnisphere have quite a few themselves now!It's very fast to get some great sounds. Now I am trying to concentrate on going beyond hittting a key or two over a drone. I think there will be lots of those out there soon. I keep telling myself: Melody! Creativity! Don't just hold down a key and stop there!

[mojobone]

Sept 19, 2008, 10:48pm, hummingbird wrote:Mazz, OmniVoices is very cool, ambient and sweet, yet kinda haunting too. Sort of Elvish in scope. OmniAmbient is eerie but has a sense of action too. Feels like it would be good for a war movie.I was playing tonight too, sketching something out to see what I could do. Had some fun. This is Omnisphere and Stylus. I called it "Deja Vu" because it's electronica with a bit of a retro feel. I think http://www.vikkiflawith.com/audio/VIKKI ... a_Vu.m3uPS - Glenn - I couldn't get your link to work Wow! Really cool! Not too many sounds in there I couldn't get, but I hafta admit, it'd take me hours with my patchwork of hardware and soft synths, samplers and effects to pull that off. I think I'm more impressed with the Stylus percussion sounds, I'd probably find a use for some of those more modern sounds, if I had more of 'em. Might be time to start scroungeing...

[mazz]

Given enough time, any of us could come up with cool, unique sounds on par with Omnisphere. The attractive thing about instruments like Omnisphere is that it helps composers in time constrained jobs such as film/TV to get great, evocative sounds pretty easily. The pitfall of an instrument like Omnisphere is that it's so easy to put one finger down and get cool sounds that one gets lulled in to complacency and winds up using the stock sounds. It didn't take me very long at all to mangle the Omnisphere and Stylus sounds beyond recognition with their powerful and easy to use editing and effects sections. There's really no excuse for not twiddling with these things, even just the attack time or the echo or filter. Even just using the mod wheel on patches that use it for cross fading means that you're playing the instrument, not just triggering it.Glenn's link to the article about the "one finger composers" taking over the world is right on mostly. I still have to believe that we all have the same 12 notes available to us and yet some still manage to rise above the sea of mediocrity and create incredible music with those 12 little notes. And they didn't get there and stay there by combining a bunch of stock loops and holding down one note for 3 minutes and letting the arpeggiator take all the credit. Blah, Blah, Blah, ........... Mazz

[hummingbird]

Sept 21, 2008, 1:55am, mojobone wrote:Sept 19, 2008, 10:48pm, hummingbird wrote:Mazz, OmniVoices is very cool, ambient and sweet, yet kinda haunting too. Sort of Elvish in scope. OmniAmbient is eerie but has a sense of action too. Feels like it would be good for a war movie.I was playing tonight too, sketching something out to see what I could do. Had some fun. This is Omnisphere and Stylus. I called it "Deja Vu" because it's electronica with a bit of a retro feel. I think http://www.vikkiflawith.com/audio/VIKKI ... a_Vu.m3uPS - Glenn - I couldn't get your link to work Wow! Really cool! Not too many sounds in there I couldn't get, but I hafta admit, it'd take me hours with my patchwork of hardware and soft synths, samplers and effects to pull that off. I think I'm more impressed with the Stylus percussion sounds, I'd probably find a use for some of those more modern sounds, if I had more of 'em. Might be time to start scroungeing...Mojobone - thanks for the listen. Deja Vu was created with Omnisphere only just to see what I could do, but it works great with Stylus too